The arrival of Col. Fremont having got wind, the rancheros of San Luis were on an early stir, determined to detain him. All crowded to his quarters with their gratulations, and the tender of a splendid entertainment, but his time was too pressing: still escape was impossible, till a sumptuous breakfast had been served, and popular enthusiasm had expressed its warm regard. This gratitude and esteem were the result of that humane construction of military law, which had spared the forfeited lives of the leaders in the recent insurrectionary war. It was eleven o’clock in the morning before the colonel and his attendants were in the saddle. Their tired horses had been left, and eight fresh ones taken in their places, while their party had been increased by the addition of a California boy, in the capacity of vaquero. Their path still lay through a wild broken country, where primeval forests frowned, and the mountain torrent dashed the tide of its strength. At eight in the evening they reached the gloomy base of the steep range which guards the head waters of the Salinas or Buenaventura, seventy miles from San Luis. Here Don Jesúse, who had been up the greater part of the night previous, with his family and friends, proposed a few hours rest. As the place was the favorite haunt of marauding Indians, the party for safety during their repose, turned off the track, which ran nearer the coast than the usual rout, and issuing through a cañada into a thick wood, rolled down in their serapes, with their saddles for their pillows, while their horses were put to grass at a short distance, with the Spanish boy in the saddle to keep watch. Sleep once commenced, was too sweet to be easily given up; midnight had passed when the party were roused from their slumbers by an _estampedo_ among their horses, and the loud calls of the watch boy. The cause of the alarm proved not to be Indians, but gray bears, which infest this wild pass. It was here that Col. Fremont with thirty-five of his men, in the summer preceding, fell in with several large bands of these ferocious fellows, who appeared to have posted themselves here to dispute the path. An attack was ordered, and thirteen of their grim file were left dead on the field. Such is their acknowledged strength and towering rage, when assaulted, the bravest hunters, when outnumbered, generally give them a wide berth. When it was discovered that they had occasioned this midnight stampede, the first impulse was to attack them; but Don Jesúse, who understood their habits and weak points, discouraged the idea, stating that “people _gente_ can scare bears,” and with that gave a succession of loud halloos, at which the bears commenced their retreat. The horses by good fortune were recovered, a fire kindled, and by break of day, the party had finished their breakfast, and were again in the saddle. Their path, issuing from the gloomy forests of the Soledad, skirted the coast range,