E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) from material generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 20126-h.htm or 20126-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/2/20126/20126-h/20126-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/2/20126/20126-h.zip) The source of this e-book and images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/caveofgold00mcnerich THE CAVE OF GOLD A Tale of California in '49 by EVERETT McNEIL Author of "Fighting with Fremont," "In Texas with Davy Crockett," "With Kit Carson in the Rockies," Etc. New York E. P. Dutton & Company 681 Fifth Ave. First Printing, January, 1911 Second Printing, August. 1919 Third Printing, June, 1926 Printed in the U.S.A. TO THE DESCENDANTS YOUNG OR OLD OF THE HARDY FORTY-NINERS THIS STORY OF THE EXCITING DAYS OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA IS HOPEFULLY DEDICATED [Illustration: "YOU LIE!" AND THE HARD FIST LANDED SQUARELY ON THE MAN'S CHIN.] FOREWORD On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up two yellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, from the tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of the American River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, now Sacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon it was discovered that all the region thereabouts was thickly sown with shining particles of the same precious yellow metal. A few months later and all the world was pouring its most adventurous spirits into the wilderness of California. This discovery of gold in California and the remarkable inpouring of men that followed, meant very much to the United States. In a few months it cleared a wilderness and built up a great state. In one step it advanced the interests and the importance of the United States half a century in the policies and the commerce of the Pacific. It threw wide open the great doors of the West and invited the world to enter. It poured into the pockets of the people and into the treasury of the United States a vast amount of gold--alas! soon to be sorely needed to defray the expenses of the most costly war of the ages. Indeed, when the length and the breadth of its influence is considered, this discovery of gold in California becomes one of the most important factors in the developing of our nation, the great corner-stone in the upbuilding of the West; and, as such, it deserves a much more important place in the history of the United States than any historian has yet given to it.