gamble. Everybody except the priests and parsons gambled, and there was
a scarcity of priests and parsons in the sixties. Men would gamble their
dust, and when that was gone they would gamble their worldly
possessions, and when those had vanished they would gamble their
clothes, and if they lost their clothes there were instances where some
men even went so far as to gamble their wives! And every one of us, each
day, gambled his life, so you see the whole life in the Territory in the
early days was one continuous gamble. Nobody save gamblers came out
there, because nobody but gamblers would take the chance.
As I have stated, I followed the natural trend. I had a name, even in
those days, of being one of the most spirited gamblers in the regiment,
and that meant the countryside; and I confess it today without shame,
although it is some time now since I raised an ante. I remember one
occasion when my talents for games of chance turned out rather
peculiarly. We had gone to Calabasas to get a load of wheat from a store
owned by a man named Richardson, who had been a Colonel in the volunteer
service. Richardson had as manager of the store a fellow named Long,
who was well known for his passion for gambling. After we had given our
order we sought about for some diversion to make the time pass, and Long
caught sight of the goatskin chaperejos I was wearing. He stared at them
enviously for a minute and then proposed to buy them.
"They're not for sale," said I, "but if you like I'll play you for 'em."
"Done!" said Long, and put up sixteen dollars against the chaps.
Now, Long was a game sport, but that didn't make him lucky. I won his
sixteen dollars and then he bet me some whiskey against the lot, and
again I won. By the time I had beat him five or six times, had won a
good half of the store's contents, and was proposing to play him for his
share in the store itself, he cried quits. We loaded our plunder on the
wagon. Near Bloxton, or where Bloxton now is, four miles west of
Patagonia, we managed to upset the wagon, and half the whiskey and wheat
never was retrieved. We had the wherewithal to "fix things" with the
officers, however, and went unreproved, even making a tidy profit
selling what stuff we had left to the soldiers.
At that time the company maintained gardens on a part of what afterwards
was the Sanford Rancho, and at one time during 1868 I was gardening
there with three others. The gardens were on a ranch owned by William
Morgan, a discharged sergeant of our company. Morgan had one Mexican
working for him and there were four of us from the Fort stationed there
to cultivate the gardens and keep him company--more for the latter
reason than the first, I believe. We took turn and turn about of one
month at the Fort and one month at the gardens, which were about
fourteen miles from the Fort.
One of us was Private White, of Company K. He was a mighty fine young
fellow, and we all liked him. Early one morning the five of us were
eating breakfast in the cabin, an illustration of which is given, and
White went outside for something. Soon afterward we heard several
reports, but, figuring that White had shot at some animal or other, we
did not even get up from our meal. Finally came another shot, and then
another, and Morgan got up and peered from the door. He gave a cry.
"Apaches!" he shouted. "They're all around! Poor White----"
It was nip-and-tuck then. For hours we kept up a steady fire at the
Indians, who circled the house with blood-curdling whoops. We killed a
number of them before they finally took themselves off. Then we went
forth to look for White. We found our comrade lying on his back a short
distance away, his eyes staring unseeingly to the sky. He was dead. We
carried him to the house and discussed the situation.
"They'll come back," said Morgan, with conviction.
"Then it's up to one of us to ride to the Fort," I said.
But Morgan shook his head.
"There isn't a horse anywhere near," he said.
We had an old army mule working on the gardens and I bethought myself of
him.
"There's the mule," I suggested.
My companions were silent. That mule was the slowest creature in
Arizona, I firmly believed. It was as much as he could do to walk, let
alone gallop.
"Somebody's got to go, or we'll all be killed," I said. "Let's draw
lots."
They agreed and we found five straws, one of them shorter than the rest.
These we drew, and the short one fell to me.
I look back on that desperate ride now with feelings akin to horror.
Surrounded with murderous savages, with only a decrepit mule to ride and
fourteen miles to go, it seemed impossible that I could get through
safely. My companions said good-bye to me as though I were a scaffold
victim about to be executed. But get through I did--how I do not
know--and the chillingly weird war-calls of the Indians howling at me
from the hills as I rode return to my ears even now with extraordinary
vividness.
