he organized a party to prospect it. Gold was found in moderate quantities, especially on the upper portions. The Trinity mines extended confidence and added to the excitement. Camps sprang up on every bar. The town of Weaverville took the lead, and still holds it. Quite a population followed and the matter of provisioning it became serious. The base of supplies was Sacramento, two hundred miles distant and over a range of mountains. To the coast it could not be more than seventy miles. If the Trinity entered a bay or was navigable, it would be a great saving and of tremendous advantage. The probability or possibility was alluring and was increasingly discussed.

In October, 1849, there were at Rich Bar forty miners short of provisions and ready for any adventure. The Indians reported that eight suns to the west was a large bay with fertile land and tall trees. A vision of a second San Francisco, a port for all northern California, urged them to try for it. Twenty-four men agreed to join the party, and the fifth of November was set for the start. Dr. Josiah Gregg was chosen leader and two Indians were engaged as guides. When the day arrived the rain was pouring and sixteen of the men and the two guides backed out, but the remaining eight were courageous (or foolhardy) and not to be thwarted. With a number of pack animals and eight days' supplies they started up the slippery mountainside. At the summit they encountered a snowstorm and camped for the night. In the morning they faced a western view that would have discouraged most men—a mass of mountains, rough-carved and snow-capped, with main ridges parallel on a northwesterly line. In every direction to the most distant horizon stretched these forbidding mountains. The distance to the ocean was uncertain, and their course to it meant surmounting ridge after ridge of the intervening mountains. They plunged down and on, crossed a swollen stream, and crawled up the eastern side of the next ridge. For six days this performance was repeated. Then they reached a large stream with an almost unsurmountable mountain to the west. They followed down the stream until they found it joined another of about equal size. They had discovered the far-flowing south fork of the Trinity. They managed to swim the united river and found a large Indian village, apparently giving the inhabitants their first view of white men. The natives all fled in fright, leaving their camps to the strange beings. The invaders helped themselves to the smoked salmon that was plentiful, leaving flour in exchange. At dusk about eighty of the fighting sex returned with renewed courage, and threateningly. It took diplomacy to postpone an attack till morning, when powder would be dry. They relied upon a display of magic power from their firearms that would impress superior numbers with the senselessness of hostilities. They did not sleep in great security, and early in the morning proceeded with the demonstration, upon which much depended.

When they set up a target and at sixty yards pierced a scrap of paper and the tree to which it was pinned the effect was satisfactory. The Indians were astonished at the feat, but equally impressed by the unaccountable noise from the explosion. They became very friendly, warned the wonder-workers of the danger to be encountered if they headed north, where Indians were many and fierce, and told them to keep due west.

The perilous journey was continued by the ascent of another mountainside. Provisions soon became very scarce, nothing but flour remaining, and little of that. On the 18th they went dinnerless to their cold blankets. Their animals had been without food for two days, but the next morning they found grass. A redwood forest was soon encountered, and new difficulties developed. The underbrush was dense and no trails were found. Fallen trees made progress very slow. Two miles a day was all they could accomplish. They painfully worked through the section of the marvelous redwood belt destined to astonish the world, reaching a small prairie, where they camped. The following day they devoted to hunting, luckily killing a number of deer. Here they remained several days, drying the venison in the meantime; but when, their strength recuperated, they resumed their journey, the meat was soon exhausted. Three days of fasting for man and beast followed. Two of the horses were left to their fate. Then another prairie yielded more venison and the meat of three bears. For three weeks they struggled on; life was sustained at times by bitter acorns alone.

At length the welcome sound of surf was heard, but three days passed before they reached the ocean. Three of the animals had died of starvation in the last stretch of the forest. The men had not eaten for two days, and devoted the first day on the beach to securing food. One shot a bald eagle; another found a raven devouring a cast-up fish, both of which he secured. All were stewed together, and a good night's sleep followed the questionable meal.

The party struck the coast near the headland that in 1775 had been named Trinidad, but not being aware of this fact they named it, for their leader, Gregg's Point.

After two days' feasting on mussels and dried salmon obtained from the Indians, they kept on south. Soon after crossing a small stream, now named Little River, they came to one by no means so little. Dr. Gregg insisted on getting out his instruments and ascertaining the latitude, but the others had no scientific interest and were in a hurry to go on. They hired Indians to row them across in canoes, and all except the doctor bundled in. Finding himself about to be left, he grabbed up his instruments and waded out into the stream to reach the canoe, which had no intention of leaving him. He got in, wet and very angry, nursing his wrath till shore was reached; then he treated his companions to some vigorous language. They responded in kind, and the altercation became so violent that the row gave the stream its name, Mad River.

They continued down the beach, camping when night overtook them. Wood, the chronicler of the expedition, [Footnote: "The Narrative of L.K. Wood," published many years after, and largely incorporated in Bledsoe's "History of the Indian Wars of Northern California," is the source of most of the incidents relating to Gregg's party embraced in this chapter.] and Buck went in different directions to find water. Wood returned first with a bucketful, brackish and poor. Buck soon after arrived with a supply that looked much better, but when Gregg sampled it he made a wry face and asked Buck where he found it. He replied that he dipped it out of a smooth lake about a half mile distant. It was good plain salt water; they had discovered the mythical bay—or supposed they had. They credulously named it Trinity, expecting to come to the river later. The next day they proceeded down the narrow sand strip that now bounds the west side of Humboldt Bay, but when they reached the harbor entrance from the ocean they were compelled to retrace their steps and try the east shore. The following day they headed the bay, camping at a beautiful plateau on the edge of the redwood belt, giving a fine view of a noble landlocked harbor and a rich stretch of bottom land reaching to Mad River. Here they found an abundant spring, and narrowly missed a good supper; for they shot a large elk, which, to their great disappointment, took to the brush. It was found dead the next morning, and its head, roasted in ashes, constituted a happy Christmas dinner—for December 25th had arrived, completing an even fifty days since the start from Rich Bar.

They proceeded leisurely down the east side of the bay, stopping the second day nearly opposite the entrance. It seemed a likely place for a townsite, and they honored the water-dipping discoverer by calling it Bucksport. Then they went on, crossing the little stream now named Elk River, and camping near what was subsequently called Humboldt Point. They were disappointed that no river of importance emptied into so fine a bay, but they realized the importance of such a