Erema | Page 7

champion wrestlers;
and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He
made a bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150 pounds; and with no
other sign than that, his partner in their stanch herring-smack (the Good
Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to make sail across the Atlantic
with all he cared for.
This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did,
together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty
race at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest
son was Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong
period, sought the far West, overland, through not much less of
distance, and through even more of danger, than his English father had
gone through. His name was known on the western side of the mighty
chain of mountains before Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and
before there was any gleam of gold on the lonely sunset frontage.
Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he
did not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife
and son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the

more, the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside
the reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that she
should not care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smote
Sampson Gundry heavily.
First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him. She fell from a
cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of her
frame prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he lost his
son, his only son--for all the Gundries were particular as to quality; and
the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad for him.
A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indians
was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men as
yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, if
the will of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to
her family without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he started
with a company of some twenty men--white or black or middle-colored
(according to circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijah
their lieutenant. Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but was
full of spirit, and eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have
carried this too far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock
of his hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the
western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and was
buried by the Blue River.
It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus cut
short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from the
mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad
and lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish
and New England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which
lay at his feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself
of a large and fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along the
banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this
was not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the
whole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling
water flows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very

few men could have done what he did without even thinking twice of it.
For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river,
and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to pollute it.
He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; but his
fame for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presence
most manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed of
the Blue River.
But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, and
even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundry
gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now his
grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost his
mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need