And, as Morgan had prophesied, the Apaches did "come back." It was a
month later, and I had been transferred back to the Fort, when a nephew
of Colonel Dunkelberger and William J. Osborn of Tucson were riding
near Morgan's ranch. Apaches ambushed them, slew the Colonel's nephew,
whose name has slipped my memory, and wounded Osborn. The latter, who
was a person of considerable importance in the Territory, escaped to
Morgan's ranch. An expedition of retaliation was immediately organized
at the Fort and the soldiers pursued the assassins into Mexico, finally
coming up with them and killing a number. I did not accompany the troops
on this occasion, having been detailed to the Santa Rita range to bring
in lumber to be used in building houses.
I returned from the Santa Ritas in July and found an order had been
received at the Fort from the War Department that all men whose times
had expired or were shortly to expire should be congregated in Tucson
and from there marched to California for their discharge. A few weeks
later I went to the Old Pueblo and, together with several hundred others
from all parts of the Territory, was mustered out and started on the
return march to Wilmington where we arrived about October 1. On the
twelfth of October I was discharged.
After working as cook for a short time for a company that was
constructing a railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I moved to the
latter place and obtained employment in the Old Bella Union Hotel as
chef. John King was the proprietor of the Bella Union. Until Christmas
eve I stayed there, and then Sergeant John Curtis, of my company, who
had been working as a saddler for Banning, a capitalist in
Wilmington, came back to the kitchen and said:
[Illustration: CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA, NEAR BLOXTON, 1914. BUILT IN
1868]
"John, old sport, let's go to 'Frisco."
"I haven't," I told him, "enough change to set 'em up across the street,
let alone go to 'Frisco."
For answer Curtis pulled out a wallet, drew therefrom a roll of bills
that amounted to about $1,000, divided the pile into two halves, laid
them on the table and indicated them with his forefinger.
"John," he offered, "if you'll come with me you can put one of those
piles in your pocket. What do you say?"
Inasmuch as I had had previously little opportunity to really explore
San Francisco, the idea appealed to me and we shook hands on the
bargain. Christmas morning, fine, cloudless and warm, found us seated on
the San Jose stage. San Jose then was nearly as large a place as Tucson
is now--about twenty odd thousand, if I remember rightly. The stage
route carried us through the mission country now so widely exploited by
the railroads. Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey were all
towns on the way, Monterey being probably the largest. The country was
very thinly occupied, chiefly by Spanish haciendas that had been in the
country long before gold was discovered. The few and powerful owners of
these estates controlled practically the entire beautiful State of
California prior to '49, and at the time I write of still retained a
goodly portion of it. They grew rich and powerful, for their lands were
either taken by right of conquest or by grants from the original Mexican
government, and they paid no wages to their peons. These Spaniards, with
the priests, however, are to be credited with whatever progress
civilization made in the early days of California. They built the first
passable roads, they completed rough surveys and they first discovered
the wonderful fertility of the California soils. The towns they built
were built solidly, with an eye to the future ravages of earthquakes and
of Time, which is something the modern builder often does not do. There
are in many of their pueblos old houses built by the Spaniards in the
middle part of the eighteenth century which are still used and occupied.
We arrived in San Francisco a few days after our departure from Los
Angeles, and before long the city had done to us what she still does to
so many--had broken us on her fickle wheel of fortune. It wasn't many
days before we found ourselves, our "good time" a thing of the past, "up
against it."
"John," said Curtis, finally, "we're broke. We can't get no work.
What'll we do?"
I thought a minute and then suggested the only alternative I could think
of. "Let's get a blanket," I offered.
"Getting a blanket" was the phrase commonly in use when men meant to say
that they intended to enlist. Curtis met the idea with instant approval,
if not with acclamation, and, suiting the action to the words, we
obtained a hack and drove to the Presidio, where we underwent the
examination for artillerymen. Curtis passed easily and was accepted, but
I, owing to a wound in my ankle received during the war, was refused.
