LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 33 



we were resting, we would all get in again and perhaps within another hun- 

 dred yards down the stage would go to the axle and then the same thing 

 had to be gone through with again. I began to get pretty tired of my pack, 

 but there was no getting out of it. She considered that she had gotten 

 slightly acquainted with me by riding on my back and wouldn't think of 

 changing on to a strange back. I never had seen the woman before or since. 

 A long time after I was very slow in showing my gallantry as far as the 

 ladies were concerned, for fear of getting into another job of packing. We 

 finally got on board the boat and the bay was very rough and the dear lady 

 that I had carried to Alviso was so sick, yes she was awful sick. 



We had to lay in San Francisco for several days, the steamers refused 

 to go outside in such rough weather and the only thing we could do was to 

 wait. One or two boats started and before getting outside the heads re- 

 turned again to the wharf. Passage at that time from San Francisco to San 

 Pedro was forty-five dollars and four dollars more to Los Angeles in the 

 stages and mule team. Ours happened to be a mule team and the driver 

 said he had never drove stage much before, but give him an oxen team and 

 he would not lay down the whip to any one. We would occasionally get 

 out and load ourselves with rocks and clods of dirt to cheer the mules on 

 the road, as I thought we never wouM get there. At that time the Express 

 Company charged three percent for carrying money from San Francisco to 

 Los Angeles, so we had our state room and carried our own money. Some 

 one would always be in the state room. We could insure our passage 

 money by carrying all the gold coin ourselves. Nearly all the gold was in 

 fifty dollar slugs and very inconvenient to carry. When we arrived at Los 

 Angeles we deposited it in a safe. It was estimated that there was a mil- 

 lion dollars deposited in different safes belonging to cattle men. Upon ar- 

 riving there one of our number was all broke out with the smallpox and I 

 had slept with him the night before. I knew it was ho use to run from it 

 then, so I stayed with him until he was well and never took it either; since 

 then I have been exposed to it several times and never have taken it on 

 any occasion. My partner and I buried a baby that had died with it; we 

 were the only mourners, in fact the only ones there. 



After a time, we went up to San Bernardino. We had heard that the 

 Mormons had driven a good many cattle there from Salt Lake City, which 

 we found to be true. They were all work oxen and in fine condition. We 

 were there several weeks buying up cattle as long as we had the money to 

 buy with. V^^hile there and just across the street from where I was board- 

 ing, lived the wife of Parly P. Pratt and by some means she learned my 

 name was Stephens, and she had been a Stephens before her marriage to 

 Pratt, and she thought sure we must be in some way rielated, therefore she 

 sent for me to come and see them. She was the former and first wife of 

 Parly P., and had two fine looking grown daughters. I not only spent a 

 very pleasant evening with them, but a good many more following, but we 

 couldn't figure out any relationship. Parly P. was not there. I suppose he 

 was off somewhere hunting up some more spiritualists. Well, the old lady 

 never mentioned his name while I was there, neither did I tell her of hlB 

 Australia Spiritual wife that I had seen combing his whiskers with her fin- 

 gers. Too bad that as fine a woman as she appeared to be should have to 

 submit to the brutality of such men and he one of the twelve apostles and 



