Belated
gold-seekers, hurrying down the Sacramento Valley, found in Bruff a
kind friend. The ungrateful members of his Company, however, after
returning from Lassen's Ranch to claim their property, informed him
they wanted no more to do with him.
Unable
to buy a team, disgusted, rheumatic, and shocked by the selfishness of
emigrants who refused him a lift, Bruff decided to stay in the deserted
winter quarters until spring. After a terrible siege of hunger and
sickness, the monotony of snow varied only by incidents like that
sketched above, living on such delicacies as acorns, old
deer-legs and the frozen remains of long-deceased oxen, Bruff stumbled
down the thirty-two miles to Lassen's Ranch (below) near the mouth of Deer Creek.
