Produced by Roger Frank, Chris Curnow, Sarah Jensen and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
The Claim Jumpers The Westerners The Blazed Trail Arizona Night Blazed Trail Stories The Cabin Camp and Trail Conjuror's House The Forest The Rules of the Game The Riverman The Silent Places The Adventures of Bobby Orde The Mountains The Pass The Magic Forest The Sign at Six The Land of Footprints African Camp Fires The Mystery (with Samuel Hopkins Adams)
[Illustration: "'I TOLD YOU YOU COULDN'T LICK ME,' SAID HE"]
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
I. Oh, Susannah! 3 II. The Hammerlock 7 III. The Voyage 19 IV. The Village by the Lagoon 28 V. A Tropical River 38 VI. The Village in the Jungle 44 VII. The Trail 56 VIII. Panama 61 IX. Northward Ho! 76
X. The Golden City 87 XI. I Make Twenty-five Dollars 101 XII. Talbot Deserts 115 XIII. Up-River 129
XIV. Sutter's Fort 141 XV. The Gold Trail 148 XVI. The First Gold 164 XVII. The Diggings 170 XVIII. Beginnings of Government 176 XIX. Sunday at Hangman's Gulch 185 XX. The Gold Washers 192 XXI. We Leave the Diggings 203 XXII. The Strike 210 XXIII. The Camp on the Porcupine 216 XXIV. The Indians 221 XXV. Battle 235 XXVI. We Send Out Our Treasure 244 XXVII. The Robbery 249 XXVIII. The Bully 255 XXIX. The Challenge 272 XXX. The Fight 284 XXXI. The Express Messenger 291 XXXII. Italian Bar 298 XXXIII. The Overland Immigrants 312 XXXIV. The Prisoners 320 XXXV. The Trial 327 XXXVI. The Rule of the Lawless 333 XXXVII. The Last Straw 342 XXXVIII. The Vigilantes 351 XXXIX. The Vigilantes (continued) 359
XL. The Rains 371 XLI. We Go Out 380 XLII. San Francisco Again 392 XLIII. The Golden Web 404 XLIV. Plutocrats! 414 XLV. The Catastrophe 425 XLVI. The Vision 433
"'I told you you couldn't lick me,' said he" Frontispiece
"'You hounds!' he roared. 'Don't you dare try to sneak off!'" 78
"We marched our prisoner in double-quick time to the agreed rendezvous" 360
Somewhere in this book I must write a paragraph exclusively about myself. The fact that in the outcome of all these stirring events I have ended as a mere bookkeeper is perhaps a good reason why one paragraph will be enough. In my youth I had dreams a-plenty; but the event and the peculiar twist of my own temperament prevented their fulfilment. Perhaps in a more squeamish age--and yet that is not fair, either, to the men whose destinies I am trying to record. Suffice it then that of these men I have been the friend and companion, of these occasions I have been a part, and that the very lacks and reservations of my own character that have kept me to a subordinate position and a little garden have probably made me the better spectator. Which is a longer paragraph about myself than I had purposed writing.