The shouts of the whites, who were eager to obtain guides, only frightened the natives, who scudded rapidly away; but the next day a number of Indians were surprised in a little valley, and the travelers succeeded in reassuring them by signs of friendship. With great difficulty――the language spoken by these children of the desert being quite unintelligible――Fremont made out that the waters along which he had been traveling belonged to the system of the Great Basin, on the edge of which he had been since early in December, and that the great ridge on the left must still be crossed before the Pacific Ocean could be reached. Explaining to the Indians that he was endeavoring to find a passage through the mountains into the country of the whites, which he was going to see, Fremont begged them to find him a guide, to whom presents of scarlet cloth and other articles should be given. The redskins looked at the rewards offered, consulted together, and then, first pointing to the snow on the mountains, drew their hands across their necks to show how deep it was. It was impossible, they implied by their gestures, to go through this barrier of solid water; the white men must turn southward to begin with, and not westward, until after a long tramp in that direction. Illustration: SAN FRANCISCO IN 1849. To this compromise Fremont was obliged to consent, and, escorted by a young Indian guide, he led his weary followers ten miles in a south-easterly direction, reaching, on the 31st January, a gap in the Sierra Nevada, through which he hoped to penetrate to the fertile plains beyond. Again he was disappointed; the pass scaled, he still had before him a great continuous range, which he felt satisfied was the central ridge of the Sierra Nevada, the great Californian Mountain. He now knew, however, that the Bay of San Francisco, or Yerba Buena, as it was still called, lay on the other side of this great mass, and resolved, at whatever cost, to traverse it without delay. The camp was pitched in the eastern side, and the fires had scarcely been lighted, when crowds of almost naked Indians rushed in, bringing with them long nets and bows greatly resembling those in use on the Sacramento River, which, as Fremont knew, drains the great central valley of California. Here was an incidental proof of the approaching end of the long and terrible journey, for in nothing are local influences in America more distinctly reflected than in the arms and utensils of the natives. Very eager were the questions put to the new-comers, who were, so to speak, links between the east and the west of the mighty barrier to be crossed, and having heard all that they could tell, Fremont informed his men of the resolution he had already long before come to himself, of crossing the Californian Mountain. Again a young man was induced by a large present to act as guide, and on the 1st February the great enterprise was begun.