That night we slept on Salinas Plain, and the next morning reached Monterey.

All the missions and houses at that period were alive with fleas, which the natives looked on as pleasant titillators, but they so tortured me that I always gave them a wide berth, and slept on a saddle-blanket, with the saddle for a pillow and the serape, or blanket, for a cover.

We never feared rain except in winter.

As the spring and summer of 1848 advanced, the reports came faster and faster from the gold-mines at Sutter's saw-mill.

Stories reached us of fabulous discoveries, and spread throughout the land.