Mammy Kate, own daughter of Nancy Gooch of Coloma, would scold when I came home with torn skirt and a bump on my forehead: “Now, den, look at dat chile! Been hoss-racin' agin su'ah as Moses was in Egypt! I shall suttenly enjine yo' fathah to done gin' yo' plow-hoss to ride so yo's gwi' git beat wiff yo' racin', and quit. Spects yo' had 'nothah tumble, didn't you'? You' wait till Katie gits de camph-fire an' put on dat haid.” So did Katie's scoldings invariably end in renewed pampering of her “chile,” and so did I continue to race every horse in the community and usually to win. With one small ear laid back to listen for the other horses, little white Flossie flew along the grassy track, darting around the chapparal bushes which had grown up and jumping the fallen tree trunks. Suddenly we came out of the woods and she shied violently at a man who was digging a fence-post hole, directly in the road. I always rode Indian fashion without stirrups of any kind, so of course I was catapulted neatly over her head. “Hello. Otto,” I said, remaining seated in the road and catching at Floss' bridle rein, “what have you found?” Otto was sifting the loose dirt in the hole through eager fingers. “Hello! I've found some money here in the ground. I wonder--oh, yes, I've heard my mother tell about it! This was the old pioneer road and it was at this very spot that Rattlesnake Dick and some of his gang held up the Wells-Fargo stage coach and got such a lot of money. They say there's still $40,000 buried on Trinity Mountain, half of what was waiting when Rattlesnake Dick got killed.” Rattlesnake Dick, pirate of the placers, prince of highwaymen! Magical name--irridescent bubble from the pipe of romance. Proud, imperious, bitter Dick! What a splendid old name he had been born to, and what blows Fate had dealt him which led to his tragic end! The others had come up by this time and we sat in a circle listening again to the story of the bold and brilliant Englishman whom two undeserved jail sentences had turned into such a picturesque dare-devil of a highwayman. However, I disagreed with Otto's version of the robber chief. “But you have made him out all bad,” I told him. “I have heard the story often, and he wasn't all bad by any means.” “He was a wild desperado. Why, even after he was dead and lying on the sidewalk in Auburn, a man came up and kicked his face.” “Yes, and they say that everybody in the county was mad about it, and when the man ran for supervisor more than a year later, no decent person would vote for him and he lost his election.” Now, the true story of Rattlesnake Dick is this, and I never tire of hearing it: “Would you present me to your sister's friend, then, George?” “Why not.” “I am an Ishmailite! I, the son of an honorable English gentleman, have done a term in prison.”