Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/246

182 vision. There were sixty-three of them, and he left fifteen to my share.

I stayed at Jim Beckwith's for about two weeks, and his carpenters having the houses completed, we saddled up four horses and took them to Hangtown. It was a distance of twenty miles to Hangtown, which at that time was one of the loveliest mining towns in California. There were between four and five thousand inhabitants in and around the place. During the day it appeared dead, as there was scarcely a person to be seen on the streets; but at night it would be full of miners, who, it seemed, came to town for no other purpose than to spend the money they had earned during the day.

This winter passed off, apparently, very slowly, being the most lonesome winter I had put in since I struck the mountains.

Along about the middle of February our groceries were running short and Jim went to Hangtown for supplies. On his return he brought me a letter from Col. Elliott, asking me to come to San Francisco at once.

I asked him what he thought of it, and he told me by all means to go.

I told him I would have to stop in San Francisco and buy me a suit of clothes before going out to the fort to see Col. Elliott. He thought this was useless, saying: "Your buckskin suit that Kit Carson gave you is just what you want for a trip like that."

I thought that if I wore such a suit in civilization the people would make light of me, and I hated the idea of being the laughing stock for other people.