Fired with this all-pervading thought I projected one of the grandest of my failures. I organized the “Mulford Mining, Prospecting, and Land Company,” whose intent was to take up and hold all the mineral veins I found and secure all desirable locations I might come upon for farms, town sites, and other purposes. “Holding” a mineral vein, or whatever I might imagine to be a mineral vein, could be done after the proper notices were put up, by performing on such veins one day’s work a month, and such “day’s work” was supposed to be done by turning up a few shovelfuls of dirt on the property. My Company consisted of thirty members, who lived at varying distances apart, within and without the county of Tuolumne. For my services as general prospector, discoverer, and holder of all properties accumulated (by myself) I was to receive from each member three dollars per month. I fixed this princely stipend myself, being then ever in fear that I should overcharge others for services rendered. By dint of great exertion, I succeeded in getting one-third of the members together one hot summer afternoon in a Montezuma grocery. I unfolded then the Company’s Constitution and By-Laws, written by myself at great length on several sheets of foolscap pasted together. I read the document. It provided for the Company a President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Board of Directors. It set forth their duties and my duties as “General Prospector.” I was particularly stringent and rigid regarding myself and my responsibilities to the Company. The fragment of the new Company present assented to everything, paid in their first installment of three dollars, and bade me go forth and “strike something rich” as quickly as possible. I went forth at first afoot with the few dollars paid me. I subsisted in a hap-hazard--indeed I must say beggarly fashion, stopping with mining friends and dependent to great extent on their hospitality, while I “held” the few claims I had already found and found others in their neighborhood. At last I found a man who subscribed the use of a horse for the summer in consideration of being enrolled as a shareholder. On similar terms I gained a saddle, a shot-gun, a dog, and some provisions. This put the “Company” on a more stable footing, for I was now no longer dependent on house or hospitality, and could stop wherever night overtook me, and wood, water, and grass were at hand. My horse I think was the slowest of his kind in the Great West, and my gun kicked so vigorously when discharged that I frequently sustained more injury than the game aimed at.