Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/682

542 dence we met there some ten or twelve other guests, both ladies and gentlemen. Now the reader can have a faint idea of the embarrassing position in which we were both placed at that moment, and I can truthfully say that at the moment I entered that mansion I would have given three months' wages to have been away from there. George Jones had on buckskin breeches and I had on a buckskin suit, while the guests were dressed in style. I tried to offer some apology, but at every attempt it seemed that I only made a bad matter worse.

We were treated with the greatest respect while at this place, and were asked many questions by the other guests relative to the Modoc war, the capturing of Captain Jack, etc., and the following morning quite an article came out in the Chronicle concerning George Jones and myself relative to the position we held in the Modoc war.

We remained there until the last day of December, on which day we started again on our journey for Arizona, via Salinas, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Here we lay over and let our horses rest four days, after which we proceeded on our journey via San Diego, which at that time was a very small place. From there we struck for the Colorado river and followed down the river to Fort Yuma.

This route we took in order to avoid crossing any of those sand deserts. We were about five weeks making the trip, and reached Fort Yuma without any accident or mishap whatever, and learned that the Indians were worse in Arizona than when we left them several years