A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 125 THE MONUMENT ERECTED TO PETER LASSEN IN HONEY LAKE VALLEY 102 BEING REQUESTED TO CHANGE TREES 119 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. In spite of this escapade, I gradually became a proficient in bare-back riding, vaulting, on the slack-rope and in the trapeze-performance, excelling all the boys attached to the circus, and in consequence became the pet of Old Dan, with whom I remained for three years. My youthful ambition to shine in this career was, however, brought to an untimely close. An uncle of mine discovered me on the Mississippi, and immediately wrote to my father, who, at the time I left home, had been the landlord of the United States Hotel in Galena. Making a somewhat wrathful pilgrimage in search of his missing offspring, he caught up with me at some small place in Kentucky, reclaimed me from the vocation of my choice, and after taking me home and chastising me in a truly parental fashion, bound me out as an apprentice to the village blacksmith. It would be needless to say, that the forge was by no means as pleasant an occupation, to my youthful mind, as the daring life on the sawdust of the arena.