Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/248

184 At Hangtown I took the stage for Sacramento, which, by the way, was the first time I had ever ridden in a stage-coach.

We started from Hangtown at five o'clock in the morning and at twelve o'clock that night the driver drew rein at the American Exchange Hotel in Sacramento. The coach was loaded down to its utmost capacity, there being nine passengers aboard. The roads were very rough at this season of the year--being the latter part of February--and I would rather have ridden on the hurricane deck of the worst bucking mustang in California than in that coach.

This hotel was kept at that time by a man named Lamb.

That night when the proprietor assigned the passengers to their respective rooms he asked us if we wished to take the boat for San Francisco the next morning. I told him that I did, whereupon he asked me if I wanted my breakfast. I told him that I did, saying that I didn't want to go from there to San Francisco without anything to eat. This caused quite a laugh among the bystanders; but I did not see the point, for at that time I did not know that one could get a meal on a steamboat, for I had never been near one.

Just as I stepped on the boat next morning, a man rushed up to me with a "Hello there! how are you?" as he grasped me by the hand. Seeing that I did not recognize him, he said: "I don't believe you know me." I told him that he had one the best of me. He said: "You are the boy scout that was with Capt. Mill last summer, and you rode in my wagon." Then I recog-