Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/448

336 The man told me the charge was drunk and disorderly and shooting a pistol inside of a house. I asked him if he would let Johnny out if I would pay the fine. He said: "Yes. As soon as he is sober to-morrow morning, you can come around. The charges will be twenty dollars."

If the reader ever had any experience with a drunken man, which to me is the most disgusting thing on earth, he can realize something of the time I had with those two men, for it took me all the next day to get Johnny West home and get him reconciled.

He was determined to return to Sacramento, and it took me two more days hard work and coaxing to get Jim Bridger home. I have it by good authority that this was the last drunken spree that Johnnie West ever took. He remained on his ranch some six years longer and having accumulated considerable wealth, sold out for a good price and returned home to his relations in Texas, and there died a short time afterwards;

Jim Bridger and myself stayed at Johnny's until about the middle of January. This now being 1861, we started for New Mexico, via Los Angeles, with the intention of laying over in Los Angeles until we could cross the Rocky Mountains. There was a good wagon road from Sacramento to San Jose, and from San Jose to Los Angeles.

At this time the Indians were all peaceable through California, the only trouble with them was their begging. At that I think, beyond any doubt, that they could beat any class of people it has ever been my misfortune to meet.