LIFE SKETCHES OF A JAYHAWKER 63 



•round." Dutch Fred had nothing to say whatever. In the early times ■n'^-^,. 

 pie were always ready for any kind of excitement, so there was a bull and 

 hear fight to come off in Stockton and was well advertised, and of course 

 a large crowd gathered to see the sport, as this was to surpass the c-di- 

 nary hull fight, people coming from far and near. The hull and the bear 

 were chained together, the bear's hind foot to the bull's fore for^t and tbey 

 sawed the top of the bull's horns, which was very unfair, for the bull was 

 the agressor all the time and made all the fight, and when he would strike 

 the bear with his horns they would glance over and not penetrate at aU. 

 The bear wouldn't have lasted five minutes if the bull had had an eo'^al 

 show, but a Spanish bull was worth but a few dollars, and a captured ^ear 

 wns worth several hundred. While the fight was progressing, some darkies 

 climbed up a large tree near by in order to have a go^d view. Tn the course 

 of the fight the fighters got near the tree and the bear commenced to 

 climb also, and climbed up as far as the chain would let bim so, whi'^h 

 made lots of fun for the crowd but very uncomfortable for the darkies. 

 Everybody was yelling for them to jump, and they c^me near doing it too. 

 During the fight whenever the bull would make a lunge at the bear, he 

 would gather the bull around the neck with his enormous great paws and 

 hold him there and chew his nose, and this was repeated at every oppor- 

 tunity until his nose was eaten off almost to his eyes. Finp^lv the bear 

 was reported loose from the bull, which proved to be true enough, and you 

 should have seen the stampeded people trying to get out of the way of 

 'the bear and the bear trying to get away as well, but it was but a few 

 moments before the Spaniards had their lassoos on him and but a few more 

 minutes till they had him in the cage again. He was a pretty good sized 

 grizzly, but not as large as I have seen. The bull was shot to end his mis- 

 ery, which was the only merciful act of kindness in the whole procedure. 



I thought it the most cruel and barbarious piece of entertainment I had 

 ever witnessed and never cared to attend another like performance. Stock- 

 ton was a great stage coach center for all the mining towns for an area of 

 almost a hundred miles around and most of them were due about 4 P. M., 

 and they would come dashing in in grand style, under the whip at great 

 speed, and one day among other arrivals was a Jew, and his coach happened 

 to be a little late for the boat which left at that hour. He came on the full 

 run down to the levee, as it was then called, and the boat commenced to 

 pull out and was perhaps about ten feet from the wharf. He seemed to 

 have but one thought, that was to get his grip aboard and jump after it. So 

 he threw his grip and it struck the wheel-house about midway and as the 

 wheel was now in motion, in less than a minute there was all kinds of dry 

 goods scattered floating on the water, which made fun for the onlookers. 

 To see his dismay for a little while and his performance was very amus- 

 ing. He would just jump up and down crying, "Mine got vot shall I do, vot 

 shall I do," and the jeers he would get from the crowd around didn't help 

 matters much. Some would say, "Jump, why don't you jump," and another 

 would say, "why don't you swim." Sometime in the early fifties, I think 

 about fffty-two and three, there was one of the most dreaded outlaws that 

 had ever infested the country. His name was in everybodys mouth — he was 

 a terror to the whole country, and his name was Joaquin Murietta. Any 

 of the old-timers must remember his career, as a murderer and a reckless 



