"I was there," he replied. "There were James Marshall, H. W. Bigler, and James Berger who were with me. We had been with the Mormon Battalion sent to the Mexican war, and having been discharged we came up to Captain J. A. Sutter's ranch on the American River." "I have read much of that ranch in John C. Fremont's records," I replied. Continuing he said, "We were out of money and needed horses for our return trip to the Missouri River, therefore we engaged to help Sutter build a saw mill on the stream at the point where the City of Sacramento now stands. Sutter went to California from Missouri, and acquired a principality in size and value, and was the first settler. It was during that work that in January, 1848, we found gold. It had not been seen there before. As a fact we brought the first news of the discovery East, which resulted in the rush of 1849." Mr. Brown was somewhat above the average in size but at the time of our meeting was lame as the result of some accident in his early days. His description of the hardships of his brigade in the Arizona desert, which through questioning was elicited from him, was thrilling in the highest degree. Continuing his story from time to time after occasional digressions he told of the return of their party over the Sierras Eastward, of their troubles with the Indians and of other hardships. Although in Mr. Brown's interesting volume on the _Life of a Pioneer_, written in later years, he makes no mention of the circumstances, yet he told me that when his little party had arrived at the north end of Great Salt Lake in the autumn of 1848, and had determined that it would be much safer to spend the winter in that valley than to cross the mountains so late in the season, they were led by friendly Indians to understand that good forage for their horses could be found at the southern end of the Lake; whereupon, as he told me, the party traveled the same course that we were then following, along the western base of the Wasatch Mountains. At a point several miles north of the present site of Salt Lake City they unexpectedly met two of their Mormon friends, whom they had neither seen nor heard from since leaving the Missouri River two years before. They were informed for the first time that Brigham Young and many Mormons had crossed the plains and the mountains in the preceding year, and had erected a stockade and settled at the south end of the lake. One member of Mr. Brown's party was astounded to learn that his mother, having crossed with one of the trains, was at that moment but 12 miles away and that she had driven a yoke of oxen the greater part of that long, tedious course, a duty made necessary by the heavy burdens which fell upon others. This was certainly a remarkable revelation to the weary travelers, who had supposed that they were alone in the middle of the continent.