Mokelumne Hill was a mining camp smack in the middle of trying to become a town. Tent and pole buildings were slowly giving way to one- and two-story brick structures, among them a post office, a church, three or four saloons and a whorehouse – all the makings for a prosperous California city. We stopped long enough to stock up on a few supplies, thanks to Lorenzo Sawyer’s generous contribution of $20. Then we hightailed it out of town before anyone had time to make any snide remarks about our Chinese companions.

Soon and his men, however, were real experts at making themselves scarce. A few times, in fact, Lewis and I had to look around to see if they were still with us. They’d split into groups of two or three and make like they were merely looking in shop windows, sitting on town benches, standing in alleyways and otherwise appearing as if they were anything but a group of 14 coolies traveling together.

We all enjoyed a big campfire that night, Lewis and I eating our meat and potatoes while Soon and his men slurped down their little bowls of rice and some rather suspicious looking lumps on a plate covered in brown gravy. After dinner, one of the men pulled out one of those little fiddle things like we saw in the Chinese place at Sonora, and he played that for a while before we went to bed. It was hard for me to imagine how all that awful twanging could make someone homesick, but more than a few of those Chinamen went to bed with tears in their eyes, probably thinking of the last time they’d been at home with their relatives in their native land. These men ate some awfully strange stuff and could be pretty irritating as they chattered round the clock in that choppy language of theirs. But for the most part, they weren’t such bad fellows.

On our third day out from Nevada City, we made pretty good time, starting early and taking another one of Soon’s famous shortcuts. This time his trail wound us around and through some pretty rugged country, but just like the trail we took two days earlier, the faint little track got us where we were going way ahead of the time we figured it would take.

There wasn’t much to this Vallecito place, just a few stores, a saloon, and a half dozen mine openings. It was Sunday and things were pretty quiet, so we passed right on through the town and hiked on down through the brush into a gully until we found what we were really looking for – the so-called Roaring River, which was wasn’t a whole lot wider than a big creek and didn’t seem to be roaring at all when we got there. Even so, Soon insisted it was the place we’d been looking for, so we went about establishing two camps a fair piece apart.

The Chinese set out to build an authentic looking coolie mining operation, and Lewis and I laid out our bedrolls and set up our tent like we were just two strangers traveling through on our way to somewhere else.

The two of us were so anxious to see if any of the miners in the general area of the river knew anything about this fellow named Skeeter that we struck out down the trail right after setting up camp and before our Chinese friends had even stuck a shovel in the ground. Unfortunately, we didn’t meet with a great deal of success. Every time we made an offhand comment to someone about the bothersome “skeeters” in the area, all we got was blank stares or else a mere nod of the head. One fellow asked us why, with all the terrible misfortunes that could happen to a man while mining for gold, we were worrying so much about bugs. Another went on for darn near an hour telling us about his sure-fire method for treating mosquito bites by rolling naked in hot mud and then drinking some tea made with the boiled leaves of a local shrub some Indian had showed him.

Only once did we both get excited and think we might have stumbled on someone who knew Skeeter Daniels. He was a grizzled old pan miner, and the reason we figured he had to know something was the way he reacted to our comments about “skeeters.” First, he jerked his head up violently, then he blinked his eyes rapidly several times, then he cracked his knuckles like he was real nervous about something. Lewis and I thought we were on to something until he made the exact same motions a few minutes later – in fact, any time we asked him anything, including “How do you like this weather?” Or “Hit any paydirt lately?” Or “So, when do you think California’s gonna be a state?”

And so, after about three hours with no success, we trudged back along the river, reaching our camp well after sunset. Soon came over and we chatted for a while, then we fixed our dinner then went on to bed.

The next morning, the two of us went over at first light to see the Chinese mining camp that Soon and his men had set up. The first thing we noticed was that sometime in the last 24 hours they had wing-dammed the river. This means they’d cut down several medium-sized pines, trimmed off the branches and lashed them together, laying them out in the water so they first ran halfway across the river, then downstream a ways, then back again to the same side. In this way, they were damming off a portion of the river’s bed without taking the time and expense of having to lift the whole river out of its banks and into a flume.

They’d also built a crude pump to remove water from the dammed-off area. It was constructed on the principle of a chain-pump, the chain in this case being made of hinged pieces of wood about six inches long with crosspieces in the middle that held small buckets. These they had also fashioned out of wood right here on the spot. The hinges fit exactly to the spokes of a small wheel, and this wheel was connected to two treadmills of four spokes each, which doubled as foot pedals. While we were standing there admiring this contraption, two of Soon’s men, Ching Ho and Wo Lee, started high-stepping on these spokes. Or, maybe it was Chan Ping and Ceong Ah Moy. I never could keep those fellows’ names straight. Anyway, it was pretty clever the way this device drew water up into the buckets then dropped it back into a small sluice box.

