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IN ONE of the early chapters of these most reliable reminiscences mention was made of McFarland and his connection with J. G. Downey in the drug store, then the only one in the Angel city, and as I have a story to tell in which Mac played a part, it will be in place to inform the reader who and what our present hero was. Doctor J. P. McFarland came from Tennessee in '49, and after one year of roughing in the mines, came here and formed a partnership with John G. Downey (the honored ex-Governor of California), who had preceded him by a half year or more. McFarland was a graduate of Jefferson College, a perfect specimen of the American backwoods gentleman in physical appearance, manners and general get up; in fact what we call a first rate fellow, and a politician withal. In '52 we sent Mac to our ambulatory capital as Representative, and in '53 we promoted him to the high dignity of Senator, and he might have gone higher but for having introduced a bill that would have been productive of much good, and was in reality a step in the right direction, notwithstanding it was a rear step in our onward march of civilization. As before stated, in the years referred to there were thousands of Mission Indians in

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Southern California who stood in the ante-room of ruin. To save them, and to make them useful to the country, in place of becoming vagrants, McFarland introduced a bill in the Senate to have all the young Indians apprenticed, the boys until they were twenty-one and the girls eighteen years of age. The bill in its general provisions was substantially the same as the present law of apprentices, but unfortunately for the bill and its author it contained the word Indian, when lo! a torrent of newspaper wrath was hurled at the bill and showered on the head of poor Mac, which made him feel that the most unfortunate day of his life was that which made him a Senator. "McFarland's peon bill," so designated, was made to appear "the most glaring, bare-faced and outrageous attempt to engraft the barbarous peon laws of Mexico on our free institutions." Mac served his time out in the Senate, came home and attended to his private business. The Indians, boys and girls, became vagabonds and our free institutions and John Brown's soul go marching on and McFarland is an honored and wealthy resident of his native State, and if not reminded by these reminiscences of the fate of the Mission Indians, may have forgotten all about them.

In '53, when Mac was a candidate, and when Los Angeles county included San Bernardino, he invited the author to accompany him to Jurupa, Agua Mansa and San Bernardino on an electioneering tour, which said invitation being duly accepted, the two of us, well mounted, set out, making the hospitable house of Col. Williams, at Chino, our first stopping-place. From thence we proceeded to Jurupa, where we arrived the day preceding the election. Then it was that Mac informed me that he had a little precinct staked out that required his personal attendance; that the "most useful man," having so admirably succeeded at the presidential election of the preceding year, he felt the precinct well worthy of his individual attention, and that he had conciliated old Louis Rubideaux,

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and depended on me to enlist Lieut. Smith, of the Jurupa military post, to go with me to look out for his interests in the then Mormon stockade camp at San Bernardino. With these dispositions we retired for the night, and went to sleep listening to a lecture from Rubideaux on his Anglo-Norman ancestry, their domiciliation in the Rocky Mountains, the exploits of mountain men in Indian fighting, of Bridger, of Carson, Godey, Sublettes, of Jim Beckworth, and of Pegleg Smith. I may, in the course of this history, repeat what I remember of the Anglo-Norman-Rocky-Mountain- American lecture, and the part of it referring to old Pegleg in particular, for the reason that I had three years theretofore the distinguished honor of enjoying the hospitality of the renowned Pegleg in his Rocky Mountain camp. When old Louis finished his lecture, his bottle and pipe I never knew, but morning came, and with it election day, and in due time the Senatorial aspirant, Lieut. Smith, and myself, with prancing steeds and gingling spurs, clattered into the plaza of Agua Mansa, where the polls had already been opened, but as yet voting had not commenced. Mac's opponent was alive as to the Agua Mansa vote, and had his emissaries on the field, and the level-headed McFarland saw at a glance that whatever vantage he gained would be at the price of hard fighting. Friar Juan, learning wisdom from his experience with the "most useful man," declined expressing his preference for either Bigler, the Democratic candidate for Governor, or for Waldo, his Whig opponent. Neither would he favor my Senatorial friend; in fact, like the shoemaker when called on to become a candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, said he thought he had better let politics alone, and "stick to his last." So hastily dispatching a courier to hurry up Don Louis, McFarland and his henchmen commenced skirmishing for votes, his opponents in like manner being out in full force, horse, foot and quartermaster's men. The skirmish lines soon became engaged, and such a

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scramble for votes, or for anything else, was never before known in that veritable Arcadia. Drowsy Dons were aroused from their morning slumbers, and given to understand that unless they hurried to the polls and voted, their liberty and religion would not only be jeopardized, but would certainly be lost. Laborers up to their knees in water, irrigating garden and field, would be captured and brought up with round turns, and informed that it was a serious offence against the new dispensation to fail to vote; and in spite of the porques and quien sabes, Agua Mansa, in the matter of patriotic voting, outdid herself, more votes being polled in that superlatively honest town than the whole number of the population, men, women and children.

At about seven or eight o'clock in the morning a contest opened at the polls that threatened, at one time, serious complications. McFarland and myself were standing near by, when Lieutenant Smith called out to McFarland, "Say, Mac; can a nigger vote in California?" "No, certainly not," was the quick response. "All right," said Smith, "I've challenged this fellow's vote." Then Mac bethinking himself that possibly in his hasty, hot Southern blood he had, may be, lost a vote, said to me, "Bell, go quick, and in some way or other see who he is voting for." So, by a dexterous manoeuvre I succeeded in taking the colored patriot to one side and discovered that he was voting for McFarland, so informing him that it was "all right," Mac came to the front and told Smith that on second thought he had come to the conclusion that California being a free State he thought colored persons entitled to the elective franchise, and thought the challenge should be withdrawn. "No," Smith said, "I am a Virginian, sir, and I have voted, sir, at this polls, sir, and I would rather die, sir, than to vote, sir, at the same polls, sir, with a nigger, sir. If I hadn't voted, sir, it would be all right, sir; but as it is, sir, I'll be d--d, sir, if this nigger shall vote, sir." Here was a dilemma for poor

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Mac; the nigger had his name on his ticket, and that vote must be polled at whatever cost. On the other hand Lieutenant Smith was working for Mac, and was held in high esteem in San Bernardino by Lyman, Rich, and John Brown the Alcalde, the leading men of the settlement, so it would not do to offend Smith. So having arranged that the challenge should stand in abeyance for awhile, Smith, myself and Mac adjourned to old Truxillo's casa where the senora had, by this time and by pre-arrangement, prepared a most inviting breakfast, and I do say and will ever maintain that in getting up substantial, appetizing breakfasts the Mexican women are superlative. Smith was a ladies' man as well as a warrior, spoke Spanish quite well, and soon became involved in pleasant converse with the senoritas then and there being, and with all dispatch Mac and I dispatched our breakfast, and leaving Smith we hied ourselves to the polling place. "Now we'll vote our nigger without Smith knowing it," said Mac. On our arrival Mac addressed himself to the man of color, when it was found that he could not speak one word of English. "Why," said Mac. "this man is not a nigger, he is a Mexican, and of course entitled to the elective franchise." The man of color referred to was about six feet high, as straight as an arrow, and as black as a polished boot, with hair peculiarly kinky. He was elegantly dressed in extreme ranchero style, and was in all reality a decent-looking, well-mannered man. Now the question of his voting was brought up, and the judges who were all Mexicans, with a borrowed Quartermaster's-man for clerk, were requested by Mac to enquire of his birth, nationality and previous condition. He answered that he was a Mexican, had always been a Mexican, that his mother was a Mexican, that his father was a--quien sabe? he could say positively that when the gringos got California all of the Mexicans became Americans, and of course he like all the rest was an American, and as such claimed all the privileges, that of voting as well; that he

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knew the law, and by the law he would live and die; he said he was a patriot, and so said Mac--so affirmed the judges, and to which every one assented--and the man of color voted, and Smith was saved the mortification of knowing it, as I hurriedly returned to the Truxillo house, and tearing Smith away we started for San Bernardino, arriving before noon and in time to get a good dinner at Bishop Crosby's hotel.

We found at San Bernardino such interest manifested in the election as amounted almost to an excitement, and at dinner I found the cause thereof to be that William Waldo, the Whig candidate for Governor, was reputed, among the Mormons, to have belonged to the Missouri mob that murdered Joe Smith, and a bitter aversion to him, and a marked preference for Bigler, was the general theme of conversation. I ventured to remark that they were mistaken, that I understood Waldo was not a " Pike" at all, and that he was, anyway, sure to be elected. "He will not get a vote in San Bernardino," said Cook, one of the dinner-table party. "He is sure to get one vote," said I, "for I will go straight to the polls and vote for him, as soon as I've finished my dinner." "I'll whip you, if you do," said Cook. "I think not," said I, and my partizan blood being up, I got up from my half-finished dinner, went to the polls, and cast the only Whig vote polled at that election in San Bernardino. Getting back to Bishop Crosby's, Smith informed me that Cook, who was an ugly fellow, was bent on having a difficulty with me, and that as he wished to have a little repairing done on his saddle, we would go to the saddler shop first, and then he would see some of the Mormon officials, and have the quarrelsome Cook put under restraint. Accordingly we went to the saddler shop, which had two rooms--one a front room, where the work was exposed for sale, and a rear one for a work-shop. Smith went into the rear room with his saddle, and I took a seat in the front. In a moment in come Cook, with a long, old fashioned rifle, and, half raising it, angrily said: "Did you,

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sir, vote for William Waldo?" addressing me. Those who know the author, never accused him of either patience or indecision, so my answer was to sieze Cook's gun, wrest it from him and break it over his shoulder, and then light into him with the barrel. In a moment Smith and the saddler were promptly at hand, and restored peace, and Cook took his departure, and we all thought the affair was at an end. Not so, however. In a short time Cook returned with Cliff, the Mormon Sheriff, who, with a warrant sworn out by Cook, arrested and carried me before Alcalde Brown. Now, be it known that the said Brown was an old mountaineer, and, like all of that class of men, was full of a generous manhood, love of fair play, and was, withal, a high-toned, honorable man; and when I was called upon to explain why and wherefore Cook's gun had been so broken, Smith, the saddler, and Bishop Crosby came forward and stated the case. Whereupon Alcalde Brown lectured Cook severely and fined him $50, for having been in the first place the aggressor. He then apologized, in behalf of the people of San Bernardino, and said: "Although, young man, the Mormons here are, to a man, opposed to Waldo in this election, we are, nevertheless, American citizens, and not only claim the right to vote as we see fit, but to maintain that right in behalf of others who differ from us. We also claim to be a hospitable people, and I make this example of Cook so as to deter others from like treatment of any stranger who may in the future visit us." I afterward became well acquainted with many of our Mormon neighbors and was on several raids with them, and found them to be of the very best fellows I ever had anything to do with, and when in 1859 the majority of the Mormon population in San Bernardino foolishly obeyed the order of Brigham Young, abandoned their homes and returned to Salt Lake, Southern California lost the most active, energetic and enterprising part of the population contained within our borders. I have a very pleasant recollection of the early

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Mormon settlers of our beautiful southern sister. When the vote was counted in San Bernardino it was found that Waldo had received one vote, upon which President Lyman, who was present, laughingly remarked, "Well, sure enough, Cook's man voted for Waldo." The vote was duly returned and I related this reminiscence only to show the fairness, the honesty and the generous feeling then prevailing among our Mormon neighbors and as a set- off to the many stories told, true or false, of their barbarous-like doings in the great Mormon capital, and so strangely in contrast with above related. The result of that election was of course in favor of " I, John Bigler," McFarland carrying the two counties of Los Angeles and San Diego by a very handsome majority, was triumphantly elected and was all in all a most superior man, and his bill concerning our Mission Indian boys and girls was one of the most beneficent Indian measures ever proposed. But revolutions never go backwards, and Mac's measure and the way it was received so disgusted him with politics that he threw up the business entirely and retired to the cooling shades of private life.

