PREFACE

"Pioneer Boys of the Gold Fields" relates the adventures of three sturdy youths who go west to seek their fortune during the great rush to California in 1849.

At the start the boys are unknown to each other—one coming from the city, another from the country, while a third is just home from a long whaling voyage. But the magic word, "Gold!" is on every lip, and in company with thousands of others, they make the long and perilous journey across the plains and the mountains, to the Land of Promise. On the way they have several encounters with wild beasts and with Indians,—scenes taken from actual life. When the gold diggings are reached they find that a great deal of hard labor lies before them, but they do not shirk, and their success is well deserved. They find the gold fields overrun with bad men, and at the height of their prosperity they are robbed of their treasure. What happens after that, the pages which follow relate in detail.

In writing this story the author has had but one purpose in view—to give his readers a faithful picture of the exciting times of '49, when rich and poor, high and low, laborers and bankers, journeyed by land or by water to California in search of gold. The excitement was intense, equaled only by that when gold was first discovered in the Klondyke region. In those days there were no railroads across the western portion of our country, and the journey had to be made on foot or on horseback and took months where it now takes but days. Those who did not go by land sailed either to the Isthmus of Panama, crossed, and went up the coast of California by ship, or else took the still longer voyage around Cape Horn. Surely the hearts of these Argonauts were of the stoutest, and their deeds deserved to be chronicled!

Captain Ralph Bonehill.

August 15, 1906.

CONTENTS

PIONEER BOYS OF THE GOLD FIELDS