Leaving Barnes to work his way into the town as best he could with the tired animals, I took the freshest horse and rode forward.

I fell in with Lieutenant Fabius Stanley, United States Navy, and we rode into Yerba Buena together about an hour before sundown, there being nothing but a path from the Mission into the town, deep and heavy with drift-sand.

My horse could hardly drag one foot after the other when we reached the old Hudson Bay Company's house, which was then the store of Howard and Mellus.

There I learned where Captain Folsom, the quartermaster, was to be found.

He was staying with a family of the name of Grimes, who had a small horse back of Howard's store, which must have been near where Sacramento Street now crosses Kearney.