Mills left Prescott, Arizona on February 10th, bound by stage for Maricopa where he would catch a train for San Francisco via Los Angeles, but first "as I was about leaving the Sheriff took a man along the street guarded by about 50 men with guns gto the gallows. He was hung in plain view from the steps of my lodging house where I was standing, but I preferred not to look in that direction. It was reported his friends, the roughs, would attempt to rescue him, but they failed to try it. His hame was Hall and he was hung for shooting a man in a drunken fight - whiskey the cause of his troubles..." He goes on to relate details of his journey aboard a "jerky" -"...It is a two-seated wagon and I suppose it gets its name from the way it jerks the passengers over the rough roads," with descriptions of the countryside and agriculture along the way.