The only trouble was that it didn’t work all that well. For a machine made out of raw wood and joined together without glue or nails, it was pretty clever and a lot of fun to watch work. But as a pump, the thing was ridiculous. Only a dribble of water was retrieved for all the effort put out by the two men, not to mention how much they all must’ve sweat to build the gadget in the first place. The other problem was that the chain wasn’t even encased in a box. Instead, it just hung down and dragged along in the dirt at the bottom of a shallow ditch so that half the water picked up by these buckets was lost before it even reached the sluice.

I’m no expert on mining, but from what Lewis and I were able to see at Jim Savage’s operation, I figured an American miner using one tenth the labor needed to make this Chinese toy could have set a water wheel in the river to work an elevating pump. This could have thrown more water in half an hour than these 14 Chinamen could pump in a whole day with a dozen of these gimcrack machines. Still and all, they’d managed to get a real authentic Chinese mining camp going in just 24 hours, and that was the main thing. As he was showing us the device, Soon laughed out loud and told us that while the two of us were out looking for Skeeter Daniels, he and his men might even manage to make a few dollars.

Lewis and I set out again after breakfast, searching a few miles farther down along the river and taking the advice of one of Soon’s men who told us to look for small streams that ran into sinks or rocky gullies. This man – Ah Fong, I think his name was – had spotted some limestone formations along one steep bank of the river and told us it meant there might be a cave nearby, which could be a likely hiding place for Skeeter.

“Sounds reasonable enough,” Lewis said, “and if it’s a limestone cave, it could be riddled with passages and make a good escape route for someone on the run.”

Lewis would probably know. Having grown up in the country between Vermont and Ohio, he’d likely seen his share of caves. What’s more, Becky’s comments about her hiding place being so dark would make even more sense if Skeeter Daniels had stowed her away in some cave.

We had our usual bad luck that morning in questioning the men we found working their claims on our way south along the river bank. After awhile, we started hoping for a little rain. That way, the mosquitoes might breed a little faster and save us the embarrassment of explaining our remarks to miners who said they hadn’t been bitten once in the past three weeks.

We’d gone about four miles downriver when we spotted a tent and bedroll and a big man who was down on his knees with his back to us, washing up in the shallows.

“Well, here’s one more miner who’ll set us straight about the bugs,” I told Lewis, grinning. “I asked the last one, so this time it’s your turn.”

But Lewis just stood there and stared, like maybe there was something familiar about the man. Then, all of a sudden his face brightened and he called out, “John Rogers. Is that you, you old Tennessee bear?”

That’s who it was, all right, and John up and ran over to us so fast that neither of us had time enough to get ready for the big hug he gave us both. Luckily, he left us with enough breath to keep from passing out, and when he was through we all sat down and Lewis asked him how it was that we should find him there.

“To be honest,” John said in his slow, drawly way, “there’s nothin’ all that strange about it. I got here yesterday and was fixin’ on headin’ north again at first light. Then up comes this posse from Sonora, asking around about this Skeeter Daniels fellow and trompin’ through all the camps and towns and rocks and bushes ’round here pretty good. So I says to myself, ‘John Rogers, if that posse thinks this Skeeter fellow’s around here somewheres, you stay here another day and there’s a good chance that ol’ Will and Lewis will probably come along pretty soon too, because they’s lookin’ for the same feller. So I just sat tight and was plannin’ on staying ’til tomorrow before I kept on up north.”

For John, this was pretty complicated logic, and I began to wonder if he’d been in Sacramento so long he was starting to think less like a trapper and more like a city dweller. In any case, he went on to tell us how he’d helped Asabel to start a carpentry shop – just a small tent and pole outfit in Sacramento, but one that was quickly becoming a thriving business. And after he figured he’d at last fulfilled his part of the agreement he made with the Bennetts so long ago on the trail, he left them to their own devices and headed back down south to look us up in Los Angeles, just like he said he would. After meeting up with Rev. Brier, he was told about Francisco Rivera, went to see him about us, then resumed his trek up north the next day.

Well, John was pretty mad when he heard what this Skeeter fellow had done to Judge Baldwin and his wife, and to Becky herself.

“The first thing I aim to do when I found the polecat,” he said, “is to reach clear down his throat with my right arm and pull his feet on out his mouth, then turn him inside out so’s the little cockroach can get a good look at how rotten his insides are.”