Curtis obtained the customary three days' leave before joining his
company and for that brief space we roamed about the city, finishing our
"good time" with such money as Curtis had been able to raise by pawning
and selling his belongings. After the three days were over we parted,
Curtis to join his regiment; and since then I have neither seen nor
heard of him. If he still chances to be living, my best wishes go out to
him in his old age.
For some time I hung around San Francisco trying to obtain employment,
without any luck. I was not then as skillful a gambler as I became in
after years, and, in any case, I had no money with which to gamble. It
was, I found, one thing to sit down to a monte deck at a table
surrounded with people you knew, where your credit was good, and another
to stake your money on a painted wheel in a great hall where nobody
cared whether you won or lost.
Trying to make my little stake last as long as possible, I roomed in a
cheap hotel--the old What Cheer rooming house, and ate but one "two-bit"
meal a day. I was constantly on the lookout for work of some kind, but
had no luck until one day as I was passing up Kearney street I saw a
sign in one of the store windows calling for volunteers for the
Sloop-o'-War Jamestown. After reading the notice a couple of times I
decided to enlist, did so, was sent to Mare Island Navy Yard and from
there boarded the Jamestown.
It was on that vessel that I performed an action that I have not since
regretted, however reprehensible it may seem in the light of present-day
ethics. Smallpox broke out on board and I, fearful of contracting the
dread disease, planned to desert. This would probably not have been
possible today, when the quarantine regulations are so strict, but in
those days port authorities were seldom on the alert to prevent vessels
with diseases anchoring with other shipping, especially in Mexico, in
the waters of which country we were cruising.
When we reached Mazatlan I went ashore in the ordinary course of my
duties as ward-room steward to do some marketing and take the officers'
laundry to be washed. Instead of bringing the marketing back to the ship
I sent it, together with a note telling where the laundry would be
found, and saying good-bye forever to my shipmates. The note written and
dispatched, I quietly "vamoosed," or, as I believe it is popularly
termed in the navy now, I "went over the hill."
My primary excuse for this action was, of course, the outbreak of
smallpox, which at that time and in fact until very recently, was as
greatly dreaded as bubonic plague is now, and probably more.
Vaccination, whatever may be its value in the prevention of the
disease, had not been discovered in the sense that it is now understood
and was not known at all except in the centers of medical practice in
the East.
Smallpox then was a mysterious disease, and certainly a plague. Whole
populations had been wiped out by it, doctors had announced that there
was practically no cure for it and that its contraction meant almost
certain death, and I may thus be excused for my fear of the sickness. I
venture to state, moreover, that if all the men aboard the Jamestown had
had the same opportunity that I was given to desert, they would have
done so in a body.
My second excuse, reader, if one is necessary, is that in the days of
the Jamestown and her sister ships, navy life was very different from
the navy life of today, when I understand generous paymasters are even
giving the jackies ice-cream with their meals. You may be entirely sure
that we got nothing of the kind. Our food was bad, our quarters were
worse, and the discipline was unbearably severe.
THROUGH MEXICO AND BACK TO ARIZONA
"_Know thou the spell of the desert land,
Where Life and Love are free?
Know thou the lure the sky and sand
Hath for the man in me?_"
When I deserted from the sloop-o'-war Jamestown it was with the no
uncertain knowledge that it was distinctly to my best advantage to clear
out of the city of Mazatlan just as rapidly as I could, for the ships of
the free and (presumably) enlightened Republic had not yet swerved
altogether from the customs of the King's Navee, one of which said
customs was to hang deserters at the yard-arm. Sometimes they shot them,
but I do not remember that the gentlemen most concerned had any choice
in the matter. At any rate, I know that it was with a distinct feeling
of relief that I covered the last few yards that brought me out of the
city of Mazatlan and into the open country. In theory, of course, the
captain of the sloop-o'-war Jamestown could not have sent a squad of men
after me with instructions to bring me back off foreign soil dead or
alive, but in practice that is just what he would have done. Theory and
practice have a habit of differing, especially in the actions of an
irate skipper who sees one of his best ward-room stewards vanishing from
his jurisdiction.