Pegleg Smith was a Rocky Mountain man of great renown in his time, and ranked high as a leader, not of that high type of mountain honor and chivalry as pertained to the Sublettes, Carson, Bridger and others of that standard of excellence, but rather of the Indian freebooting class, as Jim Beckworth and others of that ilk of whom I have heard, but whose names I cannot now recall. Pegleg was not a trader, neither was he in the strict sense of the word a trapper, but was a trafficker among the Indians in horses, generally having a large supply on hand, and would at any time join a war party of one tribe to war upon another, with an agreement to take a certain prorata of the captured horses in payment for his valuable services. It was on one of these Rocky Mountain Indian forays that he lost his leg, which was amputated below the knee by an Indian surgeon, under the direction of Pegleg himself, the

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only surgical instruments used being a hunting knife and a small Indian or key-hole saw. The loss of his ambulatory member did not, however, incapacitate this hardy hero for war and raiding, but on the contrary greatly added to his prestige, and it was, I think, as related to me by Colonel Williams, Rubideaux and others, in 1839 or '40, that he planned and carried into operation the grandest and most successful horse-stealing expedition that ever crossed the Sierra Nevada and raided our angel land. In 1850 the chronicler hereof in crossing the continent halted at Pegleg's camp, at the Soda and Steamboat Springs on Bear river, and found the old fellow in the zenith of happiness and prosperity. He was in the undisputed ownership of hundreds of most beautiful Spanish horses, so called at the time--in this history designated as mustangs, and by the gringos commonly called broncos. Now the truth is that a bottle of whisky or a pound of powder was the price of a horse in Pegleg's camp, and notwithstanding whisky was scarce and powder reasonably plenty among westward bound gold- hunters, Pegleg found ready sale for as many horses as he could spare, and himself, his squaws and his Indian retainers kept gloriously drunk, and were as happy as braves are supposed to be when they reach the happy hunting grounds.

In answer to the question as to how he came to have so many horses, he said, "Oh! I went down into the Spanish country and got them." "What did they cost you?" we inquired. "They cost me very dearly," said he. "Three of my squaws lost brothers, and one of them a father, on that trip, and I came near going under myself. I lost several other braves, and you can depend on it that I paid for all the horses I drove away. Them Spaniards followed us and fought us in a way that Spaniards were never before known to do." "How many did you get?" we again queried. "Only about 3000; the rascals got about half of what we started with away from us, d--n them. I made up my mind to try it over, but then

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our own people taking the country broke up my plans. I never make war on my own people, and in driving off Spanish horses I might be brought in contact with my own country-men, and you know that would not by any manner of means do."

According to Rubideaux, a half-dozen white men and about a hundred and fifty Indians took the war-path on this grand expedition of Pegleg to the "Spanish country," Jim Beckworth having preceded the party as a spy. According to Colonel Williams, Jim, who was a mulatto, came in and made his headquarters at his (Chino) ranch, and pretending that he was going to remain in the country and try his hand at killing sea otter, then a most profitable business, Jim spied out the land, and when Pegleg appeared in the Cajon Pass was ready at hand to counsel, guide and assist him. The raid was rapid and successful. Every ranch south of the Santa Ana to San Juan was visited, and the best horses and mares driven away, and before the rancheros could collect in sufficient force to pursue, the raiders had re-entered the Cajon. The pursuit was, however, made, and so vigorously that the raiders were overtaken, roughly handled, and with the result as above stated by the renowned Pegleg himself. This foray was undoubtedly well planned, and was only preliminary to others to follow of a still more formidable character, which were prevented by the country falling into the hands of the great gringo nation. Pegleg, however, had made a previous grand haul of horses in Los Angeles Valley, in 1835.

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THE author ventures the assertion, and without the fear of contradiction, that no country since the days of the Biblical patriarchs presented such scenes of pastural beauty, general prosperity and Arcadian happiness as did California before the discovery of gold in '48. If I am correct, before the coming of the gringo in '46, the Mexican province of California contained a population of 30,000 inhabitants, not counting the Indians. This population extended along the coast from San Diego to Sonoma, a distance of say 600 miles. There being only a few towns, San Diego being first, then Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Yerba Buena, and last of all going north, Sonoma. Los Angeles was the largest, containing a population of about 2000. Next came Santa Barbara and Monterey, mere villages. Now it is quite easy for the reader to perceive that the major part of the population dwelt on the ranchos. These ranchos ranged in size from one to eleven leagues--that is, in round numbers from five thousand to fifty thousand acres; the owner of each rancho possessing from one thousand to ten thousand head of horned cattle, and from one or two hundred to three thousand or four thousand head of horses, broken and bronco. The country, even when

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the value of a bullock was his hide, tallow and horns, was prosperous, and money plenty. The rancheros dressed well, were well housed, and had an abundance of store--home produce and of foreign importation.

Having heretofore described a California adobe house, a repetition thereof will not now be necessary. The hospitality of the California rancheros was a proverb. A person, though he may have been a stranger, or to the country born, could start from San Diego and journey to Sonoma without its costing him a dollar, and be furnished with a fresh horse at every rancho, leaving instead the one of the previous day's ride. Such a thing as charging a traveler for what he received would have been considered an act of excessive meanness. The social intercourse and amusements of these isolated people were in keeping with their situation. Religious fiestas were celebrated at the pueblos and Missions with great pomp and ceremony, and afforded a pleasant recreation and relief from the monotony of ranch life. When the daughter of a ranchero married, the family either gave a grand fiesta at the rancho or a baile at the pueblo or Mission, to which the whole country were invited, except the lower classes, and to which the people came sometimes from a distance of forty leagues or more, families traveling in their elaborately fixed up carretas, and the beaux transporting the belles before them on their elegant saddles, the beau occupying a seat on the croup with his bridle arm resting on the shoulder of his fair passenger, or encircling her slender waist. While the families were absent on these social expeditions nothing would go amiss on the ranchos, the major-domo and the Indian vaqueros would look out for the herds as though the patron were present; the grass would grow and the cattle would thrive and multiply. These marriage feasts would be of three or four days' duration. Dancing at night and horse-racing during the day, and generally winding up with bull-fighting. The religious feasts celebrated at the

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churches were brilliant, pompous, expensive and imposing, the most important of which were the feast of the Holy Week, Corpus Christi and St. John's Day, the latter being devoted to cock-fighting and kindred amusements, one of which was to take a live cock and after plucking the feathers from and thoroughly greasing his neck, his body would be buried in the middle of the street or road, the greased neck alone being exposed above the ground. Now the game was to dash past the buried cock at full speed on horseback, and lean over and seize the neck and pull the cock from the ground--a most difficult performance. On St. John's Day, in '53, General Andres Pico, Jack Powers and Don Jose Sepulveda were the principal contestants in this exciting sport, Sepulveda being the victor of a well- contested day. The feast of Corpus Christi was one of peculiar religious observance, one of processions, parades and displays. The feast of the Holy Week always ended with a tragedy on the Saturday of Glory, in the annual execution of that eminent traitor, Judas Iscariot, which was done by first erecting a gibbet, then an effigy of Judas was brought forth from an imaginary prison, was mounted on a cart, with his arms pinioned, and being guarded by a file of soldiers, was drawn around the plaza and principal streets, followed by the excited crowd, hooted at, insulted and pelted by the boys and others, and finally, in a most dilapidated and disgraceful condition, was halted in front of the gibbet. Now an orator from the crowd comes forward and delivers a solemn lecture to Judas, and gives him fits, makes his bow and retires, and is succeeded by another orator, who gives Judas another berating, and accuses him of crimes so contemptible and manifold, that, as an impartial judge one feels constrained to take sides with the old sinner, and declare one's utter unbelief in those divers and many crimes charged against him--such, for instance, as "robbing hen-roosts, of stealing old clothes, of dealing cards unfairly in the national game of

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monte, of being a cheat, a vagabond, a Jew, and worst of all, a gringo." Poor old Judas stands this without a word of denial, and by standing mute is deemed to have pleaded guilty, is taken from the cart, raised to and bound on the gibbet. The crowd again commence to insult and pelt him, all of which old Judas endures without a word of remonstrance; stands like a martyr. The tragedy is about to end as the shades of eve begin to fall upon the scene.

Now we hear the strains of martial music, the solemn tap of the drum, and the heavy tramp of military feet as a platoon of infantry file into line and halt in front of the doomed traitor. Now the judgment of the court is read and the death warrant recited, and Judas is given an opportunity to speak for himself, but remains as mute as a dead mutton, which is taken as an acknowledgement that the judgment is just, and that he ought to die. Now the military commander orders his men to "load! shoulder arms! ready! aim! fire!" and poor Judas for the eighteen-hundredth time or more suffers a public execution. The volley riddles him. Then "load and fire at will," and the soldiers take huge delight in firing at Judas until there is not a piece of him left large enough for a cigar wrapper. In the meantime the band plays, the crowd yell and hoot in triumphant glee, and Judas is sent to the devil until Saturday the year coming, when he is again disposed of in the same way.

