emigrators over the de-sart.” (A circle of scarlet surrounded his weeping eyeballs.) “I can’t see jist now as well as I did fifty years ago, but I can always bring the game or the slinking and skulking Injun.  I have jist come over the mountains from Sweetwater with the emigrators as pilot, living upon bacon, bread, milk, and sich like mushy stuff.  It don’t agree with me; it never will agree with a man of my age, eighty-three last ——­; that is a long time to live.  I thought I would take a small hunt to get a little exercise for my old bones, and some good fresh meat.  The grisly bear, fat deer, and poultry and fish—­them are such things as a man should eat.  I came up here, where I knew there was plenty.  I was here twenty years ago, before any white man see this lake and the rich land about it.  It’s filled with big fish.  That’s beer-springs here, better than them in the Rocky Mountains; thar’s a mountain of solid brimstone, and thar’s mines of gold and silver, all of which I know’d many years ago, and I can show them to you if you will go with me in the morning.  These black-skinned Spaniards have rebelled again.  Wall, they can make a fuss, d—­m ’em, and have revolutions every year, but they can’t fight.  It’s no use to go after ’em, unless when you ketch ’em you kill ’em.  They won’t stand an’ fight like men, an’ when they can’t fight longer give up; but the skared varmints run away and then make another fuss, d—­m ’em.”  Such was the discourse of our host.

The camp consisted of two small tents, which had probably been obtained from the emigrants.  They were pitched so as to face each other, and between them there was a large pile of blazing logs.  On the trees surrounding the camp were stretched the skins of various animals which had been killed in the hunt; some preserved for their hides, others for the fur.  Bear-meat and venison enough for a winter’s supply were hanging from the limbs.  The swearing of Turner, a man of immense frame and muscular power, during our evening’s conversation, was almost terrific.  I had heard mountain swearing before, but his went far beyond all former examples.  He could do all the swearing for our army in Mexico, and then have a surplus.

The next morning (Nov. 3rd), after partaking of a hearty breakfast, and suspending from our saddles a sufficient supply of venison and bear-meat for two days’ journey, we started back on our own trail.  We left our miserable Indian pilot at his rancheria.  I gave him the shirt from my back, out of compassion for his sufferings—­he well deserved a dressing of another kind.  It rained all day, and, when we reached Barnett’s (the empty house) after four o’clock, P.M., the black masses of clouds which hung over the valley portended a storm so furious, that we thought it prudent to take shelter under a roof for the night.  Securing our animals in one of the inclosures, we encamped in the deserted dwelling.  The storm soon commenced, and raged and roared with