broke out, "I say, Brown, let us have your gun, I want to shoot some ducks." Brown told him to take it, and Bigler left them. As he walked along the river banks he kept thinking of gold; and when about half a mile below the mill he fancied that on the opposite side of the stream the rocks looked similar to the one whereon he had found gold the previous Sunday. They were bare, and it also seemed that there had formerly been a slide; so taking off his clothes he waded over, and found the ground glistening with golden dust. The next day was rainy, so the men remained within doors; but Bigler, without saying a word to any one, started down the river, crossed over to the same rocks, and obtained eight dollars. On the following Sunday, still keeping his own counsel, he went to the same spot and picked up a little over an ounce and a half All through the next week he worked steadily at the mill; "but about this gold, if there was anything in it," he asked himself, "should not the brethren elsewhere know of it?" So he wrote of it to Jesse Martin, Israel Evans, and Ephraim Green, three of his former messmates in the Mormon battalion, then at the flouring-mill, but asked them not to mention it to any one, unless to those in whom they could trust. On Tuesday, the 22d of February, a fall of snow stopped work, and while the men were at breakfast Marshall walked into the cabin and said, "Boys, it is going to be slippery to-day," pointing to the upper story of the saw-mill, which had to be raised, "and rather bad about putting up the frame; you may work if you see fit, or let it alone." The men were glad to take a holiday, and each one had an excuse. Alick Stevens declared he wanted to mend his trousers; Brown thought he would prepare a dish of peas; and Bigler, who was present, said to Brown, "If you will let me have your gun, I will go and shoot deer." "Take it," was the reply. Bigler started, and climbing a hillock a little to the west of the mill, looked about as hunters do before choosing