After the gringo nation had nailed its flag to the mast in this angel land, the ceremonies attending the annual execution of Judas became less inspiriting and satisfactory, because of there being no military to blow the old traitor into the next year. Happily, in 1854, one W. W. Twist, he who had been Sheriff of Santa Barbara and got so worsted in his tussle with Jack Powers, raised a company of volunteer infantry, responded to the pious call of Father Anacleto, marched his company to the plaza, and with Uncle Sam's muskets riddled Judas as

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effectually, as well and as much to the satisfaction of all concerned as ever did the christian soldiers of Spain and Mexico. Twist came to California with Stephenson's regiment, was a natural-born soldier, was an American by birth and a Mexican by marriage and won a crown immortal in being the first, and possibly the last man, who ever used the arms of the gringo government in so pious a way. Alas! poor Twist, he went to Sonora and ascended thence to glory on the smoke of a Mexican revolution.

Some of the great ranchos of the country were baronial in their extent and surroundings. Their proprietors being great dignitaries, maintaining large numbers of vassals--for such really they were, mostly Indians who, under Mexican major domos, did all of the labor for the ranch. The chief major domo, under the immediate direction of the patron, had entire supervision of the business; then there was the major domo de la casa, or steward; the major domo del campo had charge of the vaqueros, or mounted herders in the field; the major domo de las caponeras had full control of the gentle horses; the major domo de las manadas were in charge of thousands of wild mares and their foals, and attended to the branding of colts, others to the marking and branding of cattle. There were hair-rope and halter- makers, others who made cinches or broad hair girths, makers of raw hide riatas, the curers of hides, the triers out of tallow, the hewers of wood and the carreta men, all of whom amounted to hundreds of people dependent upon the ranchero or lord of the manor. At morn you hear the clatter of horses' feet and the jingling of spurs as the mounted men, hat in hand report for duty to the major domo-in-chief and then in detachmets dash off at a full gallop in all directions to their respective duties. By this time coffee is served in the dining hall, and the patron, members of his household, and guests take their morning cup. At nine or ten o'clock the vaqueros begin to return from the field, and a herd

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of gentle horses are driven into the corral, fresh ones are caught, and those of the day before are turned loose, may be not to be used again for a week; the fresh ones are saddled, and then the under major domos report to the chief, who in turn, hat in hand, reports to the patron, and then the whole ranch goes to breakfast, which being disposed of the duties of the day are resumed.

This was about the business of a first-class California rancho in the times of which I write, and prior to the discovery of gold. The Rancho San Pedro, the property of Don Manuel Dominguez, the Rancho San Joaquin, belonging to Don Jose Sepulveda, and the Rancho del Chino, the lordly estate of Isaac Williams, were among the first in California, each of which maintained over 10,000 head of horned cattle and half as many horses, and on my first visit to Chino, in '52, Colonel Williams had just purchased a herd of 35,000 sheep from New Mexico, with which to commence the business of sheep-raising. Rancho San Pedro lies on Wilmington Bay, and extends about ten miles on the way to Los Angeles. Don Manuel, who lorded it over this magnificent California barony when Commodore Mervine, U.S.N., on his march against Los Angeles, in 1846, and on being repulsed made the Dominguez ranch house a temporary halting-place and fortification, is still the fee simple owner of this grand domain of rich bottom land.

Don Manuel Dominguez as a representative California Mexican of the educated and intelligent class, deserves more than a passing mention, and his name should go into and become a part of the history of this country. Don Manuel was a former dignitary of California, having under the Mexican regime held some of the most important offices in the province, once refusing the governorship. On the formation of the State government in '49 he was a most influential member of the constitutional convention. Nothing more is necessary to illustrate the sterling worth of this iron octogenarian than to say that

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through all the misfortunes that befell the great landed proprietors of California he almost alone stands as a sturdy oak midst the desolation around him, all of his contemporaries having bowed, bent and fallen before the storms of adversity. The great landed estates of California in some way or other having passed from the hands of the former proprietors and become the heritage of the stranger. Clad in the armor of good sense and integrity, Don Manuel has battled with adversity, dealing blow for blow, and has come out victorious. All honor to the noble old hero, who now, surrounded by children and grandchildren, and all that goes to make one happy, from his castle gates on the Dominguez hills, with his ancient field-glass sweeps the boundary of his twenty thousand acre field, with full assurance that he has weathered the storm, outrode the billows of adversity, and has anchored his life-boat in the quiet harbor of security, honor and contentment. On the coming of the American the broad doors were thrown open at the Casa Dominguez, and a hospitality was dispensed that was baronial. With the genial Dr. John Brinckerhooff as interpreter and master of ceremonies, the balls, entertainments and company at the Dominguez house were of the best in all California. It is safe to say that Don Manuel has not an enemy among the thousands who know him; honored and beloved by all. Soon after my arrival in this then happy land it became my good fortune to be an invited guest at the house of the generous Don Manuel, and to win, and I hope to have deserved, his friendship and esteem, and will ever treasure the memories clustering around his festive board as of the most agreeable within my quite varied experience.

In May, '53, I was invited to attend a grand rodea (which means a gathering of cattle), which was to take place on the San Joaquin Rancho, forty-two miles east of Los Angeles; so in company with a fellow-gringo I betook myself thither, arriving late in the afternoon. Reaching the ranch house, I was

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surprised at the numbers present; rancheros from all parts of the county, and from San Diego, either in person, followed by a troop of retainers, or by their representatives, the major domos. The Machados of La Ballona, the Picos from San Fernando and San Diego, the Dominguez, the Sepulvedas of Palos Verdes, the Lugos from everywhere, the Avilas of Tahauta, Centinela and Aliso, the Sanchez, the Ocampo, and the Cotas, the Stearns, Rowlands, Reeds, Williams, the Yorbas of Santa Ana, and the Temples of Puente and Cerritos, all were there--a larger army than that with which Andres Pico so roughly handled Gen. Kearney at San Pascual, and placed thirty-two of his troopers hors du combat. All were there, with their trains, to separate and drive to their respective ranchos whatever cattle may have strayed to the confines of San Joaquin. When I unsaddled I could see groups of dozens here and there, seated upon and surrounding a blanket spread upon the ground, engaged in the national game of monte. These were the vaquero servants. At the house I found Don Jose Sepulveda, the owner of San Joaquin, with dignified courtesy receiving the visitors to the rodea, Don Jose's residence, however, being in the city. The ranchmen are busy in dealing out beef and other comestibles to the vaqueros, and the house emits the odors of cookery, for the patrons and major domos, must be entertained as becomes their quality. Full a hundred persons sup at the ranch table, after which conversation commences, and is kept up until long after the writer has passed the boundary of dreamland. Before daylight, however, the whole camp is astir, and when I take my coffee scarce a man is to be seen, all having gone to the field to form the rodea for the day's work. By nine o'clock 30,000 head of horned cattle are brought into one herd, and surrounded by vaqueros, armed with the terrible riata, and now the work of separation and marking begins.

The cattle of these many owners have not only to be

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separated, but the calves must be marked in the ear and branded. All of this work must be done inside of two days, as during the time, this great herd have no food, and may become maddened and unmanageable from hunger and thirst. To penetrate this formidable body, to a gringo, is a most delicate and dangerous operation, but to see how the vaqueros do it, their perfection of horsemanship, the adroitness with which they ply the riata, the cleverness and ease with which they extricate a cow and her calf from this living labarynth, excites one's admiration in the highest degree. As they are extricated each owner receives his own marks and brands the calf and drives them to his separate herd. So by the time the rodea is over the grand herd of 30,000 is broken into many small herds and the vaqueros drive them to their respective ranchos. These rodeas were grand affairs, and the young men of the ranchos vied with each other in feats of horsemanship and throwing the lazo. The one of which I write was disposed of in two days, and a few of the rancheros resolved to remain at the rancho and further enjoy the hospitality of the host, and when I surrendered myself to the embrace of Morpheus, the most lively conversation was going on, Don Jose and his brother, Don Fernando, manifesting a lively interest therein. At about half-past three o'clock a messenger arrived from Los Angeles with the information that the aged father of Don Jose and Fernando was suddenly stricken with serious illness and was on the very threshold of eternity. The arrival awoke myself and companion, and upon learning the matter and that Don Jose and his brother were to depart instantly, we ordered our horses and resolved to ride in with them. Some one suggested that we would not be able to keep up, but as Don Jose was near sixty years of age we scouted the idea, and at four o'clock we were on the road at a full gallop, which we continued to the Santa Ana, the two Dons rising the west bank when we were in the middle of the river. We failed to come up with them,

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notwithstanding we put our chargers to their mettle, and before reaching Los Nietos they were out of sight. When we ascended the western bluff of the San Gabriel we could faintly discern the flying figures of the two horsemen eight miles ahead of us. We were badly beaten, notwithstanding we made the forty-two miles in a few minutes over three hours.

One of the most prominent and wealthy of the ante-bellum pioneers was Isaac Williams, known in the Spanish vernacular as Don Julian del Chino. Colonel Williams was the most perfect specimen of the frontier gentleman I ever knew--tall, handsome, elegant and courtly in his manners. To have met him in Washington or New York he would have been taken as a high type of a cotton king of Louisiana, rather than one who had passed his life in the Rocky Mountains and on the unknown shores of the unknown sea. With his fifteen leagues of the best land in California, his ten thousand head of horned cattle, his six thousand or more of horses, his thirty-five thousand head of sheep, his fields of corn, barley, and wheat, with his corps of Mexican assistants and his villages of Indian vassals, this adventurous American was more than a baron: he was a prince, and wielded an influence and power more absolute and arbitrary than any of the barons of the middle ages. Colonel Williams dispensed a hospitality that was not only free, it was generous. His house was always open, and when it would not hold his guests they would camp around. Hundreds and thousands of immigrants from the "States," from Chihuahua and New Mexico, found the Chino ranch a haven of rest, where the hungry were fed, and the naked clothed, and the infirm cared for, and none came without a welcome to his bounty. I have seen one hundred persons at a time recipients of his generosity. He would send to Los Angeles and purchase clothes for his tattered countrymen after their arduous journey across the mountains and deserts. Individually I knew three young men having crossed the plains, hired to Colonel Williams

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to dig a ditch. He finding them to be educated business men, came into Los Angeles and set them up as merchants, with a $10,000 stock. His open generosity frequently exposed him to impositions and frauds, all of which he submitted to with the utmost philosophical good humor. In '52 and '53 I passed a good deal of my time as the friend and guest of this modern feudal lord, and in writing this tribute to his memory know whereof I write. Colonel Williams died in 1857, at the age of about fifty-five years. Colonel John J. Warner, another pioneer, whose magnificent domain was the first that was reached by the immigrant after crossing the Colorado desert, was always open-hearted and generous to the way-worn traveller, and not being so rich as Williams was nearly impoverished by his acts of charitable liberality. All honor to this benevolent old pioneer.

