JOHN C. FREMONT. 



were caught by the lasso, thrown either by Don 

 Jesus or the servant Jacob, who, though born in 

 Washington, in his long expeditions with Colonel 

 Fremont had become as expert as a Mexican with 

 the lasso, as sure as the mountaineer with the rifle, 

 equal to either on horse or foot, and always a lad 

 of courage and fidelity. 



"None of the horses were shod, that being a prac- 

 tice unknown to the Californians. The most usual 

 gait was a sweeping gallop. The first day they ran 

 one hundred and twenty-five miles, passing the San 

 Fernando Mountain, the defile of the Riucon, seve- 

 ral other mountains, and slept at the hospitable 

 ranch of Don Thomas Eobberis, beyond the town 

 of Santa Barbara. The only fatigue complained of 

 in this day's ride was in Jacob's right arm, made 

 tired by throwing the lasso and using it as a whip 

 to keep the loose horses to the track. 



" The next day they made another one hundred 

 and twenty-five miles, passing the formidable moun- 

 tain of Santa Barbara and counting upon it the 

 skeletons of some fifty horses, part of near double 

 that number which perished in the crossing of that 

 terrible mountain by the California battalion on 

 Christmas-day, 1846, amidst a raging tempest and a 

 deluge of rain and cold more killing than that of 

 the Sierra Nevada, the day of severest sufiering, 



