. He was the worst scared man in
all California. When he felt the sting of the bullet he threw up his
hands and fell on his back, yelling lustily. I was almost as badly
panic-stricken, thinking surely he was killed. I began to see visions of
the gallows and the hangman's rope. He recovered his self-possession,
and when he found he was not hurt, his fear turned to anger. He threw
the rifle barrel out into the street, and then drove me out of the shop.
When I got outside and my fear had left me, I sat down on an old wagon
tongue and laughed until I was entirely out of breath. Allison came out,
and my laughter must have been contagious. He leaned up against a post
and laughed until he cried. His anger had left him, and we were soon
fast friends again. At the proper time I ventured the opinion that the
rifle could not go off again, and that it would be well enough to finish
the cutting process. He consented and soon had the barrel cut off. I
took the breech end home with me, and endangered my life with it many
years. I generally loaded it with blasting powder, for the reason that
it was usually on hand and cost me nothing, and so loaded, the cannon
made more noise than had I used gunpowder.

During the campaign in which Gen. George B. McClellan ran for the
Presidency against Abraham Lincoln, the Democrats of Northern California
had a great celebration which lasted two or three days. Among other
things was a barbecue at the race track, two or three miles out of town.
Great pits were dug which were filled with oak stumps and logs, and
burned for about twenty-four hours before the cooking began. These logs
were reduced to a perfect bed of live coals. Over these, old-fashioned
Southern negroes, of whom there were many in the neighborhood, cooked
quarters of beef, whole sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese.
There were at least five thousand people on the ground. My blacksmith
friend, Allison, was firing a salute with an old cannon. He fired the
cannon after it was loaded, with an iron rod, one end of which was kept
heated in a small fire. I attended to the fire for him. After the
discharge the gun was wiped out with a wet swab. The powder was done up
in red flannel cartridges. Allison, with heavy, buckskin gloves on his
hands, would hold his thumb over the vent or tube of the cannon. Two
men, first slitting the lower end of the cartridge, would ram it into
the gun. During each loading process I straddled the gun, looki