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Updated: October 11, 2025
"I have found the gold, and I have made fren's, and I have now enough," said he. Bagsby, too, said he thought he would just ride down as far as Sutter's Fort, there to lay in a supply of powder and ball for a trip in the mountains. "I kind of want to git up another b'ar fight," said he.
Immediately below us, very far down, was a toy-like valley, with low hills, and flat places, and groves of elfin trees, and a twisting bottle green river with white rapids. "Thar's the Porcupine," Bagsby told us briefly. We took a look, then plunged into the tangles and difficulties of the descent.
He loped down the trail to the river level very much in a hurry. "Boys!" he shouted, "quit work! Come see what's coming down the trail!" with which he charged back again up the hill. His great excitement impressed us, for Bagsby, like most of the old-time Rocky Mountain men, was not ordinarily what one would call an emotional individual.
It was not over a half mile from camp, but was out of sight of the stockade. The move was the occasion for a hot discussion. Bagsby wanted to reorganize, and we were reluctant. "Thar ought to be two men in camp," said he, "and thar ought never to be less'n three together out hunting. And that's my idee that ye're paying me money for."
We grumbled at this, but Bagsby was firm, and as we had agreed to obey his commands we did so now. Don Gaspar explained to us later that the Mexican thieves would trail a party like ours for days, awaiting the chance to make off with the horses. Bagsby also chose the sentinels, selecting himself, Yank, Vasquez, and Missouri Jones.
But the horses swerved aside from the long fiery flashes, and so ran into the picketed lot and stopped. The Indians flew on through our scattered line without stopping, pursued by a sputter of shots from our Colt's revolvers. "A while ago I was sorry we had to stop above camp," said Bagsby with satisfaction; "but it was a lucky thing for us. They had to come by us to git out." "And Vasquez?"
We proceeded thus for a long time five or six miles, I should think. By the undefined feeling of dark space at either hand I judged we must be atop a ridge. Bagsby halted. "It was somewhere on this ridge we left him," said he. "I reckon now we'd just better set down and wait for dawn." Accordingly we dismounted and drew together in a little group.
We replied that we had no goods with which to pay for work. Shortly after, the whole tribe vanished down river. For two nights Bagsby insisted on standing guard, and on having some of us take turns at it. Then we declined flatly to do so any longer. The Indians had gone far downstream, as their trail indicated to our hunters, and had shown no signs of even hesitating on the way.
"The miners might eat less, then," replied Bagsby grimly. "This ain't what you'd call the best sort of a game country." We came to it, of course, though with much grumbling. It seemed an almost excuseless waste of good energy; a heavy price in economic efficiency to pay for insurance against what seemed a very remote peril. But we did not know, and our uncertainty gave way.
There were nine of us Bagsby, Yank, Johnny Fairfax, myself, Don Gaspar, Vasquez, McNally, Buck Barry, and Missouri Jones. We possessed, in all, just nine horses. Yank, Vasquez, Bagsby, and Jones drove eight of them out again to Sutter's Fort for provisions Don Gaspar's beautiful chestnut refused to be a pack-horse on any terms.
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