A big “husky” who answered to the name of Cherokee Bob came our way and stopped awhile.  He announced himself a foot racer, and a contest was soon arranged with Soda Bill of Nevada City, and each went into a course of training at his own camp.  Bob found some way to get the best time that Bill could make, and comparing it with his own, said he could beat in that race.  So when it came off our boys gathered up their money, and loaded down the stage, inside and out, departing with swinging hats and flying colors, and screaming in wild delight at the sure prospect of doubling their dust.  In a few days they all came back after the style of half drowned roosters.

Bob had ‘thrown’ the race and skipped with his money before they could catch him.  Had he been found he would have been urgently hoisted to the first projecting limb, but he was never seen again.  The boys were sad and silent for a day or two, but a look of cheerful resignation soon came upon their faces as they handled pick and shovel, and the world rolled on as before.

One fall we had a county election, and among the candidates for office was our townsman, H.M.  Moore, from whom Moore’s Flat secured its name.  He was the Democratic nominee for County Judge, and on the other side was David Belden, he whom Santa Clara County felt proud to honor as its Superior Judge, and when death claimed him, never was man more sincerely mourned by every citizen.

The votes were counted, and Belden was one ahead.  Moore claimed another count, and this time a mistake was discovered in the former count, but unfortunately it gave Belden a larger majority than before, and his adversary was forced to abandon the political fight.

In the fifties I traveled from the North Yuba River to San Bernardino on different roads, and made many acquaintances and friends.  I can truly say that I found many of these early comers who were the most noble men and women of the earth.  They were brave else they had never taken the journey through unknown deserts, and through lands where wild Indians had their homes.  They were just and true to friends, and to real enemies, terribly bitter and uncompromising.  Money was borrowed and loaned without a note or written obligation, and there was no mention made of statute laws as a rule of action.  When a real murderer or horsethief was caught no lawyers were needed nor employed, but if the community was satisfied as to the guilt and identity of the prisoner, the punishment was speedily meted out, and the nearest tree was soon ornamented with his swinging carcass.

Many of these worthy men broke the trail on the rough way that led to the Pacific Coast, drove away all dangers, and made it safer for those who dared not at first risk life and fortune in the journey, but, encouraged by the success of the earliest pioneers, ventured later on the eventful trip to the new gold fields.  I cannot praise these noble men too much; they deserve all I can say, and much more, too; and if a word I can say shall teach our new citizens to regard with reverent respect the early pioneers who laid the foundations of the glory, prosperity and beauty of the California of to-day, I shall have done all I hope to, and the historian of another half century may do them justice, and give to them their full need of praise.