Don Jose Sepulveda died in 1875, leaving to the country one of the finest families of children that now grace our county and its society--one of his daughters being the wife of my salt-sea hero, Captain Haley, one the wife of Captain James Thompson, whose name appears so often and so honorably in this book, and the last is the wife of Thomas D. Mott, who was for many years successively Clerk of Los Angeles County, and more recently a member of the State Legislature. Mr. Mott is a member of the celebrated Mott family of New York, and is all in all a very marked character.

Don Jose sent his boys to the East to be educated, and in this he manifested great wisdom. His son Ignacio, yet a young man, is one of the most promising, not only in the State, but within the whole limits of our glorious land. A lawyer of rare talent, he, when scarce past his majority, discharged the duties of Judge of Los Angeles County with marked distinction and ability, and was raised thence to the dignity of District Judge, and is now a Judge of the Superior Court. The country has just cause for being proud of, and the people are proud of,

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Judge Ignacio Sepulveda, and the author is proud to call him my friend. Andronico Sepulveda, a brother to the Judge, is Auditor of Los Angeles County.

The first few days after my arrival in Los Angeles I visited the then famous vineyard of William Wolfskill, the best then in California. Mr. Wolfskill was a very remarkable man; in fact he was a hero--not the kind of a hero poets like to sing about, but still a hero. A man of indomitable will, industry and self-denial; an American pioneer hero; one who succeeds in all he undertakes, and is always to be trusted; of the kind of men who enrich the country in which they live. Mr. Wolfskill sold the first grapes in San Francisco grown north of Los Angeles. Having planted a vineyard on his ranch in Napa Valley, in '54, he placed his first crop on Long Wharf, in San Francisco, one month in advance of Los Angeles grapes, and sold them at twenty-five dollars per cental wholesale. I met this pioneer fruit- grower when disposing of this crop, and he said, "I am now realizing a boyhood dream, of a country where money grows on bushes. Growing grapes at two bits a pound is the nearest thing to plucking money from bushes that has ever been realized." Mr. Wolfskill was the most economical of men, yet in all truth he was one of the most hospitable and generous. He died in 1866, leaving a very large fortune.

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WE KNOW of no country at the present day so inaccessible and isolated as was California prior to the Mexican war. To reach our coast by sea required a voyage of imminent danger and monotonous hardship of nearly a year. The old hide droghers being the class of vessel that would butt three times at a billow and then back out and go around it, and besides the skipper felt it to be his especial duty to remain in each port, and Honolulu in particular, as long a time as the convenience of the crew required. By land no one came here, unless perchance some adventurous gringo vagabondizing in Mexico sought fairer fields further on, and finding carne and contentment in our genial land, became as one to the manor born, hence all of the ante-bellum gringos were Dons, and generally held in high esteem by the genuine and simon-pure Dons of the country. However, some of the descendants of the conquistadores held these adopted Dons in not very high esteem and withheld from them the aristocratic distinction, and denied that those gringos aforesaid were even entitled to be called Hidalgos,--the latter appellation meaning a man who has a father, or the son of somebody. Adventurous trappers sometimes found themselves trapped into becoming Dons and the fathers of Dons, which latter class of Dons now claim to be Hidalgos, or meaning in another

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sense that they had somebody for a father, a something certainly to be justly proud of. Now there were just three classes of gringos, as above enumerated, the seaman, the adventurer from Mexico, and the trapper. The true born Spaniard is very proud, and why not? Was not Cervantes a Spaniard? And did not the Spanish cavalier upset the Aztec empire in Mexico, and the Incas in Peru, level their temples with the ground and gobble up an immense amount of swag, and then set up as the richest and most powerful people, under the special protection of their unnumbered saints. I repeat the Spaniard is proud and has reason so to be, and those who held the bogus gringo Dons in low esteem only did honor to their noble ancestry.

There were some exceptions to these three kinds of gringos but they were very rare, as much so as angels' visits, which were not rarities at all in this angelic land, as occasionally a gentleman of education and rare accomplishments would find his way to this far-off region, and being seduced by its charms, or the charms of its blythe and happy daughters, would here remain. Such were Victor Prudhomme, Thomas O. Larkin, General Sutter, Don David W. Alexander and men of that class. This reminds me now of an anecdote that was related to me by Don David which will illustrate the contempt in which the average gringo was held by the high-toned Spaniard in the ante-bellum times in California.

Don David was visiting at one of the principal angel habitations hereabout, and was engaged in conversation with the presiding angel thereof, when a little girl came to the door with, "Mamma, alla viene jente" (people are coming). "Quienes son?" (who are they?) queried the mamma. "Quien sabe? hay muchos" (who knows? there are many), answered the little angel. At this time the Dona went to the door, and seeing the jente, returned to her seat, gently reproving her little girl with: "Ah, que ija, estos no son jente; son gringos."

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(Fie! fie! child, those are not people; they are gringos.) In the third chapter of this history the author, in defining the word gringo, declared it to have been an awful thing to be a gringo in those days. Now, does the reader wonder at the declaration? Don David was a most genial camp-fire companion, and the very best story-teller that ever flipped a flapjack, and hereafter I may make further mention of him in that particular.

In those ante-bellum times there appeared among the Indians of the Tulare Valley a character that was not a Don--neither was he a gringo. Whence he came no one knew; who he was, or had been, was a mystery. He was comparatively a boy, white, and an American. He eschewed all association with the scattering gringo population, and severely gave the cold shoulder to the native Dons. The Indians themselves could elicit no information as to his antecedents, so they decided that he came down on a móonbeam. Without any palaver he hung up his hat among those Indians, and at once assumed the role of ruler.

Having first installed himself as chief of a village, soon he became master of a tribe. Being sober, intelligent, and energetic he did a great deal to ameliorate the condition of his people, and to teach them the ruder arts of civilization. He encouraged them to raise crops and garner them, and having become so popular with one tribe, others sought his protection and rule, and when the American flag was flung to the breeze in California, Jim Savage was the absolute and despotic ruler over thousands of Indians, extending all the way from the Cosumnes to the Tejon Pass, and was by them designated in their Spanish vernacular El Rey Guero --The blonde king. He called himself the Tulare King. The respect, fear and superstitious veneration these rude people had for their mysterious king, was greater than that shown by the Aztecs for the Tonatiuh of conquistorial history. Jim might have been a

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veritable El Dorado, or El Rey Dorado, and fearing that many of my readers may not fully understand the meaning of that term, I will inform him that for many years in South America, after the conquest, there was a tradition that somewhere in the valley of the Orinoco, there existed an Indian kingdom; that gold dust was there so plentiful that every morning the King after his ablutions was anointed with a resinous gum and then besprinkled with gold dust until he was made to appear as though he were gilded (dorado--from the Spanish verb dorar, to guild.) This imaginary monarch was called the Gilded King, (El Rey Dorado). The Tulare King might have been El Rey Dorado, for the reason that in 1850 he had more gold dust than possibly was ever possessed by any one man, and could have been gilded therewith every morning of his life should he have lived his allotted time. Mr. G. D. W. Robinson, one of our most truthful and intelligent '49ers, (and where is the '49er who is not truthful in all gold stories) now resident of San Diego, informs the writer hereof that in 1850 he was at Jim Savage's Camp in the Tulares, and that he had a pork barrel full of gold dust, which enormous quantity would amount to nearly a million of dollars in value; still Mr. Robinson declares the truth of what is here written, and has proffered to make affidavit to the same, and also that this great treasure sat in his tent wholly unguarded except by the Indians themselves.

When the gold mines were discovered, the Tulare King, with a large number of his slave-like subjects went to the mines, and the Indians with their bateas could collect as much dust as could the most intelligent white man, and at the close of day all these Indian workers would faithfully deliver the proceeds of their day's labor to their King.

Jim also won an enormous quantity of gold-dust from a tribe of mountain Indians. The Tulare King was a great adept in the Indian game of three sticks, which is very much like three-card monte. One of three short sticks being marked,

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a player takes the three and after manipulating conceals them in his two closed hands, and the others lay their wagers and then guess in which hand the dealer holds the marked stick. Now a certain mountain chief, whose tribe had collected a large amount of dust, was challenged by Jim Savage to play this game for gold-dust. The challenge being accepted, the whole mountain tribe came to Jim's camp and were royally entertained. Beeves were slaughtered, flour given out, and sugar and coffee freely distributed, all at Jim's expense. After much palaver and ceremony the game commenced and was kept up with varying success for three days, when at last the Tulare King won the last measure of gold, which occurred at about midnight. When the last wager was lost the dusky mountain chief gave a resonant whoop and took up a dog trot for the mountains, followed in the same manner by his tribe. He was beaten, but how he never knew. The truth was, Jim had learned to conceal the marked stick in his sleeve. The naked savage, never suspecting such civilized device, was thus beaten out of all the dust collected by his tribe during the season. Some time in the autumn of '50 the Tulare King, with his court and harem visited San Francisco, and notwithstanding his immense wealth in gold-dust he disdained to stop at a tavern, or live in the manner of civilized man, and so he pitched his camp on Portsmouth Square (the plaza) in all the pomp of barbaric magnificence, and was thus photographed by Vance, the pioneer picture man. This photograph ought to be in the collection of the Society of Pioneers.

The King, court and harem, however, only remained in San Francisco long enough to see the sights of civilization, and then returned to their great Tulare kingdom, and now

"Grim visaged war rears his wrinkled front."

The mountain Indians were making war on the miners, and the bugle blast of war resounded from the American Fork to the Stanislaus. Two batallions of militia were called out and

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Major Savage was appointed to command that of the South. In his batallion he had some very high-strung officers, one a West Point graduate, I believe, Major Harvey.

