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.

Jim said:  “It is Col.  Elliott you are going to see, and he would rather have you come that way than any other.”

I took my suit down and looked at it, and it was a fine one of the kind.  I had never worn it since Uncle Kit’s wedding, so it was practically new.  I decided to wear it, and the next morning I started for San Francisco, Jim accompanying me to Hangtown to take the horses back to his ranche.

At Hangtown I took the stage for Sacramento, which, by the way, was the first time I had ever ridden in a stage-coach.

We started from Hangtown at five o’clock in the morning and at twelve o’clock that night the driver drew rein at the American Exchange Hotel in Sacramento.  The coach was loaded down to its utmost capacity, there being nine passengers aboard.  The roads were very rough at this season of the year—­being the latter part of February—­and I would rather have ridden on the hurricane deck of the worst bucking mustang in California than in that coach.

This hotel was kept at that time by a man named Lamb.

That night when the proprietor assigned the passengers to their respective rooms he asked us if we wished to take the boat for San Francisco the next morning.  I told him that I did, whereupon he asked me if I wanted my breakfast.  I told him that I did, saying that I didn’t want to go from there to San Francisco without anything to eat.  This caused quite a laugh among the bystanders; but I did not see the point, for at that time I did not know that one could get a meal on a steamboat, for I had never been near one.