Sometimes we would reach a stream, where a bridge had to be built or repaired; and two or three days would be spent at the work. The draught horses and oxen would die, or, becoming unable to proceed farther, would have to be left behind. The strength of our teams was being constantly weakened--until they were unable to draw the heavily loaded waggons; and it became necessary to abandon a portion of their contents--which were thrown away upon the prairies. The first articles thus abandoned, were carpets and other useless things, not required on the journey, but which to please the women, or at their instigation, had been put into the waggons at starting, and dragged for six or seven hundred miles! The dogs, that, at the commencement of the journey, had for each mile of the road, travelled about three times that distance, having worn the skin from the soles of their feet, now crawled along after the waggons without taking one unnecessary step. They seemed at length to have reached the comprehension: that the journey was to be a protracted one; and that while undertaking it, the idle amusement of chasing birds was not true canine wisdom. I shall not startle my leaders with a recital of any remarkable adventures we had with the hostile Indians: for the simple reason that we had none. They gave us much trouble for all that: since our fear of encountering them, kept us constantly on the alert--one of our party, and some times more, standing sentry over the camp throughout the whole of every night. If my readers reason aright, they will give me credit for not drawing on my imagination for any part of this narrative. They may easily perceive that, by thus eschewing the subject of an encounter with Indians, I lose an excellent opportunity for embellishing my true tale with an introduction of fiction. As we approached the termination of our journey, the teams became weaker--until it took all of them united in one yoke to draw a single waggon, containing only the youngest of the children, and a few pounds of necessary provisions! The old ladies, along with their daughters, performed the last hundred miles of the journey on foot; and when we at length reached the first settlement--on the other side of the mountains--a band of more wretched looking individuals could scarce have been seen elsewhere. My own appearance was no exception to that of my companions. My hat was a dirty rag wrapped around my head like a turbann while my boots were nothing more than pieces of buffalo hide, tied around my feet with strings. For all this, I was as well dressed as any of the party. My agreement with old Johnson was now fulfilled; and I was at liberty to leave him. I was anxious to be off to the diggings, where his eldest son, James, a young man about twenty years old, proposed accompanying me. Old Johnson declined going to the diggings himself--his object in coming to California being to "locate" a farm, while the country was still "young."