to California and settled near
Nigger Head, where my father opened a road agency and prospered beyond
the dreams of avarice. He was a reticent, saturnine man then, though his
increasing years have now somewhat relaxed the austerity of his
disposition, and I believe that nothing but his memory of the sad event
for which I am now on trial prevents him from manifesting a genuine
hilarity.

"Four years after we had set up the road agency an itinerant preacher
came along, and having no other way to pay for the night's lodging that
we gave him, favored us with an exhortation of such power that, praise
God, we were all converted to religion. My father at once sent for his
brother, the Hon. William Ridley of Stockton, and on his arrival turned
over the agency to him, charging him nothing for the franchise nor
plant--the latter consisting of a Winchester rifle, a sawed-off shotgun,
and an assortment of masks made out of flour sacks. The family then
moved to Ghost Rock and opened a dance house. It was called 'The Saints'
Rest Hurdy-Gurdy,' and the proceedings each night began with prayer. It
was there that my now sainted mother, by her grace in the dance,
acquired the _sobriquet_ of 'The Bucking Walrus.'

"In the fall of '75 I had occasion to visit Coyote, on the road to
Mahala, and took the stage at Ghost Rock. There were four other
passengers. About three miles beyond Nigger Head, persons whom I
identified as my Uncle William and his two sons held up the stage.
Finding nothing in the express box, they went through the passengers. I
acted a most honorable part in the affair, placing myself in line with
the others, holding up my hands and permitting myself to be deprived of
forty dollars and a gold watch. From my behavior no one could have
suspected that I knew the gentlemen who gave the entertainment. A few
days later, when I went to Nigger Head and asked for the return of my
money and watch my uncle and cousins swore they knew nothing of the
matter, and they affected a belief that my father and I had done the job
ourselves in dishonest violation of commercial good faith. Uncle William
even threatened to retaliate by starting an opposition dance house at
Ghost Rock. As 'The Saints' Rest' had become rather unpopular, I saw
that this would assuredly ruin it and prove a paying enterprise, so I
told my uncle that I was willing to overlook the past if he would take
me into the scheme and keep the partnership a secret from my father