The "secret" was out in brief space, and like an eagle with outspread wings, it flew away into all quarters of the globe.

Poor Sutter, strange to say, it ruined him.

The gold seekers came from the ends of the earth and "squatted" on his lands, and he spent all the fortune he had amassed in trying to dispossess them.

But his efforts were unavailing.

The laws, loosely administered then, seemed to be against him, and fate, relentless fate, spared him not.