trying to determine which of us had the best dogs. Incidentally, we
wrecked some promising thoroughbreds. The question of the superiority of
our dogs was never settled. We always left the door open for one more
race.

Our place was the haven of all the boys of my acquaintance. When I was
attending school at Marysville some boy came home with me nearly every
Friday night. We would work at whatever was being done on the place
Saturday forenoon, but the afternoon was ours. With the old gun we took
to the pasture, hunted for game, for birds' nests and even turtles'
nests. The mud turtle, common to all California waters, laid an
astounding number of very hard shelled, oblong, white eggs, considerably
larger than a pigeon's egg. They deposited them in the sand on the
shores of the slough, covering them up, leaving them for the sun to
hatch. They always left some tell-tale marks by which we discovered the
nest. Often we got several hundred eggs in an afternoon. They were very
rich, and of good flavor.

There were many coons and a few wildcats in the pasture woods. With the
aid of a dog we had great sport with them. Hard pressed, they would take
to the trees, from which we would shoot them. On one occasion we found
four little spitfire, baby lynx, which we carried home and later traded
to the proprietor of a menagerie. We got some money and two pair of
fan-tail pigeons in exchange for them. When quite small they were the
most vicious, untamable little varmints imaginable, and as long as we
had them our hands were badly scratched by them.

On the bottom land, each year, we had a large and well assorted
vegetable garden. It produced much more than we could possibly use. We
boys would sell things from the garden for amusement and pin money.