Life now opened before me with such a vista of possibilities that I felt
my breath taken away. Here was I, a youth twenty-two years old, husky
and sound physically, free in a foreign country which I felt an instant
liking for, and no longer beholden to the Stars and Stripes for which I
was quite ready to fight but not to serve in durance vile on a
plague-ship. My spirit bounded at the thought of the liberty that was
mine, and I struck northward out of Mazatlan with a light step and a
lighter heart. At the edge of the city I paused awhile on a bluff to
gaze for the last time on the Bay, on the waters of which rode quietly
at anchor the vessel I had a few hours before quit so unceremoniously.
There was no regret in my heart as I stood there and looked. I had no
particular love for Mexico, but then I had no particular love for the
sea, either, and a good deal less for the ships that sailed the sea. So
I turned my back very definitely on that part of my life and set my face
toward the north, where, had I known it, I was to find my destiny
beneath the cloudless turquoise skies of Arizona.
When I left Mazatlan it was with the intention of walking as far as I
could before stopping, or until the weight of the small bundle
containing my worldly possessions tired my shoulders. But it was not to
be so. Only two miles out of the city I came upon a ranch owned by two
Americans, the sight of whom was very welcome to me just then. I had no
idea that I should find any American ranchers in the near neighborhood,
and considered myself in luck. I found that one of the American's names
was Colonel Elliot and I asked him for work. Elliot sized me up, invited
me in to rest up, and on talking with him I found him to be an
exceedingly congenial soul. He was an old Confederate colonel--was
Elliot, but although we had served on opposite sides of the sad war of a
few years back, the common bond of nationality that is always strongest
beyond the confines of one's own land prevented us from feeling any
aloofness toward each other on this account. To me Colonel Elliot was an
American, and a mighty decent specimen of an American at that--a friend
in need. And to Colonel Elliot also I was an American, and one needing
assistance. We seldom spoke of our political differences, partly because
our lives speedily became too full and intimate to admit of the petty
exchange of divergent views, and partly because I had been a boy during
the Civil War and my youthful brain had not been sufficiently mature to
assimilate the manifold prejudices, likes, dislikes and opposing
theories that were the heritage of nearly all those who lived during
that bloody four years' war.
I have said that Colonel Elliot was a friend in need. There is an apt
saying that a "friend in need is a friend indeed," and such was Colonel
Elliot as I soon found. For I had not been a week at the ranch when I
was struck down with smallpox, and throughout that dangerous sickness,
lasting several weeks, the old Colonel, careless of contagion, nursed
me like a woman, finally bringing me back to a point where I once again
had full possession of all my youthful health and vigor.
I do not just now recall the length of time I worked for Elliot and his
partner, but the stay, if not long, was most decidedly pleasant. I grew
to speak Spanish fluently, haunted the town of Mazatlan (from which the
Jamestown had long since departed), and made as good use generally of my
temporary employment as was possible. I tried hard to master the patois
of the peon as well as the flowery and eloquent language of the
aristocracy, for I knew well that should I at any time seek employment
as overseer at a rancho either in Mexico or Arizona, a knowledge of the
former would be indispensable, while a knowledge of the latter was at
all times useful in Mexico, especially in the cities, where the
possession of the cultured dialect marked one for special favors and
secured better attention at the stores.
The Mexicans I grew to understand and like more and more the longer I
knew them. I found the average Mexican gentleman a model of politeness,
a Beau Brummel in dress and an artist in the use of the flowery terms
with which his splendid language abounds. The peons also I came to know
and understand. I found them a simple-minded, uncomplaining class,
willingly accepting the burdens which were laid on them by their
masters, the rich landlords; and living, loving and playing very much as
children. They were good-hearted--these Mexicans, and hospitable to the
last degree. This, indeed, is a characteristic as truly of the Mexican
of today as of the period of which I speak. They would, if needs be,
share their last crust with you even if you were an utter stranger, and
many the time some lowly peon host of mine would insist on my occupying
his rude bed whilst he and his family slept on the roof! Such
warm-hearted simplicity is very agreeable, and it was a vast change from
the world of the Americans, especially of the West, where the watchword
was: "Every man for himsel', and the de'il tak' the hindmost." It may be
remarked here that the de'il often took the foremost, too!
