252 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 



about ten, and put up at the 'What Cheer House,' 

 bespoke my bed, and ordered breakfast, The 

 keen morning-air and a thirty-mile ride had 

 made me perfectly ravenous, and I waged alarm- 

 ing havoc on the ham and eggs, fixings, and 

 corn-dodgers, that, I must say, were admirable. 

 The tea was not a success, being a remarkablv 



o * 



mild infusion, very hot, and sweetened with 

 brown sugar; but it washed down the solids, and 

 the finest congou could not have done more. 



Thus recuperated, I started off to call on 

 Judge , to whom I had a letter of introduc- 

 tion from my agents in San Francisco. It did not 

 take long to find the Judge's quarters, the lanes, 

 streets, and alleys being distinctions without 

 any material differences. The mansion in which 

 his judgeship ' roomed ' was a small shanty, with 

 a porch or verandah round it, to keep off the sun 

 when it happened to be hot, and the wet when it 

 rained. I knocked with my knuckles no reply ; 

 tried again still silence ; resorted to the handle 

 of my hunting-knife, anything but mildly that 

 did it. 



' I raither calkilate, stranger, you'd better jist 

 open that door; / ain't agwine to, you bet your 

 boots.' 



I opened it, and walked in. There sat Judge 



