OREGONIANS AT SAN FRANCISCO.



whose abandoned wagons had been passed at the iHornella
on the Colorado River. The town, too, was crowded
with miners, men of every class, but chiefly American
adventurers, drawn together from every quarter of Cali-
fornia and Mexico by the rumor of the gold discovery at
Sutter's Fort.
  On arriving at San Pedro, a vessel-the Southampton,
was found ready to sail. She had on board a crowd of
fugitives from Mexico, bound to San Francisco, where they
hoped to find repose from the troubles which harassed
that revolutionary Republic.
  At San Francisco, Meek was surprised to meet about
two hundred Oregonians, who on the first news of the
gold discovery the previous autumn, had fled, as it is said
men shall flee on the day of judgment-leaving the wheat
ungathered in the fields, the grain unground in the mills,
the cattle unherded on the plains, their tools and farming
implements rusting on the ground-everything abandoned
as if it would never more be needed, to go and seek the
shining dust, which is vainly denominated "filthy lucre. "
The two hundred were on their way home, having all
either made something, or lost their health by exposure
so that they were obliged to return. But they left many
more in the mines.
  Such were the tales told in San Francisco of the won-
derful fortunes of some of the miners that young Lane be-
came infected with the universal fever and declared his
intention to try mining with the rest. Meek too, deter-
mined to risk something in gold-seeking, and as some of
the teamsters who had left Fort Leavenworth with the
company, and had come as far as San Francisco, were very
desirous of going to the mines, Meek fitted out two or
three with pack-horses, tools, and provisions, to accompany
young Lane. For the money expended in the outfit he



404