Now, although Jim Savage was a man of rare ability, and wherever or how he got it, had a very tolerable education, but was wholly unfitted to command a batallion of such men as belonged to his command, for as such commander he showed such despotic disposition as he had used toward his Tulare Indians, who were in no way compromised in the war then waged by their redskin kindred, and their King was only appointed to command because of his great influence among all the Indians, the seat of war being many leagues to the northward of the Tulare capital, as it was, Major Savage committed some great indignity on some of his high-toned officers, for which, in a fight of his own seeking, he was killed.

Great was the wailing of grief among the Tulares at the untimely taking off of their King. For months they continued to mourn, and in all truth their loss was irreparable. Jim Savage was not only their King, he was a father ever guardful of their rights, and had he been spared them their annihilation, which was so swift that it can scarcely be realized, might have been averted. Jim Savage was a wonderful man, and his death was a loss to the country as well as to the Indians. Since his death no clue was ever found as to his origin or antecedent history, and no account was ever taken or inquiry made concerning his vast treasure in gold dust.

After the death of Jim Savage various white men went among those same Indians and tried to win their confidence and gain such influence as was wielded by Savage, but all without avail. After the death of their Rey Guero white men were all alike to them.

When the gold mines were discovered California was densely populated with Indians. You couldn't go amiss for them. Mountain and valley, forest and plain, were covered with

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Indians. Where are they? Thirty years seems too short a period of time to annihilate a great population extending over more than a thousand miles extent of country. At the present time, passing over the Tulare plains not a vestige is to be seen of its former thousands of Indian population. They are gone! all gone! It is sad to contemplate; they were so docile and harmless in disposition. If they were swept into the maelstrom of destruction by our Anglo-Saxon civilization, then I fear me there is something wrong about it. But what is the use of useless lamentation? The Indians are all gone and that is the end of it, and we can only hope that they have all gone to happy hunting grounds.

Major Walter H. Harvey, the slayer of Jim Savage, was sensitive, generous, and high-strung, absolutely fearless, slow to give offence, and quick as the lightning's flash to resent an insult or to repel an aggression. I do not remember the exact cause of the difficulty between himself and Savage, and it is now too late to inquire, or to raise an issue thereon; but knowing Harvey long and well, the author is free to maintain that in the great number of brave and generous men of pioneer times, none stood higher than the gallant Harvey, who died at Los Angeles in 1861, aged forty-eight years.

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MENTION having been heretofore made of Bill Bradshaw, his shooting Nelse Williamson in our Kern River gold seeking expedition and his having given name to the famous Bradshaw mining district in Arizona, it will now be in place to give a brief account of this curious character, and a more curious or a more marked character this careful chronicler never knew--one of nature's most polished gentlemen and brightest jewel in America's collection of true born chivalry. Bradshaw was brave, generous, eccentric, and in simple truth a natural lunatic. In manly form and physical beauty, perfect; in muscular strength, a giant; in fleetness of foot and endurance, unequaled. The first account I have of Bradshaw was at Sonoma in 1846, then about twenty years old, at work, under Captain Salvador Vallejo, Mexican Post Commander, building a picket fence. Don Salvador, with all the pomp and circumstance of despotic authority came around where Bill was at work and expressed his marked displeasure at the manner in which it was being done. Bill, with all the dignity of true born American importance, flatly told the Don that he didn't know what he was talking about, which sass so kindled the ire of the offended Mexican dignitary that

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he whipped out his trusty Toledo and tried its temper on Bill's supposed seat of honor, striking him with the flat thereof. Vesuvius! Stromboli! Cotapaxi! what are thy fires as compared with those that raged in the bosom of this young hero from the land of Marion and Sumpter upon being struck an ignominious blow with the flat of a Mexican sabre? In an instant the domineering Don was down, felled like an ox with a redwood picket, wielded with terrific force by this outraged American boy, who seized the sword of the apparently dead Captain, and in a fury of uncontrollable rage pounded it into pot-hooks with his axe that lay conveniently near. Then realizing what he had done Bradshaw saw tht he must choose, and that immediately, between instant flight and a Mexican prison, chains, and ignominious punishment. So hurriedly he sought his temporary lodging place, seized his rifle and struck out for the Sacramento Valley, and only returned to Sonoma when that military post fell into the hands of the Bear Flag party, Bradshaw being one of the most daring and energetic of that adventurous band.

Salvador Vallejo commanded the garrison at Sonoma, and finding the young hero of the redwood picket in the ranks of his captors, was greatly alarmed, and said to the Bear Flag commander, "Now I suppose I will be murdered, finding this assassin in your force," pointing to Bradshaw. "Oh, no," responded Bill; "we are now friends, so far as I am concerned. If I owed you anything I paid it in full, and with interest. Is not this true, Don Salvador? And if you owed me anything I am willing to square accounts. An American never strikes an enemy when he is down. You are down now, and I am up, so here's my hand; my friendship is yours if you need it." Don Salvador, who was really a fine fellow, manifestly chagrined, shook the proffered hand of the victorious young Filibuster, vowing future friendship, and ever after the two were fast friends. Bill said it was the proudest act of his life

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to show that mendacious Mexican how an American could avenge a wrong. The next we know of Bradshaw is in Los Angeles, in '47, as a Lieutenant in Fremont's Battalion, where his wild freaks astonished the Dons and won the hearts of the Donas, among whom he was a universal favorite. Next, in '51, we find him playing the game of heroic chivalry at Mokelumne Hill, in the French revolution at that place, which occurred in this way and from this cause: The State Legislature had passed a foreign miners' tax law, which the French, and there was a large colony of them at Mokelumne Hill, refused to pay. The Sheriff, who was tax collector ex-officio, summoned a large posse to enforce collection. The Frenchmen rallied, raised the tri- colored flag, proclaimed their independence, marched in armed procession, sang the Marsellaise, and boldly defied the power of the State. The Governor ordered out a battalion of militia, and appointed Bradshaw to command it. Marshaling his warriors, Bill drew up before the Gallic fort, and ordered the tri-colored flag to be hauled down, the rebels to lay down their arms, and surrender at discretion. The fiery Frenchmen flung their defiance in the teeth of the enemy, by a fierce " Vive la France," then marched forth in battle array, formed their line in front of Bradshaw's men, and dared them to fire the first shot, whereupon the clicking of gun- cocks was heard along the line of the militia. At this Bradshaw faced his line, and commanded "Order arms," which was generally obeyed. Some, however, standing menacingly at a "ready," Bradshaw then proceeded to disarm and eject from his line those who had dared to disobey his order; after which he approached the French commander, and proposed to him that if blood was to be spilled, then let the question involved be then and there settled by single combat, the two commanders to be the combatants. This proposition being instantly accepted, the preliminaries were gone into, which happily led to an amicable adjustment of the unfortunate complications. The rebels

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pulled down their tri-color, and peace reigned supreme where

"Grim visaged war had reared his wrinkled front."

When the question of foreign miner's tax came to be gravely discussed, it was decided that the "intent of the Legislature was only to tax Chinamen, and that Gauls, Britons, and other pugnacious peoples were not included in the miners' tax," and right there the whole thing ended except as to the Chinamen, who were vigorously pursued and made to feel the full force of the law in filling the pockets of the Collector and his legion of deputies, for very little of the gold wrung from the non-resisting Mongols found its way into either the county or State treasuries. Bradshaw won a most honorable distinction in this episode of dangerous import, and to him was solely due its happy termination.

Bill was one of the most witty fellows to be found, and wherever he stopped a crowd of eager listeners would surround him, and roars of merriment would respond to his well turned points. The last time I saw him was at the old St. Nicholas Hotel in San Francisco, more commonly known as Armstrong's, on Sansome street, between Commercial and Sacramento. Bradshaw had just arrived from Tuolumne and found at the hotel quite a circle of old friends, including the author, Tom Hereford, Bob Wood, Joe McCorkle, then a member of Congress, and others, all of whom formed a dinner party in the grand dining saloon and occupied a table to themselves. It was soon found that Bradshaw's or Bunk's (as he was called, from the fact that he came originally from Buncum county, South Carolina) drolleries not only kept his own dining companions in uproarious merriment, but excited attention from the occupants of neighboring tables.

Some one passed a dish of shrimps to Bunk, with the "Major, try some of the shrimps?" "Shrimps? What are shrimps?" queried Bunk. The desired information having been duly accorded, Bradshaw gravely and with the utmost

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deliberation soliloquizes as though speaking to himself, holding the dish of shrimps in one hand and intently gazing at the contents: "Well, these are shrimps! I never heard of a shrimp before. Wonder how they'll do? The fact is, I've eaten snakes, feasted on lizards and gormandized on grasshoppers, and thought I had tasted all kinds of human food, but now here's something new!" Then deliberately taking a large handful of the "plagued things," as he called them, went to eating them as though they had been wild huckleberries. In a moment the whole dining-room was in an uproar of boisterous merriment, while Bunk continued eating until he had finished the whole dish, shells, claws and all.

Alas, poor Bradshaw! A better fellow never lived, and we will now in charity draw the sombre curtain of forgetfulness over his unfortunate death, which occurred at Bradshaw's ferry on the Colorado river in May, 1863.

The following account of the Bear Flag party I find in my scrap-book, cut from one of our California papers some years ago, and it being in such perfect harmony with the facts as I remember them, I give it as absolutely correct. The "William Todd" who painted the Bear Flag is at the present writing, 1881, one of the most respected citizens of Los Angeles:

"A great curiosity was awakened by the sudden arrival of a young man in Monterey from Mazatlan, in a United States sloop of war, having left Washington in November, 1845. The young man was Lieutenant Gillespie, of the United States Navy, and his immediate inquiry was for Captain Fremont. Learning his route he sets out to overtake him with all haste. This he succeeds in doing on the southern border of Oregon. All the certain knowledge we have of his errand from the United States government to Captain Fremont, we must infer from the latter's movements. He starts instantly with his men on his return to California.

"This sudden return could not have been in the interest of

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science. Nor was it for purposes of exploration. Something more than these must have been determined on in Washington, in November, 1845, to have necessitated the sending of a special messenger with all possible speed such a long distance to communicate with Captain Fremont. What it was, it is easy enough now to discover, when we observe that war with Mexico breaks out on the Rio Grande on the eighth and ninth of May, 1846, the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Plama being fought on those days. And although news of what was going on there could not reach here for three months or more, it may, with substantial truth, be said that the war broke out at nearly the same time in the Sacramento Valley as on the Rio Grande.

