“Ah--Sacramento.” “And I am bound for the North Fork Dry Diggings.” “Auburn?” smiled Longley. “Bah! the new names! In my day we called them differently. I came across the Rockies in '32, Monsieur. But I must be en route--here are sheep coming.” After the sheep were counted and gone, Longley glanced scowlingly across the bridge and hastily closed the tollgate. A band of Indians, several on ponies but most of them on foot, crossed the bridge and halted before him. “Go back, ye varmints!” growled Longley. “No Indian pay,” said the old chief. “He go the bridge and the road--no pay.” “Well, the Chinamen paid.” “But the Indians, no! No pay. Me go Whiskey Bar--big pow-wow. Plenty ox, plenty bear meat, plenty firewater--” “You go back!” roared the tollkeeper, swearing, “and go ford the river. That's good enough for a Digger! The ferry's been taken off, but the water is not so high.” The old Indian scowled, and the young bucks began a guttural complaint which he silenced with a gesture and a grunt of command. “Water is cold, and those,” pointing to the sheep, “have passed.” “You go back, I tell you! I hate every filthy brute of you! My best pal was sent to glory in that funeral fire on Murderer's Bar, and no Indian will ever get aught from me.” “Me pay,” said the Indian leader slowly, “Me pay cayuse, me pay boy.” “No, you won't pay! You'll go back and wade the river like the low beasts that you are.” The chief began a fierce oration. Longley ran into the tollhouse and came out with a sawed-off shotgun. “Now, will you go?” he cried, defiantly. The Indians were sober, and they went. As they came abreast of the pier under the bridge the toll-keeper jeered and laughed at them, and pelted them with rocks. They looked up with hate, but went stolidly on their way. With darkness, the roistering at the barbecue became louder. The Indians' money was gone by this time, and the fun was getting rougher. The toll-keeper, after a weary day, was dozing beside his candle. He did not see nor hear the stealthy forms which crept up the bridge. A board creaked, and he jumped up and swung about, to find himself quickly overpowered by a dozen lithe redskins. They robbed the till, then held a palaver as to the disposition of their prisoner. They finally left him tied with his own new rope to a huge drift log at the base of the pier, and went back to buy more firewater. It was a wild night! John noticed, very late, that the Indians seemed to be having a special pow-wow of their own on the river bank near the bridge. There was a great fire, and mad dancing and war whooping. He started toward them. “Don't go there, pardner,” called an old trapper. “Them bucks is crazy with drink, an' if I knows anything about Injuns, it won't be no safe place for a white man.”