Texas Rangers, but when the war broke out we were out of a job.
We none of us cared much for the Johnny Rebs, and still less for the
Yanks, so we struck overland for the West, with the idea of hitting the
California diggings.

Well, we got switched off one way and another. When we got down to
about where Douglas is now, we found that the Mexican Government was
offering a bounty for Apache scalps. That looked pretty good to us,
for Injin chasing was our job, so we started in to collect. Did pretty
well, too, for about three months, and then the Injins began to get too
scarce, or too plenty in streaks. Looked like our job was over with,
but some of the boys discovered that Mexicans, having straight black
hair, you couldn't tell one of their scalps from an Apache's. After
that the bounty business picked up for a while. It was too much for
me, though, and I quit the outfit and pushed on alone until I struck
the Colorado about where Yuma is now.

At that time the California immigrants by the southern route used to
cross just there, and these Yuma Injins had a monopoly on the ferry
business. They were a peaceful, fine-looking lot, without a thing on
but a gee-string. The women had belts with rawhide strings hanging to
the knees. They put them on one over the other until they didn't feel
too decollotey. It wasn't until the soldiers came that the officers'
wives got them to wear handkerchiefs over their breasts. The system
was all right, though. They wallowed around in the hot, clean sand,
like chickens, and kept healthy. Since they took to wearing clothes
they've been petering out, and dying of dirt and assorted diseases.

They ran this ferry monopoly by means of boats made of tules, charged a
scand'lous low price, and everything was happy and lovely. I ran on a
little bar and panned out some dust, so I camped a while, washing gold,
getting friendly with the Yumas, and talking horse and other things
with the immigrants.

About a month of this, and the Texas boys drifted in. Seems they sort
of overdid the scalp matter, and got found out. When they saw me, they
stopped and went into camp. They'd travelled a heap of desert, and
were getting sick of it. For a while they tried gold washing, but I
had the only pocket--and that was about skinned. One evening a fellow
named Walleye announced that he had been doing some figuring, and
wanted to make a speech. We told him to fire ahead.

"Now look here," said he,