Читать книгу How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves онлайн

44 страница из 60

“People with plenty of money could sail around Cape Horn in those days, but I had no money to spare, and so decided to walk across the country. That is, we were carried part of the way by rail and walked the rest. I persuaded one of the neighbor’s boys, Calvin Gilbert, to go along with me, and we started.

“I provided myself with an old carpet sack into which to put my clothes. I bought a new pair of boots, and when we had gone as far as we could on canals and wagons, I bought two oxen. With these we managed for awhile, but eventually reached California afoot.”

Young Armour suffered a severe illness on the journey, and was nursed by his companion Gilbert, who gathered herbs and steeped them for his friend’s use, and once rode thirty miles in the rain to get a doctor. When they reached California, he fell in with Edward Croarkin, a miner, who nursed him back to health. The manner in which he remembered these men gives keen satisfaction to the friends of the great merchant.

“Did you have any money when you arrived at the gold-fields?”