“Very creative,” Lewis replied, “but don’t forget we need him alive if we expect to haul him north to Nevada City and get him to confess.”

John mulled this over a few moments.

“Well then,” he said, “we’ll get him to confess first, then I’ll take care of him.”

Now, this was the old John Rogers I knew.

The three of us took no time at all to pack up John’s few belongings before continuing our search. One thing we found out right away was that having a bear of a man like John trailing along with us made the miners along the river seem a lot more agreeable about speaking up on the subject of mosquitoes. But it still didn’t help us locate Daniels’ hiding place. Worse yet, we really started to worry when we learned that many of the miners we talked to had already been badgered by the sheriff's posse from Sonora. It seems the posse had broken up, and its members were combing the woods for clues. They weren’t being the least bit subtle about it either.

“There’s no way we’re going to slick some miner into loosing his lips about Skeeter if this posse’s running around spouting off who they’re looking for,” Lewis said.

“It ain’t the ones who don’'t know anything that we need to worry ’bout,” added John. “But if there’s any friends of his around these parts and if people in that posse keep poppin’ off their mouths like they did to me, this Skeeter just might get wind that they’re around here and decide to make tracks. Then, nobody will get what they want.”

“I’m also worried that members of this posse might be in a shooting mood by now,” Lewis said. “They might just see fit to kill this Skeeter if they find him rather than bring him in.”

“Speaking of the posse,” I said, “how do you supposed they found out Skeeter was somewhere in this area? After all, we didn’t even figure it out ourselves until a few days ago, and that was only after talking with Doc Zeissler. This posse surely never talked to Becky or the doctor.”

“No,” Lewis said, “so that means they got something out of either Henry Wade or else that old man in Oakdale, the one who told us about Daniels in the first place.”

“But all the old storekeeper told us was that Skeeter had headed north,” I said.

“So he did,” replied Lewis. “But what if he really knew more? Maybe we should have spent more time with him. Maybe we should have pressed him for more information...”

“Mebbe you shoulda tied him up and put him atop a red ant hill,” offered John.

“In any case,” continued Lewis, “I’ve been wondering all along if he might’ve known more than he told us. Maybe the posse found a way to convince him to talk. In any case, our main concern now is to find the members of this posse or else locate Skeeter Daniels before they do. If they run into him first and just pop him off, that’s the end of the road for us.”

It was time for a break and something to eat, so we found us a nice spot where a small creek crossed the trail and dropped down a steep hillside in a series of little falls and pools. We sat down beside the creek and ate our dried beef and biscuits in silence. It was almost hypnotic to watch the water as it dropped from one level to the next, pausing occasionally to swirl about in each little bowl-like cavity before spilling over the edge and into the next little depression. At the bottom, some 50 feet below us, the little rivulet finally picked up again and ran across the floor of a big hollow filled with boulders and ferns and small pines.

“Nice little stream,” John said as we chewed on our meat and biscuits and stared down at the water. “I wonder where it disappears to down there in that holler.”

I hadn’t paid much attention until he said it, but now it did seem pretty strange to me that the little creek really should have been flowing toward the river, which was in the other direction. Instead, the water ran down into this little rocky hollow with no real way for it to get out and nowhere for it to go, because the hollow was really one big round sink hole.

It hit me and Lewis at about the same time.

“A cave!” we both said.

“Just like Wing Quy told us!” added Lewis.

“I thought it was Ah Fong,” I said.

“Whoever,” Lewis said. “The point is, there’s got to be someplace for that little stream to go down there, and the only place I can think of is a limestone cave of some sort. This may be our lucky break.”

“Let’s go!” John said, leaping up and readying himself to rush down the hillside.

“Wait a minute, John,” Lewis said. “As anxious as we all are, we can’t just go hiking on in. We need to get back to camp. We’ll need some candles, and we may also need some rope, something else we haven’t carried with us. And we’ll want some chalk, or something else to draw with.”

“Chalk?” I asked.

“To mark our way,” Lewis said. “Water flows just about as crooked underground as it does above. Streams can split apart and join again, and sometimes they just dead-end in underground pools. If we want to remember where we’ve been and keep from getting lost, we’ll need to mark our way as we move along.”

“Do these coolies back at your camp have everything we need?” asked John skeptically.

“If I know Soon Hing and his men,” Lewis said, “they’ll either have what we need or find some way to make it for us. In either case we need to get back to camp and let them know what we’ve found.”

“Shouldn’t one of us stay here and watch for this Skeeter, in case he comes out and escapes?” I asked.