"The sudden reappearance of Captain Fremont and his camp at the Buttes, near the mouth of the Feather River, called back from his journey by a special messenger from Washington, was enough of itself to create instant excitement among the settlers throughout the northern valleys. All accounts show that they quickly and numerously visited Captain Fremont's camp, and almost immediately--that is to say, on the eighth of June, 1846-- a company of men, consisting of trappers and hunters, and in part of men belonging to the exploring party, went suddenly down to what is now known as Knight's Landing, in Yolo county, and captured a band of horses on the way to General Castro, in Monterey, and sending a defiant message to Castro by the men in charge, returned with the horses to Fremont's camp.

"Of course, this was war, as much as that on the Rio Grande, and it broke out almost precisely at the same time, although the places were thousands of miles apart, and it would take several months for the news to pass from one place to another. The horses were not 'Government horses' at all, as has been generally supposed, but they were General Vallejo's, sent by him, forty head of them, for General Castro's use,

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according to previous promise, but with no idea whatever of mounting a force against foreigners.

"It appears to be very plain that the extraordinary news from Washington was what brought Captain Fremont back from Oregon, and the next act that emanates from his camp is an act of war. Whether those verbal dispatches authorized him to countenance these violent proceedings at this time, we have no means of knowing, except by inference from the fact that they actually took place with his sanction and co-operation. It is but just that the responsibility in this matter should rest exactly where it belongs, and that is, on the shoulders of the Government of the United States, granting that Captain Fremont did not exceed his authority.

"Captain Fremont was an officer of the United States Army, and wore its uniform and was acting as he did, after having received instructions from his Government direct, at great cost. Therefore it would be necessarily understood, unless he stated to the contrary, which he did not, that what he approved the doing of, the United States sanctioned. And it was so understood, and in that belief the men of that day acted.

"The taking of the horses necessitated the doing of more, and the doing of it quickly. This, too, was perceived at Captain Fremont's camp, and by three o'clock in the afternoon of June 10, a party of twenty men, led by one Merritt, set out to capture Sonoma. Accessions were made to the party on the way, and Sonoma was easily taken, for although there were there ten pieces of artillery, there was not a solitary soldier there at the time, except General Vallejo's orderly, and in the capture not a gun was fired.

"General Vallejo says that they made prisoners of himself, Captain Salvador Vallejo, and Colonel Victor Prudhomme, on the morning of Sunday, June 14, 1846. Jacob P. Leese accompanied the prisoners to Captain Fremont's camp, at General

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Vallejo's request, as interpreter, and on their arrival there, Mr. Leese was also made prisoner.

"By Captain Fremont's order, these four prisoners were taken to Sutter's Fort, and Major John Bidwell was directed by him to see that they were safely kept. Major Bidwell afterwards turned over his charge to another, and went to Sonoma, joining the company there and continuing in the service till the close of hostilities in 1847. The prisoners were retained at the fort about sixty days, until the change of flag in the country had been fully effected, when they were released by order of Commodore Stockton. Of the party of thirty-three men who took Sonoma, twenty-four were left to hold possession of it.

"Organizing themselves into a company, they chose William B. Ide, Captain. At this moment they notice that the Mexican flag is still flying at the top of the flag-staff. It is at once hauled down, but what shall go up in its place? They are perplexed. They must have some kind of a flag flying. They think about a "lone star," but they know that Texas has appropriated that.

"They are agreed that they will have a star in their flag, but they tax their wits to have some other device as well. A piece of common cloth is obtained, and one of the men named William Todd proceeds to paint, from a pot of red paint, a star in the corner.

"Henry L. Ford, one of the party, proposes to paint on the center, facing the star, a grizzly bear. This is unanimously agreed to, and the grizzly bear was painted accordingly. When it was done, the flag was taken to the flag-staff and hoisted, amid the hurrahs of the little party. So came into existence the 'Bear Flag,' which has become historic in California.

"Accounts vary somewhat relative to it, especially as to the exact date of its raising; but as General Vallejo gives the date

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of the capture of Sonoma to have been June 14, 1846, and the flag was raised on the same day, it seems to be the best evidence of the true date. Of course a proclamation was issued in the name of the party, giving reasons for the course they were taking, and announcing their purposes.

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THE Haley's were the first names mentioned in this truthful history, in the first chapter of which I paid a passing tribute to glorious old Bob, so his friends, and he had no enemies, called him. In Bob the old saying that "every marked and sterling character has enemies" was negatived. Bob was a marked character, yet in my long knowledge of and acquaintance with Bob Haley I never saw the man that could be his enemy. One reason, and the main one, I believe, was his great goodness of heart and noble generosity. A great part of his life was passed as commander of a steamship, and for several years he ran on our coast, and like Aleck Bell on the Tombigbee, passengers could travel on his boat, money or no money. So great a bore did this become to Bully Wright, who owned one of the steamships that Bob commanded, that to put a stop to the practice he commenced to charge him for every deadhead passenger he carried, so the result was that when poor Bob's wages became due there was nothing due him. This made no difference whatever, the captain would carry deadheads any way, even when their passage was charged to him by his owners. Alas! poor Bob Haley! his likes never trod the deck of a steamer.

Captain Saulsbury Haley, Bob's brother, was much of the

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same ilk, certainly too much so for his financial credit and his general pecuniary prosperity. (I believe, in fact I am sure, that Haley, in his old age, has got over that particular trait.) I think, however, that Saulsbury was the best manager of a steamship and the most daring seaman I ever knew, and by your leave, reader, this adventurous Ranger has had some experience nautical withal, and once made a voyage from New York to Havana on a canal boat, so in pronouncing Saulsbury a competent and daring seaman the writer declares his knowledge whereof he speaks. I made many trips up and down the coast with Captain S. Haley, on one of which I venture to say he performed one of the most remarkable, dangerous and successful nautical feats known in the history of seamanship.

It has often occurred to me that there is a certain defect in our system of republican government and society. In ancient Rome, if a Roman saved the life of a Roman, he was crowned with laurels, a distinction that singled him out and made him superior to his fellows. A most proper thing was this to do, a most honorable incentive to deeds of heroism in flood, field, and fire. The French, in imitation of their Latin ancestors, reward acts of distinguished merit by decorations with the "Cross of the Legion of Honor." How does our Government reward our heroes for acts of conspicuous daring? Why, it just don't reward them at all, and if our boasted American nation degenerates into a race of pusilanimous poltroons, then the Government will reap the reward of their own folly in not conferring marks of honorable distinction, as did the Romans, as do the French and every other nation under the sun. Now I repeat, that if the Roman who saved the life of a fellow-Roman was crowned with laurels, then the hero of the present reminiscence, Captain Haley, should wear a crown as ponderous as the dome of St. Peter's, or, if a Frenchman, would be entitled to wear a cross as large as that which surmounts the Church of Notre Dame. For, reader, in the adventure which I am about

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to relate, Captain Haley, by his bravery, humanity and superior seamanship, saved the lives of more than five hundred men, women, and children; and now I am going to tell you how it was.

Haley commanded the Goliah, a staunch craft, now, in 1881, doing good service on Puget Sound. She first kissed the briny deep at the mouth of the Mississippi, in 1846, having been built for a tow-boat of great power. The Goliah carried a few passengers, among whom were Aleck Bell, the author, Captain Burt, a man of nautical note at the time, also Charley Mathews, John Brannan, John McMullen, and a party of adventurers, mostly Texans, armed cap-a-pie, and on their way as a pioneer prospecting party to Arizona. If I am not mistaken, Grant Oury was of the party. We sailed past the Golden Gate at about four o'clock, having been preceded about six hours by the great Pacific Mail Steamship Company's steamer Sonora, and the Yankee Blade, and opposition steamer, with about 1200 passengers. This was in October, '54. We steamed beautifully on our way all night, stopping at way ports during the day, and early on the second morning ran into a heavy fog bank, and were feeling our way along carefully, when all at once we heard the roar of breakers close on our port quarter, which created quite an alarm. Haley at once commenced to change our course more to starboard, when, above the roar of the breakers, which was not heavy, we heard the cry of a thousand human voices for help. It seemed as though we were rapidly nearing the breakers and the place from whence proceeded the cries for help. In a few minutes we were headed off from the roar of the breakers and the sounds of human woe. Nothing is more solemnly terrifying than to be on shipboard near the breakers and in a fog bank, but add to this the knowledge of being in close proximity to a wreck is awe added to terror, and is paralyzing to the bravest heart. About the time we were headed off, the fog

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lifted almost as perceptibly as the raising of a curtain, and lo! within a cable's length lay a large steamer, which proved to be the Yankee Blade a hopeless wreck, her deck swept by the breakers and the hundreds of passengers in the rigging, on the roofs and bridge, clinging to the rail and shrouds, presenting one of the most awful pictures one can well imagine. The sea was comparatively smooth, yet the swell was heavy and the breakers were rough. The wrecked steamer lay considerable distance from the shore, head on, having settled on a sunken rock which pierced her bottom amidships, on the northwest side of Point Arguello, the most northern point of Point Concepcion, and had struck at about midnight. She was many miles out of her direct route, which at the time was ascribed to one of two causes--one was a great variation in the magnetic needle caused by a supposed local attraction, and the second that a crowd of organized roughs had taken passage on board the ill-fated steamer with intent to beach and rob her, there being the regular bi-monthly shipment of one and a half million or more dollars in gold dust, besides that carried by the passengers; that the roughs had surreptitiously changed the compass, which caused the stranding of the steamer as we have found her. This last proposition was supported by the fact that as soon as the steamer settled, the roughs first broke into the store-room and captured the liquors, and then commenced the pillage of passengers, many of the crew uniting with the roughs. They also possessed themselves of the boats, and when sufficient gold had been secured, was placed in a boat manned by them, and started for the shore. The boat swamped in the breakers and the pirates and their gold went down together. The other of the steamer's boats were lost in the same manner, until but one small boat of capacity to carry a half dozen people at a time remained. The stern of the Yankee Blade had settled to thirty feet below the water level and her head had raised correspondingly high, so that her

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deck line was at an angle of about forty degrees. The wounded monster labored heavily and was liable at any moment to break in two amidships. It was a marine impossibility to approach her with a boat in the ordinary way, and Captain Haley resolved upon a plan that seemed original and extremely dangerous to his own vessel, and as expressed by many seamen on board at the time, as most certain to insure the destruction of the Goliah.

