"How could I be among 'em without seein' of 'em?" replied Joe. "Ah, das is goot--vair goot," said Meyer, opening his huge mouth very wide to let out a cloud of smoke and a quiet laugh. "Well, but you know," said Jeffson, apologetically, "a poor fellow livin' out here in the wilderness ain't just always quite up in the gee-graphical changes that take place on the airth. When was it that they cut a ship canal up to the Himalayas, and in what sort o' craft did ye sail there?" "I didn't go for to say I sailed there at all," retorted Joe; "I walked it partly, and went part o' the way on elephants an' horses, and went aloft o' them there mountains pretty nigh as far up as the main-topmast cross-trees of 'em; I've also slep' in the snow-huts of the Eskimos, an' bin tossed about in a'most every sort o' craft that swims, but wot I've got to say is this, that of all the things I ever did see, travellin' in Californy beats 'em all to sticks and stivers." "You've got a somewhat indefinite way of stating things," observed Douglas. "D'ee mean to say that it beats them in a good or a bad way?" "I means wot I says," replied Joe, with a stern expression of countenance, as he relighted his pipe with the burnt end of a piece of stick. "I means that it beats 'em _both_ ways;--if ye haven't got schoolin' enough to understand plain English, you'd better go home again an' get your edicashun completed." "I'd do that at once, Joe, if I could only make sure o' finding the schoolmaster alive that reared _you_." "Ha! goot," observed the German. "Him must be von notable krakter." Further conversation on this point was cut short by the sudden appearance within the circle of light of an Indian, who advanced in a half-crouching attitude, as if he feared a bad reception, yet could not resist the attraction of the fire. At that time some of the tribes in the neighbourhood of Bigbear Gully had committed numerous depredations at the diggings, and had murdered several white men, so that the latter had begun to regard the Red Men as their natural enemies. Indeed some of the more violent among them had vowed that they would treat them as vermin, and shoot down every native they chanced to meet, whether he belonged to the guilty tribe or not. The Indian who now approached the camp-fire of the white men knew that he had good ground to fear the nature of his reception, and there is no doubt that it would have been an unpleasant one had it not been for the fact that his appearance was pitiable in the extreme. He was squalid, dirty, and small, and so attenuated that it was evident he had for some time been suffering from starvation. He wore no clothing, carried no arms of any kind, and was so utterly abject, and so evidently incapable of doing harm to any one, that none of the party thought it worth while to rise, or lay hands on a weapon. When he appeared, Joe Graddy merely pointed to him with the stem of his pipe and said--