LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 37 



ambush for me. The stream that I struck emptied into the same valley, but 

 several miles away, and by riding pretty fast I would come into the road 

 ahead of them even if they had kept on the road. 



I got to San Buenaventura some time after dark, it may have been nine 

 o'clock, and was looking around for a place to sleep for a few hours, as I 

 was by this time pretty tired, but not so tired as my horse was. In re- 

 connoiterlng around for a good place I saw a campfire but a little way off, 

 and I thought sure I had run into a band of robbers, but crept up a little 

 nearer and soon I saw a woman and then a child, and pretty soon a man or 

 two, and so I walked bravely into the camp and they proved to be a camp 

 of immigrants on their way to the upper country, and they soon had the cof- 

 fee pot on and the meat a frying, and gave me a good supper, which I can 

 assure you I had a pretty good appetite for. They had a great many ques- 

 tions to ask about California and I was very glad to give them what infor- 

 mation I could as they had been so kind to me. I insisted on starting before 

 daylight and get back to camp as I knew my partners would be getting un- 

 easy about me, but they would not listen to my leaving before breakfast as 

 I did not know how long I would have to travel before overtaking our party 

 with the cattle. They gave me an early breakfast and also supplied me with 

 blankets as I had none with me except my saddle blanket. I had used that 

 the night previous and it was all wet with sweat from the horse. I had not 

 proceeded more than three or four miles before I met one of the boys 

 starting back to see if he could find me. They did not know what had be- 

 come of me as I had been gone two days and nights among a lot of cut- 

 throats and thieves. I would have been murdered had it not been for my 

 trusty revolver. I, at that time was a dead shot, 40 or 50 yards, as I was 

 in constant practice and had made some fine shots at game, such as deer, 

 coyotes, wild geese, etc. The only thing I regretted at my little tilt with 

 those greasers was that I did not make them turn back the same way they 

 had come instead of allowing them to take the road I wanted to travel. I 

 know they would have turned back if I had so ordered, for they knew I had 

 the drop on them. 



After arriving at Santa Barbara we came to the conclusion to buy a 

 couple more horses as we were a little short now after losing five. Besides 

 buying a couple more horses we hired another vaquero and had to buy him 

 a saddle, bridle, spurs, in fact the whole outfit. He stayed with us two days 

 and at midnight on the second night it was his turn to go on guard and he 

 deliberately rode away on the horse and outfit we had bought for him. 



It was dark and it did not take much start to get away, so that was the 

 last we ever saw of him or the horse either. We gradually moved along 

 until we arrived at what is now called Coyote, at that time it was the Fish 

 Ranch. We stopped there for a few days and separated out about a hun- 

 dred and twenty of the fattest and drove them to San Francisco and sold 

 them at a very good price, forty-five dollars per head. While we were at 

 this we still kept a lookout for droves of cattle, and it happened that we 

 saw two of the horses we had lost with a bunch of cattle. I asked the men 

 that was riding one of them where he got that horse and he said away down 

 in the country, mentioning the name of the ranch. I told him I was very 

 sorry to put them to any inconvenience, but two of those horses belonged 

 to us and he would have to give them up. All that was necessary was to go 



