40 LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 



frosty night and quite a little ice formed. There was not a thing for either 

 ourselves or horses to eat and a very poor chance for a fire as we soon 

 had all the available brush burnt, so we sat here on our saddles and dozed a 

 little until daylight. Soon after a smoke appeared in the house, and we 

 saddled up pretty quick and appeared at the door again. This time a woman 

 appeared and I asked her if she could get us some breakfast. Very little, 

 she says in Spanish, as they had nothing themselves, only tea and beef. I 

 told her that would taste pretty good as we had had nothing since the 

 morning before. In the meantime several other women appeared and they 

 seemed greatly relieved that we were not robbers, but Americana. They 

 said the men had all gone to Los Angeles to lay in provisions and were very 

 sorry they didn't have more to offer us. They said they were scared nearly 

 to death the night before as the robbers had come there and tried to get 

 into the house. I told them we were the robbers of the night before and 

 that if I could have gotten the door open we would not have stayed out in 

 the cold all night. 



A little way further on we came to an Indian camp and saw an Indian 

 carrying a sack of corn. We hailed him and asked him if he would sell us 

 some of his corn for our horses as they had had nothing all day and all 

 night. He didn't want to part with his corn at all as he said he had packed 

 it so many miles, but we offered him a big price for it and the temptation 

 was too great. He says, "as I am a good Christian I will let you have the 

 corn, only for that you could not get it." We both shook him by the hand 

 and called him Buena Christiana. I think it did the old fellow more good 

 than the corn would have done. That day brought us to the sheep that we 

 had gone out to meet. Near Warners Ranch and just at the edge of the 

 desert we found the owners of the sheep, very gentlemanly man, by the 

 name of Lunas. They were high grade Spanish people, regular Castillians, 

 and wouldn't let us do a thing for our horses, not even take off the saddles. 

 They had servants to do everything, Piutes as they call them, and just 

 treated us royally. I think we stayed over there one day to let our horses 

 rest a little. We could not buy any sheep from them, they had fifty thous- 

 and head. It was about ninety miles out there, and we didn't pass a white 

 man's house on the whole trip, not many Spanish either. We returned and 

 bought sheep near Los Angeles, and drove sheep that year as we could not 

 buy cattle and make anything. The sheep paid a little better, as we sold 

 the wool for enough to pay expenses. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The next spring following, I concluded to go to the Sandwich Islands 

 and see what kind of country that was. I took passage on a Clipper Ship, 

 the Red Gauntleta sailing vessel and I want to say I never had a nicer trip 

 than I did on that ship. The captain had his family aboard and there were 

 six passengers in all, three of them ladies. My roommate was a druggist 

 from Marysville, who was going to visit his sister, a professor's wife, who 

 lived on the islands. I think we were seventeen days going down and I 

 enjoyed every minute of the time. The captain offered Mr. Douglas and 

 myself a free passage if we would go on with him to China, as the passen- 



