The new trade seemed quite a task to learn, but I felt that I was compelled to succeed, and I worked manfully at it.
When I reached Moore's Flat I found that the boys had rented a store for me, and their welcome was very hearty when they found how lucky I had been in securing my money and starting out as their "grub supplier." Four of us now located some mining claims, and began a tunnel both to drain the ground, and to work through the bed-rock.

This we named The Paradise, and we expected that three or four months would elapse before we made it pay, but there was in truth two years of solid rock-work before we got under the ground, but it paid well in the end.
The largest nugget of gold ever found before this time was a quartz boulder from the Buckeye sluice, about 8 by 10 inches in size, and when cleaned up at the San Francisco mint the value was about $10,000.
Two of my partners in the work, L.J.Hanchett, and Jas.

Clark ran out of funds at the end of the first year, and I took as much of the expense as I could upon my own shoulders.
About this time learning by a letter from her father that Mrs.Bennett was lying at the point of death at Mr.L.C.

Bostic's in San Jose, I left H.Hanchett in charge of my business, and in four days I stood beside the bedside of my friend, endeared through the trials when death by thirst, starvation and the desert sands, stared us in the face with all its ghastliness.
She reached out her arms and drew me down to her, and embraced me and said in a faint whisper--"God bless you:--you saved us all till now, and I hope you will always be happy and live long." She would have said more, but her voice was so weak she could not be heard.

She was very low with consumption, and easily exhausted.