But no panoplied or armed knight ever seemed so heroic or independent a figure to Clarence.

What could be finer than the noble scorn conveyed in his critical survey of the train, with its comfortable covered wagons and appliances of civilization?
"Ye'll hev to get rid of them ther fixin's if yer goin' in for placer diggin'!" What a corroboration of Clarence's real thoughts! What a picture of independence was this! The picturesque scout, the all-powerful Judge Peyton, the daring young officer, all crumbled on their clayey pedestals before this hero in a red flannel shirt and high-topped boots.

To stroll around in the open air all day, and pick up those shining bits of metal, without study, without method or routine--this was really life; to some day come upon that large nugget "you couldn't lift," that was worth as much as the train and horses--such a one as the stranger said was found the other day at Sawyer's Bar--this was worth giving up everything for.
That rough man, with his smile of careless superiority, was the living link between Clarence and the Thousand and One Nights; in him were Aladdin and Sindbad incarnate.
Two days later they reached Stockton.

Here Clarence, whose single suit of clothes had been reinforced by patching, odds and ends from Peyton's stores, and an extraordinary costume of army cloth, got up by the regimental tailor at Fort Ridge, was taken to be refitted at a general furnishing "emporium." But alas! in the selection of the clothing for that adult locality scant provision seemed to have been made for a boy of Clarence's years, and he was with difficulty fitted from an old condemned Government stores with "a boy's" seaman suit and a brass-buttoned pea-jacket.

To this outfit Mr.Peyton added a small sum of money for his expenses, and a letter of explanation to his cousin.
The stage-coach was to start at noon.