When remonstrated with on the fool-hardy venture, Captain Haley said: "It is the only possible way to save those unfortunate people. There are over a thousand of them while there is less than a hundred of us, and if they are lost then we will go together." The plan adopted and carried out was as follows: The Goliah being headed off backed in as near the wreck as deemed safe, and a buoy was attached to a line, dropped overboard and drifted to and was secured and drawn on board the Yankee Blade, to which was attached the ship's great hawser which, in turn, was hauled on board the Goliah, and when safely secured steam was turned on and the hawser was drawn taut, then the anchors of the Goliah were carried ahead and cast, and heaving ahead on the windlas, as well as the steam propelling force, drew that hawser as taut as a fiddle string. The next thing was to swing one of the Goliah's boats by loops to this hawser, attach a line to one end of the boat, float the end of the line on board the wrecked steamer, by which the boat was drawn over, sometimes being suspended high above the water, and having another rope attached to her she was drawn back to the Goliah laden with living freight. And Oh! such freight as came off in the first few trips of our hammock-like craft. The roughs had full control on board the unfortunate craft, and were the first to be saved. Haley roared through his trumpet to the captain of the Yankee Blade, "Send the women and children off first." Still the roughs must be thinned out before the officers could control the

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debarkation. In an hour one hundred roughs were on board the Goliah, and the women and children commenced to cross the bridge in a lively manner, and soon it became necessary to commence to dispose of our accumulated cargo of living freight. The two remaining boats of the Goliah having found a safe landing place, now commenced to remove the accumulating cargo to the land; for bear in mind, reader, the Goliah was, as compared with the wrecked monster, a mere launch. Up to this time, however, the Goliah's people had not heard of the roughs and their piratical acts on board the Yankee Blade. However, those who had come on board took possession of the cabins, including the ladies', and when requested by Captain Haley to vacate in favor of the rescued women and children informed him that they had commanded "the Yankee Blade and while on board the Goliah would do as they thought proper." Haley remonstrated with them in vain, and being informed by a lady passenger of their character and doings on board the wreck, took a most decided step to subject them to absolute control. In the meantime the sea rolled, and the staunch old Goliah, God bless her, strained, groaned and writhed in agony as a living victim when stretched upon a rack, and all on board thought she would be pulled in pieces

Haley called on Aleck Bell and asked him to organize in one compact body, make a sudden assault on the roughs and drive them forward into the steerage and place them under guard, but in no case was a revolver to be fired, unless in absolute self-defense. "Hit them over the heads," said Haley, "but don't shoot; I desire this to be a bloodless victory." Still the successful transfer of passengers went bravely on. Soon the armed Goliah's passengers, under Aleck Bell, quietly (all who were not seasick), by a successful manoeuvre, took possession of the after end of the cabin and Aleck gave the order, "All of the men in this cabin will go forward to the steerage; the cabin is to be exclusively devoted to the ladies and children." No

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one moved. "Charge 'em, boys," said Aleck, at the same time belting a rough bully on the head with his revolver, and "at 'em" it was. The onset was so sudden, so unexpected, so different from what they looked for, that they at once gave way, and like sheep were driven into the steerage, where John McMullen, with a picked guard, kept them until Captain Burt and Charley Mathews, both passengers, in command of boats, were ready to commence removing the rapidly accumulating living cargo to the providentially found landing place. Then the roughs were marched out of the steerage in detachments through files armed with revolvers, placed in the Goliah's boats and sent on shore.

All day the transfer of passengers went on, without an accident; all day the gallant Goliah groaned, labored and creaked, with waves sometimes breaking over her bows and washing her decks. Still no accident had occurred, and at sunset the last soul on board the wreck had been safely transferred to the Goliah, nearly half of whom had been retransferred to the land, with water and provisions enough landed with them to do them for a day or two, and this brilliant nautical feat was a splendid success. But none too soon, for by this time the wind had commenced to blow, and by dark had become a gale, and by the time the Goliah was well clear of her dangerous neighbor, and before dark obscured our vision the gallant Yankee Blade, with her golden treasure, broke in two amidships, and sunk in deep water. The gallant Goliah, with her happy crew, brave commander, and thankful passengers, after a rough night of it, reached Santa Barbara, discharged a part of her human freight, and thence to San Pedro, where more were put on shore, while the remainder were taken to San Diego and left, and the staunch old steamer hurried back, and took on board all that had been landed on the beach at the place of the wreck, and carried them in safety to San Francisco, all without a single casualty; and save some forty or fifty lives that were lost in

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the swamping of the boats of the Yankee Blade before the Goliah arrived, all of that hive of human beings were carried back in safety to San Francisco. Will the reader now agree with the author, that the gallant Captain Haley was entitled to a reward of honor equal to any ever conferred by ancient Rome or modern France? And had he been an Englishman, the Cross of Victoria, at least, would have been conferred on him, to be treasured up as a reminder to his descendants of the noble deed of their ancestor.

Haley commanded the Sea Bird in '52. He commanded her again in '55 and '56. That floating beauty came near, in '55, sharing the fate of a Russian frigate, a United States war ship, and a large number of other vessels that were lost, and from the same cause, to wit: the great Japan tidal wave. Some of our readers will remember that early in '55, the Russian frigate Diana sailed northward along our coast and entered the harbor of San Francisco, which created quite a sensation, as the French frigate Ambuscade was then riding quietly at anchor in the harbor, and the Diana dropped her mud hooks within pistol shot of the Ambuscade. We all thought they would go beyond the legal marine league and have a pitched battle, the Crimean war being then in full blast.

Not so, however. The two warlike antagonists frowned on each other, and that was all, except that when it happened that sailors from the two hostile craft would meet on shore, broken heads and bloody noses would be the result, until the authorities intervened and it was mutually agreed that when the Parlez Vous went on shore the Bears on board the Diana would be notified by signal and remain on board until the French sailors returned. The Diana people did the same in respect to the Ambuscade and everything moved quietly along until one day the Diana beat to quarters, hove up her anchor, played some warlike Russian air, spread her sails and proudly passed

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out of the Golden Gate. All San Francisco was on the tiptoe of excitement expecting, as a matter of course, the Ambuscade would go forth and engage her. Such, however, was not the case. The Ambuscade rode quietly at her anchor and the Diana sailed northward touching at Sitka, and at last crossed over and came to anchor in the harbor of Yokohama in ten fathoms of water. Now this may have been in the latter part of the year '55, but at the time there occurred in the Japan Islands some tremendous earthquakes which made match wood of the Diana and left her and her anchors on dry land where before was ten fathoms of water. There was great destruction of shipping in the Japan seas. A United States war ship was lost and hundreds of vessels were never heard from, and this great earthquake in Japan caused a tidal wave which reached and struck our coast in thirty-eight hours, traveling at the rate of over two miles a minute. The tidal gauge at San Diego showed a rise or twelve feet in one night, a most remarkable circumstance.

This immense wave struck our little sea swan, so she should have been called, at about daylight off Point Pedro, seventeen miles S.E. of the Golden Gate, she being the only vessel outside the heads at the time, and the only one that ever gave any account of its appearance and effect. Haley sat beside the pilot-house and was sleeping in his chair. First Officer Howland was on watch and saw in the dim distance the coming danger and awoke the captain. When thus seen it was apparently about ten miles off and looked like an immense black cloud, such as we see in the tropics. Whatever it was, danger therefrom was imminent. The passengers were aroused and ordered to prepare themselves and stand ready with their life- preservers. The brave little steamer was brought to and made to look the danger square in the face and by the time this was done the black, white crested roaring wall of water was almost upon them. Ports were hastily closed, windows

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and doors shut, hatches battened down, and everything put in ship-shape to meet the unlooked for danger and ride through or go under it and down forever. Very little swell preceded it. Howland, assisted by the Quartermaster, took the wheel the watch caught on to the rigging, and as the roaring wrath of mighty ocean towered in its threatening grandeur above them, Haley shouted "Steady, Howland, steady!" "Steady it is, sir!" was the firm response, and in a moment the decks of the gallant steamer were deluged with rushing water. The vessel was absolutely submerged; the mighty force of the ocean was over her, under and around her, roaring, hissing, lashing the sides of the frail bark, thumping her bottom and sweeping her deck; her boats were smashed, torn from their lashings and swept away as though they were snowflakes. The poor craft trembled, groaned and struggled like a living thing to free herself from her mighty foe. Man was then made to feel his utter insignificance in midst of the mighty ocean when lashed into angry fury by "Him who holds the sea in the palm of His hand." In a few minutes the watery scourge had done its worst, and like a thing of life the proud little sea queen shook the billows from her palpitating bosom and was free.

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THE first chapter of this history was in part devoted to staging between San Pedro and the Angel City. Banning was unceremoniously presented to the reader therein with far less ceremony than his great importance demanded. It is true that in a subsequent chapter this pioneer hero was brought to the front of our Fourth of July Phalanx in the memorable and patriotic celebration at San Pedro in '53, and was designated as General, although at that time Banning was not a General, unless, perchance, like Phil Sheridan and Napoleon Bonaparte Forest, he was born with two stars on each of his shoulders, the truth of which I am willing to asseverate and maintain to the bitter end. Banning in early times could ride farther with less fatigue than any man I ever knew, notwithstanding he was never a light weight. He could also drive a stage, six-in-hand, faster and over rougher roads and over places where no roads existed than any driver who ever cracked whip or pulled the ribbons. When Fort Tejon was established the firm of Alexander & Banning wished to run a six-horse stage over an old Mexican pack trail, and when the whole country declared the impossibility of such an enterprise, and when no driver could be found with sufficient hardihood to assume such responsibility, Banning willed the thing to be done, and mounted the box in

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person and drove the first stage that ever went out of the Valley of the Angels to astonish the aborigines in the mountain fastnesses beyond. At the time, the trail going over the San Fernando pass was a rocky acclivity, difficult of ascent by even a pack mule, and descending to the valley beyond with a descent of equal abruptness. Standing on the summit and looking northward a precipice of many hundred feet lay before you. By facing about you dizzily marvel at how you reached the rocky summit.

