The next day the cradle was made by Abe and Frank, the others setting to to dig and wash out in a bucket. At the end of a day of hard work they had got about a quarter of an ounce of glittering yellow dust. This was not paying work, but they were not disappointed; they had not expected to strike upon good ground at the first attempt, and were quite satisfied by the fact that they really had met with the gold which they had come so far to seek. That evening Abe made a bargain to bring up goods from Sacramento for one of the store-keepers, having previously found the rate which was current. At daybreak next morning he and Frank started off on horseback, each with three horses tied, head and tail, behind the one he was riding, Turk marching gravely by their side. The distance to Sacramento was upwards of seventy miles. On their road they met numerous parties making their way up the mountains. All carried a pick and shovel, a bucket and blanket, and a small sack with flour and bacon. Many of them were sailors, who had deserted from their ships at San Francisco, where scores of vessels were lying unable to leave for want of hands. All, as they passed, asked the last news from the diggings, where the last rush was, and what was the average take at the camp, and then hurried on, eager to reach the spot where, as every man believed, fortune awaited him. Two days of travel down the mountains took them to Sacramento. Here their saddles were disposed of, and pack-saddles bought. The horses were laden with sacks of sugar and flour, sides of bacon, and mining tools, and after a day's stay in town, they started back for the camp. Sacramento, but a few months before a sleepy, quiet city, mostly inhabited by Spaniards, or rather people of Spanish descent, was now a scene of animation and bustle. Long teams of waggons, laden with stores, rolled in almost hourly across the plains from San Francisco, while the wharves at the river-side were surrounded by laden barges. Bands of newly-arrived emigrants wandered through the streets, asking eager questions of any one who had time enough to talk as to the best way of getting to the diggings, and as to the camp which they had better select for their first attempt. Dark-looking men, half Spaniard and half Indian, went along on their little ponies, or rode at the head of a string of laden animals, with an air of perfect indifference to the bustle around them. Sounds of shouting and singing came through the doors of some saloons, in which many of the fortunate diggers were busily engaged in dissipating their hard-earned gains. Men sunburnt almost to blackness, in red shirts and canvas trousers, walked along the streets as if the town and all in it belonged to them in virtue of the store of gold-dust tied up in their waist-belts. In these, revolvers and bowie-knives were stuck conspicuously, and the newly-arrived emigrants looked with awe and envy at these men who had already reaped a harvest at the mines.