When I left the hospitable shelter of Colonel Elliot's home I moved to
Rosario, Sinaloa, where was situated the famous Tajo mine which has made
the fortunes of the Bradbury family. It was owned then by Don Luis
Bradbury, senior, the same Bradbury whose son is now such a prominent
figure in the social and commercial life of San Francisco and Los
Angeles. I asked for work at the Bradbury mine, obtained it, and started
in shoveling refuse like any other common laborer at the munificent wage
of ten dollars per week, which was a little less than ten dollars more
than the Mexican peons laboring at the same work obtained. I had not
been working there long, however, when some suggestions I made to the
engineer obtained me recognition and promotion, and at the end of a
year, when I quit, I was earning $150 per month, or nearly four times
what my wage had been when I started.
And then--and then, I believe it was the spell of the Arizona plains
that gripped the strings of my soul again and caused them to play a
different tune.... Or was it the prospect of an exciting and more or
less lawless life on the frontier that beckoned with enticing lure? I do
not know. But I grew to think more and more of Arizona, the Territory in
which I had reached my majority and had found my manhood; and more and
more I discovered myself longing to be back shaking hands with my old
friends and companions, and shaking, too, dice with Life itself. So one
day saw me once more on my way to the wild and free Territory, although
this time my road did not lie wholly across a burning and uninhabited
desert.
It is a hard enough proposition now to get to the United States from
Mazatlan, or any other point in Mexico, when the Sud Pacifico and other
railroads are shattered in a dozen places and their schedules, those
that have them, are dependent on the magnanimity of the various tribes
of bandits that infest the routes; but at the time I write of it was
harder.
To strike north overland was possible, though not to be advised, for
brigands infested the cedar forests of Sinaloa and southern Sonora; and
savage Yaquis, quite as much to be feared as the Apaches of further
north, ravaged the desert and mountain country. I solved the difficulty
finally by going to Mazatlan and shipping from that port as a deck-hand
on a Dutch brigantine, which I remember because of its exceptionally
vile quarters and the particularly dirty weather we ran up against on
our passage up the Gulf. The Gulf of California, especially the mouth of
it, has always had an evil reputation among mariners, and with justness,
but I firmly believe the elements out-did themselves in ferocity on the
trip I refer to.
Guaymas reached, my troubles were not over, for there was still the long
Sonora desert to be crossed before the haven of Hermosillo could be
reached. At last I made arrangements with a freighting outfit and went
along with them. I had had a little money when I started, but both
Mazatlan and Guaymas happened to be chiefly filled with cantinas and
gambling-hells, and as I was not averse to frequenting either of these
places of first resort to the lonely wanderer, my money-bag was
considerably depleted when at last I arrived in the beautiful capital of
Sonora. I was, in fact, if a few odd dollars are excepted, broke, and
work was a prime necessity. Fortunately, jobs were at that time not very
hard to find.
There was at that time in Hermosillo a house named the Casa Marian Para,
kept by one who styled himself William Taft. The Casa Marian Para will
probably be remembered in Hermosillo by old-timers now--in fact, I have
my doubts that it is not still standing. It was the chief stopping-house
in Sonora at that time. I obtained employment from Taft as a cook, but
stayed with it only long enough to procure myself a "grub-stake," after
which I "hit the grit" for Tucson, crossing the border on the Nogales
trail a few days later. I arrived in Tucson in the latter part of the
year 1870, and obtained work cooking for Charlie Brown and his family.
It was while I was employed as chef in the Brown household that I
made--and lost, of course, a fortune. No, it wasn't a very big fortune,
but it was a fortune certainly very curiously and originally made. I
made it by selling ham sandwiches!
Charlie Brown owned a saloon not far from the Old Church Plaza. It was
called Congress Hall, had been completed in 1868 and was one of the most
popular places in town. Charlie was fast becoming a plutocrat. One night
in the saloon I happened to hear a man come in and complain because
there wasn't a restaurant in town that would serve him a light snack at
that time of night except at outrageous prices.
"That's right," said another man near me, "if somebody would only have
the sense to start a lunch-counter here the way they have them in the
East he'd make all kinds of money."