There were trains for California and
Oregon and men from the waste lands to the eastward and the south,
flotsam and jetsam thrown up on the desert's shore. Inside, where the
air was thick with smoke and the reek of raw liquors, they heard again
the great news from California. The old man, determined to get all the
information he could, moved from group to group, an observant listener
in the hubbub. Presently his ear was caught by a man who declared he
had been on the gold river and was holding a circle in thrall by his
tales. Daddy John turned to beckon to Courant and, not seeing him,
elbowed his way through the throng spying to right and left. But the
mountain man had gone. Daddy John went back to the gold seeker and
drew him dry of information, then foregathered with a thin individual
who had a humorous eye and was looking on from a corner. This stranger
introduced himself as a clergyman, returning from the East to Oregon by
way of California. They talked together. Daddy John finding his new
acquaintance a tolerant cheery person versed in the lore of the trail.
The man gave him many useful suggestions for the last lap of the
journey and he decided to go after Courant, to whom the route over the
Sierra was unknown ground.
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