The _Robert Burns_ steadily churned her way down the Mississippi, yellow and swollen with the spring freshets. She stopped at towns and other landings--some of these being plantation landings--to discharge or take on passengers and freight. These stops would have been the more interesting, to Charley, were he not in a hurry. He wanted to be sure and catch the _Georgia_, for the Isthmus. Supposing the _Robert Burns_ were late into New Orleans; then they might miss the _Georgia_. Of course, there were other boats--the _Falcon_ and the _Isthmus_ and the _Quaker City_; but with such crowds setting out for the gold fields, it behooved a fellow to get there as soon as he possibly could. More "Forty-niners" boarded the _Robert Burns_. One in particular took Charley's eye. He came out in a skiff, from a small wood landing, where some steamers, but not the _Robert Burns_, stopped to load up with fuel. When the _Robert Burns_ whistled and paused, floating idly, and he had clambered in, he proved to be a very tall, gaunt, black-whiskered individual, with a long, muzzle-loading squirrel rifle on his arm. A darky tossed a blanket roll up after him, and rowed away for the shore. The man looked like a backwoodsman--and again he looked like a Californian, too, for his clothes were an old blue flannel shirt (with a rolling collar having white stars in the corners), patched buckskin trousers and heavy boots of the regulation style. Charley chanced to be crossing the salon or main cabin when the man was paying for his passage, and there witnessed something exciting that made him dart out and find his father. "Dad!" hoarsely whispered Charley. "That was a gold miner who came aboard in a skiff! He was paying his fare with gold dust." "Was he? How do you know?" "I saw him at the desk, but the clerk wouldn't take any dust, so he had to pay with money. He has a buckskin sack, just like ours. Wish I could talk with him." "Maybe he'll talk with you, if you give him the chance. You can try and see. But don't ask him any foolish questions, or seem inquisitive." Presently the tall man (he was taller even than Mr. Adams) emerged from the cabin, to stand by the rail, leaning on his rifle and gazing at the shore line. A picturesque figure he made, with his starred shirt-collar rolled back, and his leathery trousers wrinkled down over his boot-tops. Charley sidled around him, expectantly; and the man noticed him. "You look as if you were going out, too," addressed the man, a twinkle under his bushy brows. "Yes, sir," answered Charley. "To California." "Anybody with you?" "My father." And Charley proudly nodded toward another tall form. "Were you ever there?" he added, hesitantly. "I should rather think so. Five years ago, and four years ago; and now I'm making another trip by a new route. The other times I crossed by the land trail." "Oh, you must have been with Fremont!" exclaimed Charley. The whiskered man nodded.