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CHAPTER XXL

MY FIKST BATTLE.

BOUT this time, tiring somewhat of the monotonous life of the Indian camp, and wishing to see the face of a white man, I descended to the settlements on the Sacramento River, and fell in with Moun tain Joe, an old mountaineer who had been with Fremont. He was a German by birth and education, and remarkable as it may seem, was certainly a very learned man. I have heard him repeat, or at least pretend to repeat, Homer in the Greek and Virgil in the Latin, by the hour, though he professed to despise the translations, and would not give me a line of the English version. Possibly, his Greek was not Greek, but I think it was, for in other things in which I could not be utterly deceived I found him wonderfully well-informed.

We together located and took possession of the ranch now known as the Soda Springs, and to-day the most famous summer resort in northern California.