If the disgusted Yankee had told us the truth, it was evidently no use for us to help thicken the crowd of deluded seekers for gold, thronging to the diggings. Provisions, as I have earlier said, were scarce. They were consequently dear. Our own stock had for several days been running low. What was to be done? More inquiries were made by us. The replies, although varying in degree, were all of them confirmatory, more or less, of the Yankee's opinion. After a brief council of war, the Rangers, therefore, decided upon striking once more for Puget Sound, in search of game. If we found it, we would kill enough for us to take our return-trail. Game, however, was scarcer in that locality than we had found gold to be in the neighborhood of Frazer's River. We had to betake ourselves to digging; not in the soil for the precious metal, but in the sand on the shore of the Sound for clams and mussels. Even these were rarely found by us. In short, the Rangers and their leader were reduced to the very verge of starvation. Nor did we run any risk of meeting any charitable person who might have the means of giving us "one square meal," even if it were "a darned bad one." In this strait, it was resolved on to start for the mountains, and take the chance of killing or being killed, to save us from dying by hunger. Here, for the first two days, we met with scarcely anything. About noon on the third, I and Arnold were standing together. During the whole morning we had found no game, and were gazing around us with that sense of discomfort a continuously empty stomach is certain to produce in humanity, when we heard a shot in the distance. It was to the right of us. Almost immediately it was followed by another. As the two puffs of smoke drifted above the stunted pines which covered the unequally rough ground in that direction, I heard a sound which, faintly as it came to us, I immediately recognized, from the use of it by Brighton Bill. It was what he called: "A 'onest British cheer." "You know the voice, Mose?" "Yes! Let's break for it." We accordingly "broke" in its direction. Three more of the boys had already joined him and Ben Painter by the time we had arrived there. The two first mentioned had met with the good fortune of spotting a huge elk. The animal had been killed, and while still warm, the men were engaged in skinning him. A fire was quickly kindled, and, by the time, portion of the elk was ready for our ravenous appetites, the remainder of the Rangers entered their names as partners in the welcome feast. For, that it was right welcome, my present remembrance of it unmistakably assures me. Stopping here until we had jerked most of the meat on the elk's large carcass, we again started on our journey back.