After Col. Elliott had closed his remarks and taken his seat, Jim Beckwith arose and made quite a speech in his plain, rude language, addressing his remarks principally to Col. Elliott, in which he said: "Colonel, I would not have recommended this boy to you so highly if I had not been with him long enough to know that when he starts in to do a thing he goes at it for all there is in him, and, as I told you, he has been with Kit Carson ever since he was a boy, and I knowed that if he didn't have the everlasting grit in him, Kit Carson wouldn't have kept him around so long. I am very glad indeed, Colonel, that he has filled the bill, and now the Injun fightin' is all over for this season and 'twill be some time before we all meet again, if we ever do. I have nothing of value to present to you, but such as I have is as free as the water in the brook." At this he produced a gallon jug of whiskey, set it on the table, gave us some glasses and told us all to help ourselves. This wound up the evening's exercises, and after each had tipped the glass about three times we broke up the lodge and each went on his way rejoicing. Before the Colonel left that night he told me that we would divide the captured horses the next morning. I told him that all I wanted was the five horses that I had captured from the five Indian scouts when I first started in to scout for him, but the next morning [Transcriber's note: unreadable text] out when the horses were brought in and made the division. There were sixty-three of them, and he left fifteen to my share. I stayed at Jim Beckwith's for about two weeks, and his carpenters having the houses completed, we saddled up four horses and took them to Hangtown. It was a distance of twenty miles to Hangtown, which at that time was one of the loveliest mining towns in California. There were between four and five thousand inhabitants in and around the place. During the day it appeared dead, as there was scarcely a person to be seen on the streets; but at night it would be full of miners, who, it seemed, came to town for no other purpose than to spend the money they had earned during the day. This winter passed off, apparently, very slowly, being the most lonesome winter I had put in since I struck the mountains. Along about the middle of February our groceries were running short and Jim went to Hangtown for supplies. On his return he brought me a letter from Col. Elliott, asking me to come to San Francisco at once. I asked him what he thought of it, and he told me by all means to go. I told him I would have to stop in San Francisco and buy me a suit of clothes before going out to the fort to see Col. Elliott. He thought this was useless, saying: "Your buckskin suit that Kit Carson gave you is just what you want for a trip like that." I thought that if I wore such a suit in civilization the people would make light of me, and I hated the idea of being the laughing stock for other people.