I resolved to follow a counsel so consonant with my own desires. I found no difficulty in disposing of my mining shares; and this done, I made arrangements for travelling by the stage conveyance then running between Sonora and Stockton. Before leaving the Stanislaus, I paid a visit to the young couple, who had been entrusted with the care of Leary's child. My object in going to see them was to learn, if possible, something more of that gentleman's doings in Australia. It was true, they had said, that they were unacquainted with him there; but there were several questions I wished to ask them--by which I hoped to learn something concerning my mother, and whether she had followed Leary to the colonies. I found the guardians of the child still living where I had seen them, on the day the murderer was executed. The orphan was no longer in their keeping. They had sent it to its grandparents in Sydney, in charge of a merchant--who had left California for the Australian colonies some weeks before. Though I obtained from the man and his wife all the information they were capable of giving, I learnt but little of what I desired to know. They thought it likely, that in San Francisco, I might hear more about the subject of my enquiries. They knew a man named Wilson--who had come from Sydney in the same ship with them; and who was now keeping a public-house in San Francisco. Wilson, they believed, had been well acquainted with Mathews--for this was the name which Leary had assumed in the colonies. Such was the scant information I succeeded in obtaining from the friends of the late Mrs Leary; and with only this to guide me, I commenced my journey for the capital of California. Volume Two, Chapter IX. A ROUGH RIDE. The stage, by which I travelled from Sonora to Stockton, was nothing more than a large open waggon, drawn by four Mexican horses. We started at six o'clock in the morning, on a journey of eighty-four miles. This we should have to perform before four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day--in order to catch the steamer, which, at that hour, was to start from Stockton for San Francisco. Notwithstanding that the road over most of the route was in reality no road at all, but an execrable path, we made the eighty-four miles within the time prescribed: for the stage arrived at Stockton more than twenty minutes before the time appointed for the sailing of the steamer! In spite of this rapidity of transit, I did not at all enjoy the journey between Sonora and Stockton. I was all the time under an impression that my life was in imminent danger; and, as I was at last on my way to Lenore, I did not wish to be killed by the overturning of a Californian stage coach--behind four half-wild horses, going at the top of their speed.