In the spring they moved northward, through Ventura and Santa Barbara; thence through the mountains to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo, again over the high hills and onward until they came to San Jose, where they rented the Rancho Santa Teresa and pastured their sheep for fourteen months. They sheared and sold their wool to Moore and Folger, familiar names in those old days. They sold wethers for mutton at $16 a head and bought a thousand sheep at $5.00. Then in the summer of 1855 they moved to Monterey county in search of feed, and, in October, bought from Francisco Perez Pacheco the Rancho San Justo, half of which they soon sold to their friend Col. Hollister. It is on this latter portion that the city of Hollister now stands. [Illustration: RANCHO SAN JUSTO] CHAPTER VI RANCHO SAN JUSTO With the purchase of the first land, the Rancho San Justo, Flint, Bixby & Co., were definitely located, and for forty years San Juan Bautista was their headquarters. After father’s death the firm was dissolved and the properties separated, the Flints retaining the lands in the north and the Bixby heirs those in Southern California. As time went on the flocks increased beyond the capacity of the original ranch to support them, and since the wool business was profitable, other land was bought. As a little girl at San Justo I used to hear my father tell of necessary trips over to the “Worry-Worry” ranch. In later years I discovered that he was speaking of the Huero-Huero. Another of the ranches in Central California was the San Joaquin. In 1866 the firm bought in Los Angeles county the Ranchos Los Cerritos, and a little later took a part interest in the adjoining Los Alamitos. They held a half interest in the western part of the Palos Verdes, the seventeen thousand acres, which since its sale has figured so prominently in real estate literature. Flint, Bixby & Co. were also half owners of the great San Joaquin Ranch in Orange Co. with James Irvine, to whom they sold their interest in the late seventies. They owned these great tracts of land when there were so few people in Southern California, that it was possible to utilize them for grazing purposes. When settlers came in the lands were sold in comparatively large parcels to men who had sufficient capital to subdivide and retail them as small farms or town lots. Flint, Bixby & Co. were primarily stock raisers, but they branched out into a number of other lines. Beginning in 1869 they operated the Coast Line Stage Co., which carried passengers, Wells Fargo express and mails between San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, until 1877, when the Southern Pacific completed a line between the first two cities. The stage time between San Francisco and Los Angeles was sixty-six hours.