son specially reliable, this mission was intrusted.
The man would indeed die rather than betray any
secret of his kind countryman and master; but alas I
he loved intoxication, that too treacherous felicity.
Arrived at Coloma, the teamster encountered one of
the Wimmer boys, who exclaimed triumphantly, "We
have found gold up here." The teamster so ridiculed
the idea that the mother at length became some-
what nettled, and to prove her son truthful, she not
only produced the stuff, but gave some to the teamster.
Returned to the fort, his arduous duty done, the man
must have a drink. Often he had tried at Smith and
Brannan's store to quench his thirst from the whis-
kay barrel, and pay for the same in promises. On
this occasion he presented at the counter a bold front
and demanded a bottle of the delectable, at the same
time laying down the dust. " What is that? " asked
Smith. " Gold," was the reply. Smith thought the
fellow was quizzing him; nevertheless he spoke of it
to Sutter, who finally acknowledged the fact.*
About the time of Bennett's departure Sutter's schooner went down the river, carrying specimens of the new discovery, and Folsom, the quartermaster in San Francisco, learned of the fact, informed, it is said, by McKinstry. Then John Bidwell went to the Bay and spread the news broadcast. Smith, store-keeper at the fort, sent word of it to his partner, Brannan; and thus by various ways the knowledge became gen- eral.
It was not long before the saw-mill society, which numbered among its members one woman and two
were livinff on that when gold was fonnd, and we were suffering from scurvy afterward. Oregtton^a Statement^ MS., 9. An infliction this man might un- dergo almost anywhere, being, if like his manuscript, something of a scurvy fellow. Mark the *we, the discoverers of gold,' before noticed. GregEoa was not at the mill when gold was found.
- * I should have sent my Indians,* groaned Sutter 28 years afterward. It
soems that the gentle Swiss always ^und his beloved aboriginals far leas treacherous than the white-skinned parasites. See StUter's Rem. , MS., 171-^; Inter PoeulOf this series; HtUchinga* Mag.^ ii. 196; Duitbar'a Romance of th» Affe, 114-15.