“I don’t think there’s much point in that,” Lewis said, shaking his head. “If Skeeter hasn’t discovered that the posse is in this area, he’s probably still inside. Even if he has found out, there’s a good chance he’s buried himself in there deeper. After all, that’s what a good hiding place is for. It’s also why he took the time to gather up so many supplies. Even if Skeeter Daniels somehow knew we were out here, he also knows more about the cave’s passages and twists and turns than we can ever hope to. Once inside we’ll be in foreign territory, but he’s more or less at home down there. That should make him feel comfortable enough to stay there rather than run.”

“What about that posse?” asked John Rogers. “If they’re around here somewhere, don’t you think they might find this place before we get back?”

“No,” said Lewis, “there’s no sign of a hiding place down there, or that anyone’s been down there recently. No brush has been disturbed that I can see, and no boulders have rolled on down. Unless a person had caves on his mind, I don’t imagine he’d even think about looking down there for one.”

He looked up at the darkening sky. “Besides,” he added, “it’s getting late. If that posse hasn't found this place yet, it should be safe for a while.”

So we all headed back in a rush to our camp, and after a brief and somewhat confusing introduction of John Rogers to our Chinese friends, we told Soon what we’d discovered. We also told him all the things we figured we’d need to hike around in this cave. Before we could say another word, Soon and his men set to work coming up with some things that would work. The candles were no problem, since they’d carried a good deal of wax with them to waterproof the blades of the pump wheel they’d built earlier. All they had to do was to melt some of this down in some wooden forms and then fashion some wicks out of twine.

Soon’s men had no chalk, but they got to chattering among themselves and pretty soon came up with an idea. It seems they knew about some berries that the Indians would cook down and use to paint their faces. Two or three of Soon’s men set out to pick some of these and before long they’d started boiling them down into a kind of paste that they could then scrape into one of their old canning jars. Then we’d be able to dip a brush in the stuff and use it to mark each cave passage as we passed through it.

The need for rope gave us all some concern. There were all sorts of small lengths of rope and cord around, some of it used to tie up tools and other pieces to lash down tarps, not to mention what Soon’s men had used to lash together their wing dam. The problem was that there wasn’t one piece of rope around the camp that was longer than three or maybe four feet. And because all these pieces were made out of different materials, any rope made by tying these pieces together wouldn’t be safe to use.

But before long, Soon had an idea, and he gathered his men around him and made a serious announcement that seemed to displease them for a moment. Then one by one they nodded their heads and solemnly began to rifle through their belongings until each had found what looked like a black or dark brown robe of some kind, made of silk, as far as we could tell, and tied close with a thin black cord, also apparently made of silk. Each of Soon’s men began to untie and remove these cords and bring them to their leader until Soon had 13 cords of about five feet each in length.

“Ceremonial robes,” he explained to us solemnly, adding his own tie to the pile of black cords. “These ties hold cloth together,” he said, “but are more important than that. Tied properly, they keep yin and yang in balance, and earthly matters in line with inner needs. We offer them to you now, for your present needs are as great as our own future concerns.”

Then he gave us a little bow and called for two of his men to take the cords and start knotting them together into a single, strong silk rope. When this was completed, it was about 70 feet long, and Soon rolled it carefully into a small coil that Lewis attached to his belt with a small piece of twine.

By supper time, all these preparations had been completed, and Lewis stood up and said, “Will, John, I suggest we eat a quick meal, and then head back to the little hollow and start in on our search.”

“What, you mean right now?” John said. “But it’s going to be dark in a few hours.”

“Once we’re in the cave,” Lewis said, “it won’t matter if it’s noon or midnight. It’s all the same underground. What’s more, if Skeeter’s keeping any sort of watch, he’s more likely to be off guard at night than during the day. It might be our best chance to catch him unawares.”

So we ate a quick meal and then prepared to head out. Before we left, however, Soon approached us and said, “Soon have idea how we can help you.”

“You’ve already been a help,” Lewis said. “What you can do now is to keep watch for that posse and not give away any information about the cave. We don’t want them crashing down the hill while we’re tiptoeing about inside, trying to catch Daniels off guard.”

“Soon agree with Messer Lewis,” the Chinaman said, “but I also plan come, and bring two, maybe three men to stay outside, keep watch if Messer Daniels he circle round and come out other way.”

Lewis started to protest, then he thought for a moment and said, “You may have something there, Soon. It’s just possible this Skeeter may have worked out a way to climb out some connecting hole and escape while someone is chasing him down a main passageway. All right, Soon, you can come along.”

