ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
How I sold Pop-corn[16]
My Capture of Jackson[31]
Spotting a Counterfeiter[34]
A second Offer of Marriage[63]
My first Appearance in Susanville[92]
The Monument erected to Peter Lassen in Honey Lake Valley[103]
Being requested to Change Trees[119]
A Struggle for Life[125]
Bound to the Stake[140]
An unexpected Ally[155]
Clo-ke-ta's Warning[222]
Taking Payment[249]

CHAPTER I.

My First Experience in the Circus—An Accident and a Change of Calling—Family Affection—Pop-corn—A Little Cheek, and a Great Deal of Dismay—Success as a Dealer in Grain—Being an Actor—Caught Again—Blood and its Consequences—Bailed Out, and In Again—The Good-natured Irishman—Change of Venue—Another Profession.

Actor, trapper, scout, gold-digger, and guide, my life, very unlike that of most of my readers, has been one of plenty of change and adventure, but certainly not of money-making. They say "A rolling stone gathers no moss." I have had good reason to feel this proverbial truth, having been a wanderer on the face, if not of this earth, at all events, of this continent.

My earliest recollection, which is worth my own remembrance, is a decidedly unpleasant one. When no more than eight years of age I was connected with the Circus of Dan Rice. Necessarily, I was a very unimportant member of it; and not feeling that it was in every respect what I thought a circus-life ought to be, I took it into my head to run away from it. Before I had covered sufficient ground to get out of the agent's reach, he caught me, and I had the gratification of being very well and soundly flogged. The smart of this judicial visitation upon my skin still recurs to me at times, and renders the locality in Kentucky, where the flogging took place, a very sore spot in my memory. I consequently will not name it.