Perseverance however generally pays. At last I made more than enough to pay my debts. A few days after accomplishing this, I had cancelled my debt to him who had so kindly befriended me. Then, as the winter had begun somewhat earlier than usual, with many thanks to the Governor, I located in Susanville, where I decided to remain until the spring. The truth is, I had already tasted the keenest excitement I had yet found in life, because it is the most fluctuating and uncertain. The chances in gold-prospecting and gold-digging are so variable, that I defy any young man who has once tempted them, readily to put them from him. The poor devil who has been at it for months, and gained merely enough to sustain his existence, may, in a single afternoon, find his toil munificently rewarded. Like the gambler, he stakes. It is not money, so much as life and work. A single hour may possibly give him a thousand-fold the value of that which he, perchance, considers an almost worthless stake. CHAPTER VII. AFTER GOLD--THE PAH-UTE AND WASHO INDIANS--RUNNING OFF STOCK--PAYING TRIBUTE--THE OATH OF VENGEANCE--SOME SILVER BULLETS--"KNOWING DEM VELLERS"--AN UNGIRTHED SADDLE--THE UNBALANCED ACCOUNT--RECRUITING--THE BUCKSKIN RANGERS--A LITTLE BIOGRAPHY--MY NEW HORSE--A STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS--UNINTENTIONAL FIRING--OUT OF THE TEMPEST. It is unnecessary for me to detail the events of my campaign for gold during the following year and a half. At this moment, wealth seemed within my grasp, and in the next I might be mourning over or cursing my unrealized hopes. However, in 1857, wearied out with my apparently vain battle with Fortune, chance called me to another field of adventure. There were in that year, all told, very certainly no more than seventy or seventy-five persons living in the Valley of Honey Lake. Of these, the larger proportion were engaged in ranching and stock-raising. Among them, the leading men were, after Governor Roop, Peter Lassen, W. T. C. Elliott, more familiarly known as Ruff Elliott, the Bass Boys, David Titherington, Tom Harvey, the Spencers, Captain W. Hill Naileigh, David Blanchard, Albert Smith, Orlando Streschley, Ed Mulrooney, Laninger, Storff, Watson, Kingsberry, Doc. Slater, and a few others. At this time, the Washo and Pah-ute Indians were in the neighborhood. Occasionally, they appeared quite friendly, and would do a spell of work for the settlers, taking provisions in payment for such labor as they might choose to do.