38 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 



before a justice of the peace, Alcalde as they called them, and prove prop- 

 erty and take them. In talking with the man who was the owner of the 

 outfit I gave a minute description of the men and my little experience with 

 them and he gave up the horses without further parley. He said he was 

 Biitisfied they were our horses, but he swore vengeance on the fellows he 

 b ught them from. He said if they didn't pay him back his money there 

 •would be trouble, and I think he meant what he said. 



On our return from San Francisco after disposing of the cattle we 

 moved the balance of something over five hundred up to the San Joaquin 

 and found a good range there. We were about the second party that had 

 taken cattle on the west side. Major Euten had a band about sixty miles 

 above us and it was twenty-five miles below the old Dr. Marsh's ranch and 

 about the same distance to the Livermore Valley, so we had pick and choice. 



We thought it a good idea to try and secure some of that land for a 

 stock ranch. At that time we could file on swamp and overflow land as 

 state land which we did to about two thousand acres and then bought a 

 party out who had a pretty good house and barn. Our land lay up and down 

 Old River and fronting on the plains which gave us access to the tule land 

 and the plains as well and was an ideal stock ranch where we made head- 

 quarters for a number of years, raising cattle, buying and selling as it 

 chanced to be. 



After getting settled on the San Joaquin two of us bought out all the 

 other partners and run ourselves in debt nearly twenty thousand dollars. 

 We bought a good many cattle from the Spaniards who had driven their own 

 cattle that year and at prices less than they were willing to sell us at home 

 before they started. We handled a great many that way. It was a busi- 

 ness I liked as well as any I was ever in, except mining; there was always 

 so much life about it, always some excitement and time never dragged. 



In 1855 I was in the lower country again, taking the steamer for San 

 Diego this time and trying to buy cattle there, but they had their ideas too 

 high. Spent a good part of the winter there and boarded at Old Town, as 

 It was then called. Where San Diego now stands wasn't thought of at that 

 time, there being but one house and one man there and that was a govern- 

 ment house and a soldier to look after it. 



San Diego at that time was a pretty hard place. There was quite a 

 good many there that watched every steamer that came in. If they saw 

 any one that they took to be an officer they would slip down over the line 

 into Mexico and wait for some of their confederate to pass them the word 

 that the coast was clear. The country down there was full of that class. 

 After we found we could not buy anything there to suit, we concluded to 

 come up to Los Angeles, but we were very careful not to say so to anyone. 

 After everything was quiet we saddled our horses and came away in the 

 night. There were too many cut-throats hanging around there to take any 

 chances. We travelled the greater part of the night and the next day we 

 arrived in San Juan Capistrano, where we procured a corral to put our 

 horses in and feed them. We had some supper at a Mexican restaurant and 

 some breakfast at the same place, but we slept in the corral with our horses. 

 Next morning we resumed our journey and about four miles out we passed 

 a band of about forty-five robbers, a regular banditti crowd. They were 

 caaped near the road and just behind a little hill that hid them from the 



