Obviously, he [William Finney] was a man of resourceful initiative. How much easier it would have been, in the face of the frightful Pah-Ute attacks, to close up shop and await the outcome of the fighting. He must have had to swallow a choking lump of company and personal pride to wire Sacramento for public financial aid. Not that he was unaccustomed to a shortage of money. Earlier, when his operating funds had given out, he had gone to Ben Holladay in San Francisco and persuaded him to accept drafts for operating capital. Holladay was there on the persuasion of Finney’s boss in an entirely different venture. Finney probably called on him at the Sacramento and Leidesdorff Street office of Holladay & Russell, brokers of “riding, work and pack” mules for travelers to the Washoe mines.
