It was for Uncle Sam, and all his dear love, that I watched the gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore his fortunes.

But suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the tributary brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of horsemen.
These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party, for they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return by the track across the plains.

And they were already so near that I could see their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed with loose Americans.

There are few worse men on the face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always to be in that humor.

Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.
On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and held my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my wind-tossed hair into small compass.