“Just a darn minute now,” John said. “Just what do you expect these little fellers to do if this Skeeter comes crashing out of that cave and right on into the middle of ’em. We don’t want ’em shootin’ at the guy, but there’s no way they can defend themselves unless they have some kind of weapons. I mean, look at ’em. They’re so darn skinny and all.”

As usual, John was only saying what he thought to be the truth, and he didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it was pretty clear that Soon was upset at his remarks.

“Messer Rogers?” he said to John. “I want you run at Soon Hing like you are Skeeter person and try knock me down. I show you how we defend selves.”

At first, John just chuckled a little and said he wasn’t about to bust up some Chinaman’s jaw just to prove a point. But after a few more challenges from Soon, John decided to take him on. He rushed at our friend with all the speed and fury of a bull elk charging a rival in rutting season.

I almost closed my eyes for fear of seeing poor Soon Hing crushed to a bloody pulp under the weight of John’s huge frame. But before I could, the little man dodged in a flash to one side, then leaped up in the air and threw his hands suddenly out at his sides until they were poised almost like knife blades at a right angle to his body. Then, as the big Tennessean rushed by, Soon lashed out with his right foot and caught John at his belt line, causing him to double over. Soon then pivoted and gave him a parting shot in the rear. This sent John sailing into the air so far that, considering his bulk, he almost looked graceful. But then he fell abruptly to the floor, raising a small cloud of dust. Lewis and I started chuckling, though we knocked it off when John raised up on one elbow and looked at us squinty-eyed.

“What in tarnation was that?” he said as he slowly raised himself to his knees.

“Wing Chun,” Soon said. “Ancient Chinese fighting. You want see more?”

John was grinning now as he got slowly to his feet.

“No thanks, Chinaman,” he said. “I don’t need no more lessons. I guess you and your pals can handle yourselves all right.”

“That plenty fine for Soon Hing, too,” Soon said. “My men say I too old for Wing Chun, anyhow.”

And so we were off again, back to the rocky hollow where the little stream dropped down and disappeared into rocks and ferns and dense shrubbery. This time, we were joined by Soon and three of his best men whose names I was told but can’t even begin to remember. It was almost dark by the time we got there and we hurried down the hillside so we’d have what little remained of the sun’s light to help us locate the cave entrance. At the top of the hill, one of Soon’s men waited while we crept down the hillside.

“Sometimes these caves are just big gaping holes,” Lewis said, “but I don’t think this one is like that, because we would’ve seen it from the trail above. The clue is to follow the creek and see where it goes.”

Where it went, at least at the start, was right on into some thick shrubs that were covered with sharp thorns. And as I tried to force myself through these bushes, the thorns tore at my clothes and the skin underneath. I was still sloshing around when I finally broke through the bushes and climbed up on to a sort of pile of broken rocks, more like boulders actually, since I was able to step from one to the next without ever hitting the ground. About the time I reached the middle of these, the stream seemed to disappear. A frowning Lewis, who’d come into the same area from the other side, was looking at the same thing.

“Maybe I was wrong,” he said. “Could be this stream just sinks into the earth and runs underground without there being any crawl spaces.”

‘Then what’s this?” came John Roger's voice.

The big man was standing next to an almost vertical wall of limestone at the far side of the depression, and we fought our way through the brush and rocks until we reached him. Directly in front of him sat a dark hole, a sort of sharp-edged opening that looked almost like someone had used a huge meat cleaver to carve a gash from ground to knee level out of the wall. Lewis stooped down, cupped his hand over his ear and listened.

“There’s water falling down, all right,” he said. “The little stream must drop down below someplace back over where we were before. It probably seeps through some fine cracks into the chamber below, and this here is an entrance that caved in when the ground below it was slowly washed away.”

Soon and his two men had arrived by this time and they squatted down now and peered into the darkness for several long moments. Then the two men turned and said something to Soon, who nodded several times as they spoke.

“They say the air moves below,” Soon said. “It strike their faces.”

“That probably means there’s a second entrance somewhere not far from here,” Lewis said.

“It also means there’s a second way out,” John said. “I hope our pal Skeeter hasn’t used it.”

“Only one way to find out,” Lewis said. “Shall we?”

Pulling three candles from out of his shoulder bag, Lewis lit one for John and then me, then a third for Soon Hing. He lit a fourth for himself and slowly put his hand into the gap, peering in at the faint glow of the flame on the walls of the cave. He hesitated momentarily before slipping inside.

And we followed closely behind.

Sorry this is a couple of days late. I'd blame the problem on all this snow that is plaguing Spokane, but that's way too lame an excuse. Anyway, everyone have a Merry Christmas.