For six long weary months Alfonso and his companion searched for gold down the Green River and along the river bottom of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, till they reached the Needles on the A. & P. Railway.  Thence they rode west to Kern River.  This stream they followed on horseback into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, all the time searching for precious metals, especially gold.  The mountains were crossed over to Owen’s Lake, and a river traced north.  Alfonso was prospecting in new fields, but his search thus far was fruitless.  His companion sickened and died, but Alfonso bravely climbed among the mountains hoping to cross the crest and reach the cabins of friendly government officials on duty in the park of the big trees in Mariposa County.

It was late in the fall, grasses and leaves had browned, Alfonso’s horse had grown thin, and being too weak and lame to go forward, finally died.  His provisions had given out; his own strength and courage had failed; he needed water for his parched tongue and lips, but none was at hand; fever quickened his pulse.  Sitting alone in the shadow of a giant boulder that afforded partial protection from the gathering storm, his mind reverted to his home at Harrisville where abundance could be had, to his family that thought him dead, and to Christine across the sea, whom he had vowed to win with gold.  All seemed lost.  Alfonso’s head reeled, he fell back upon the ground, and the early snows seemed to form for him a shroud.

Good fortune guided this way a party of Yosemite Indians, who were returning from an extended hunt for deer and elk.  They had also slain a few bears and a couple of mountain lions.  The dead horse first arrested their attention, and then the exhausted miner was found asleep covered with snow.  The Indians wrapped the sick man at once in a grizzly bear skin, fastened him to a pony, and carried him to their camp near the big trees.  It was morning before Alfonso was conscious of his surroundings.  Standing by him was a shy Indian maiden with a dish of hot soup.  His bed, he discovered was in a burned-out cavity of one of the big trees.  Near by were several tepees, the tops of which emitted smoke.  Straight, black-haired Indians in bright blankets moved slowly from tent to tent.

Alfonso scarcely conscious had strange dreams.  Sometimes he thought he was in the Hodoo Region, or Goblin Land, the abode of evil spirits, where he saw every kind of fantastic beast, bird, and reptile, and no end of spectral shapes in the winding passages of a weird labyrinth on a far-off island.  Then his dreams were of rare beauty.  Green foliage was changed to pure white, the trees became laden with sparkling crystals, roadways and streams were laid in shining silver, and geyser-craters enlarged in strange forms resembled huge white thrones in gorgeous judgment halls.  Such fleeting beauty suggested to Alfonso’s feverish brain the supernatural, the abode perhaps of spirit beings.  For days the medicine man and Mariposa, daughter of the Indian chief, watched and cared for Alfonso, whose life hovered over the grave.