“And each of us that sing?” interrupted another young lady.

I said each one that would sing could have a lock, provided there was enough to go around.

I now had the ice broken, and could begin to talk to the ladies and crack a few jokes with them.

The little, fat, chubby young lady, that first started the conversation, sang a song entitled “The Californian’s Lament,” which was as follows: 

  Now pay attention unto me,
  All you that remain at home,
  And think upon your friends
  Who have to California gone;
  And while in meditation
  It fills our hearts with pain,
  That many so near and dear to us
  We ne’er shall see again.

  While in this bad condition,
  With sore and troubled minds,
  Thinking of our many friends
  And those we left behind,
  With our hearts sunk low in trouble
  Our feelings we cannot tell,
  Although so far away from you,
  Again we say, farewell.

  With patience we submitted
  Our trials to endure,
  And on our weary journey
  The mountains to explore. 
  But the fame of California
  Has begun to lose its hue—­
  When the soul and body is parting
  What good can money do?

  The fame of California
  Has passed away and gone;
  And many a poor miner
  Will never see his home. 
  They are falling in the mountains high,
  And in the valleys, too;
  They are sinking in the briny deep,
  No more to rise to view.

This I thought the prettiest song I had ever heard in my life.  Environment so colors things.  In other words, “circumstances alter cases.”

The lady at once demanded a lock of my hair as compensation for services rendered, and I removed the buckskin wrap and told her to take a lock, but cautioned her not to take too large a bunch, for fear there might not be enough to go around.  The young lady, seeing that I was very bashful, had considerable trouble in finding a lock that suited her.  A number of the young ladies sang together, after which several of them took the scissors and cut a lock of hair from the head of the young trapper.

I wondered at the time why it was that all the young ladies had a pick at me, for there was Johnnie West, a fine looking young man, who was continually trying to engage some of them in conversation, but they did not want to talk to any one but me, and it amused Uncle Kit not a little to see the sport the young ladies were having at my expense.

Before leaving, I told the young lady who sang the first song that I thought it was the prettiest song I had ever heard, and requested her to sing it again.  She replied that she would if I wished, and she did.

The next day about ten o’clock as we rode along, feeling drowsy from the warm sun, Jake Harrington turned around in his saddle, yawned and said:  “Well, Will, can’t you sing the song for us that you learned from those little Missouri gals last night?”