30 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 



for the season. We gathered together as many of the company as we^ could 

 find, and had a settlement. Those present drawing out their share, and the 

 balance being left in the safe until called for. Jim Murrell made enough to 

 pay all his men, and had enough dust left when he came to me to double 

 my wages, giving me an ounce a day instead of a half, telling me I had 

 handled the Mexicans so ably and directed the work so well that I deserved 

 the extra half ounce. 



From there I went up to a Chinese camp about five miles distant, and 

 took up some placer claims, about thirty feet square to a claim. The pros- 

 pects were fine. From the grass down to the bed rock, about four feet, it 

 paid from one bit to four bits on the bed rock. So I commenced work, 

 throwing up dirt for the winter's work, and making excavations to hold the 

 water when the rain started. I caught enough water with the first rain to 

 wash up a few pans of dirt, netting me five dollars, but the water gave out. 

 I built a log cabin, the first cabin I had lived in since being in the 

 country. During all this time, 1 had never had a coat, in fact one 

 hardly needed a ccat, and it was the fashion amongst miners to go without 

 a coat. Early in the spring I went down on Woods Creek and worked on 

 the bars with fair success. It was the custom if a claim didn't pay an ounce 

 to the man, we would abandon it, and as mining excitements were always 

 springing up, or stampedes as they called them, we didn't stay long on a 

 poor claim. 



So I went on about one hundred and fifty miles to a new camp called 

 Fine Gold Gulch, but before I went, I went back to the Chinese Claims to 

 see what I could do with them. I kept my title good by leaving tools in the 

 hole, as that was the custom for holding a claim. If the tools were removed 

 the claim was supposed to be abandoned, and could be jumped. I sold the 

 claims for thirty dollars and with the promise if they paid more I was to 

 have a share. 



The men had gone to Stockton and bought dump carts and horses and 

 hauled the dirt to a spring three-quarters of a mile away, and there washed 

 out the gold, twenty-one thousand dollars by fall. 



We found the Indians bad at Gold Gulch, and very little gold was found, 

 I stayed for two months and then left the mines in disgust and went to 

 Stockton to work in the hay yards. A few days later I met some boys from 

 Illinois with whom I had gone to school. The Gillette boys had three or four 

 mules and wanted me to take charge of the hay bailing. 



I had a chance to buy a half interest in a mule team and turned it in 

 on work for the Gillette boys. They paid three hundred dollars a month 

 for ourselves and team and paid all expense. They had a hay yard at So- 

 nera and one at Columbia, and the hay was sold as fast as it was hauled for 

 one hundred and fifty dollars a ton. They had a hay yard in Stockton 

 which I took charge of. Adjoining this yard was a livery stable kept by 

 Wolfe Dallas, or "Old Dallas" as we used to call him. "Old Dallas" had a 

 race horse that he thought pretty fast. There was another character, 

 Headsputh by name, who also had a race horse called the Headsputh colt, 

 and also a fake race horse called the same name. This fellow had the fake 

 colt painted to resemble the race horse and kept him at Dallas' stable. 

 Headsputh bragged about his colt, and Dallas argued his could beat the 

 colt. One moonlight night, Dallas took the horses out for a trial, while 