In December '54 Phineas Banning sat on the box of his Concord stage, to which were harnessed a half dozen well fed, panting and foaming mustangs. He had succeeded in reaching the summit of the San Fernando, and the question among his nine wondering passengers who had toiled up the mountain on foot was, how that stage could ever descend, all declaring it an act of madness to attempt it. Banning laughingly assured them that it "was all right; that a man who couldn't drive a stage safely down that hill was no driver at all, and should confine himself to ox-teaming in the valley." Now he cracks his whip, tightens his lines, whistles to his trembling mustangs, and urges them to the brink of the precipice, and in a moment they are going down! down! down! racketty clatter bang! Sometimes the horses ahead of the stage, and sometimes the stage ahead of the horses, all, however, going down! down with a crash! Finally, the conglomeration of chains, harness, coach, mustangs and Banning were found by the pursuing passengers in an inextricable mass of confusion-- contusions, scratches, bruises, batters, cracks and breaks, forming a general smash and pile up in a thicket of chaparral at the foot of the mountain.

"Didn't I tell you so," said Banning, "a beautiful descent, far less difficult than I anticipated. I intended that staging to Fort Tejon and Kern river should be a success. Gentlemen, you see my judgment is good."

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However, Banning sent back a courier in hot haste, urging Don David to send fifty men immediately to repair parts of the road that he in his descent had knocked out of joint. Twenty-two years thereafter the S.P.R.R. Company cleared away the thicket in which Banning made his first stage stand, in excavating their wonderful San Fernando tunnel. This reckless demonstration of the practicability of staging out of the valley so stimulated our angel merchants, that they raised a fund of several thousand dollars, and employed such a force of men on the San Fernando, that in February following Don David Alexander and the writer hereof passed over with a train of heavy ten-mule teams, which was the first train going north. We had a terrible time of it, however, and in the San Francisquito canon were caught in a snow storm, and were three days in going one mile, building our road as we advanced.

Lieutenant-Colonel B. L. Beall, 1st Dragoons, with Winfield Scott Hancock as Quartermaster, and Lieutenant John Pegram as Adjutant, founded Fort Tejon in '54. I afterwards, in 1861, met Pegram at Beverly, in West Virginia, after his surrender to the Great Western Napoleon at Rich Mountain, Pegram having commanded the Confederate force at that stronghold, and permitted himself to be most beautifully outflanked and surrounded by McLellan, who cut a road through the mountains, and thereby gained his rear. The distress and chagrin of Pegram was beyond description. He was ambitious, and had resigned his commission in the old, and accepted a Colonelcy in the new army, and to have lost his first command in the way he did was overwhelming to his pride. He, however, retrieved himself, and became quite distinguished as a Confederate Brigadier, and was killed in one of the great battles fought around Richmond during the last days of the lost cause. W. S. Hancock, A.Q.M., became so brilliantly illustrious that no mention of him will in this chronicle be necessary.

Col. Beall, however, deserves some consideration. When

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nominal commander at Fort Tejon he was old, seventy years, and had been on the frontier all his life; was a case; indeed he was a hard case, and as such his fame extended from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. On account of his case-hardened character he was seldom permitted to visit Washington, or any of the Eastern cities. But once upon a time he went, and so scandalized the sober heads at the capital, that they hurried him away to fields, in their opinion, more congenial, beyond the Mississippi.

On that occasion, however, he extended his visit to virtuous Boston, and was invited to a State dinner presided over by the Mayor. It was emphatically a Boston dinner--and the world knows that Boston never goes back on her virtuous record, so as a consequence, the dinner to which this rollicking old frontier Colonel was invited was a temperance dinner. When the guests were seated and dining commenced, Colonel Beall was astonished at not seeing decanters, bottles, and all of the paraphernalia of the kind of dinner he had anticipated. Time wore apace and no bottle appeared. The Colonel became disconsolate. It was to him a cruel disappointment. It was emphatically a dry dinner. Some toasts were dryly given and dryly responded to, and the Colonel was called upon to respond to a toast "The Army," but flatly refused, saying that he had "never made a speech in his life." "Well, then," said the President, "Colonel, tell us a story; something about the campaigns through which you have passed." "A story!" "A story!" demanded the dinner party.

"I will tell you the story of 'The Ghost of New Mexico.'"

"Good! A ghost story," cried the party with due Boston decorum and gravity.

"Well," began the Colonel, "It was in 1846, the army was crossing the plains in the march on New Mexico, and went into camp, dry and dusty, within two days' march of Sante Fe. It was late when our tents were pitched and the sentinels posted

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for the night. We were over vigilant, as being so near the New Mexican capital we didn't know at what moment the enemy's cavalry might pounce upon us. The night was dark and dismal; the wind blew in fitful gusts and the tents fluttered and flapped, and a general gloom seemed to pervade the whole encampment. To relieve my own disquiet I visited the marquee of a neighboring officer, and found quite a number of visitors, who, like myself, were in quest of something wherewith to sooth the dismal cravings of the spirit. A game of seven-up was proposed for liquor, and on the first wager being won and lost it was discovered that some untoward accident had befallen the sutler and not a drop was to be had for love or money. We looked at each other in dismay--a night without something to drink! Such a direful calamity had not been contemplated by the most despondent of our party, and the announcement was a blow; indeed it was, gentlemen. Still, we agreed to play on, and if by the favor of providence a supply should ever be reached then each loser would pay up and we would make amends for this night of dire disappointment. The game went on dolefully.

"The wind continued to blow, and the tent rocked to and fro in its determined efforts to keep its pins, the sentries paced their beats, the coyotes howled, the horses neighed, and the mules let off brays of solemn distress. It was midnight--the hour when ghosts do walk abroad. We played, but scarce a word was spoken. My back was toward the opening of the tent, and instinctively I turned around, feeling that some one was entering, and oh! horror! My blood froze in my veins, my eye-balls almost burst from their sockets, and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, as I vainly tried to speak. I beheld standing within the marquee a tall, gaunt form, clad in the habiliments of the grave, its bony arm extended, and its finger raised in solemn admonition. Like myself, my comrades sat frozen and speechless. Not a word, save those sepulchral

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sounds of doleful import which came from the ghost. It spoke--and the Colonel, in apparent exhaustion, with his hands clasped upon his breast, leaned back in his chair and groaned.

"What did it say?" was the general inquiry.

"What did it say?" echoed the Colonel. "What should it have said? It spoke such words as had never before been heard by any of that congregation of warriors, such words as I fear to repeat, such words as I hope never more to hear on this earth"--and again the Colonel groaned.

"What did it say?" queried the excited listeners.

"What did it say?" re-echoed the Colonel. "It said: ' Gentlemen! Oh! gentlemen! gentlemen! it's a long time between DRINKS!'"

It is needless to say that for once Boston relaxed its gravity, and that for once wine flowed freely at the winding up of a Boston dinner party; because even the people of Boston could, and did on that occasion, take a liquid hint, and Boston never does things by halves, and as a consequence liquidated liberally. Col. Beall ever spoke in terms of affectionate remembrance of that liquid Boston dinner party.

In saying Colonel Beall was the nominal commander at Fort Tejon, the same can be said as to the Quartermaster, the truth being, as I verily believe, that the gallant General Phineas Banning ran the post, as he did his supply trains and his six-horse stages. He ran Fort Tejon as in yore he ran San Pedro, and as he always has Wilmington, city and harbor. Whatever Banning suggested at the fort was done, and nothing was done unless he was consulted. From Fort Tejon to Los Angeles is 120 miles--as rough a road as is to be found anywhere. Banning used to ride it in a day on horseback, leaving the fort after sunrise and arriving at Los Angeles sometimes by four o'clock P.M. I make this statement on personal knowledge.

Banning was always lucky. In his reckless staging nine

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men out of every ten would have broken their bones, if nothing worse. He once made a miraculous escape from a frightful marine disaster. He owned a pretty little steamer called the Ada Hancock, before the harbor improvements at Wilmington, used for carrying passengers to the steamers at their anchorage. On one of her trips down the bay her boiler exploded, killing Captain Seely of the coast steamer and many of the passengers. Banning was not blown over the clouds, because it was on a cloudless day, but he was blown high enough and far enough to land him on a sand bar safe and sound. The General was born at Wilmington, Delaware, and is fifty-one years old.

Now to come back to Don David Alexander, of whom I spoke in a former chapter, and of his story-telling talents. On that trip to Kern River with those heavy teams, in our camps at night, after strong coffee, before a blazing, comfortable fire, with a good cigar, Don David forgeting the terrible annoyances and harassing labors of the day, and his oft-repeated declaration that "this is only a pack-mule country, that none other than a madman would attempt the passage of these mountains with wagons, and if he did any more freighting hitherward it would be in the only sensible, practicable way, by pack-mules." One year and a half more than a quarter of a century has passed and Don David, hale and hearty, strong and stubborn, now whirls over his "pack-mule country" in the palace cars of that marvel of the age, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The memory of Don David may not be as strong and enduring as his rawhide constitution, and I take pleasure in reminding him of the wonderful change that has taken place in the manner and time of traversing the roughest of our southern Sierras, and point to him what science, money and well directed enterprise can do and has done for even a "pack-mule country." Forgetting the troubles of the day under the exhilaration of coffee and cigar, Don David would tell us a story, and on one

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occasion he told me of his capture, imprisonment and parol by the Californians.

During the war between the United States and Mexico Don David was made prisoner at the Chino Ranch, with the company under Capt. B. D. Wilson. Cerbol Barelas and Diego Sepulveda commanded the captors of this party, most of whom, having lived so long under the Mexican flag, and having partaken of all of the good things of this angel land, were looked upon by their irate captors as traitors deserving death; consequently there was a general clamor that the traitor gringos should be shot. At this point as noble a character came to the front as ever wielded a lance or wore knightly spur. Santa Ana. President of Mexico, a man first among the rulers of the earth, of superior learning, of pure Castilian blood, a warrior of renown, cast a blot, a stain, an indelible blotch, upon the fame of Mexico, by his treacherous cruelty in butchering, in cold blood, the captive partisans of the Texas revolution. Cerbol Barelas, a native of Los Angeles, a man whose only education consisted in superior horsemanship, throwing the lasso, and the use of the lance, redeemed his countrymen from the stigma cast upon them by Santa Ana. When the wild warriors of the California plains clamored for the blood of the captive gringos, Don Cerbol--yes, Don Cerbol! a Don in the fullest meaning of the word--interposed for their protection, saying that while he lived, and could wield a lance in their defence, not one gringo should be harmed; "that they had surrendered to him, that his honor and good faith were plighted, and on the honor of a man he would defend them;" and during the four months of captivity endured by these gringos, the noble Cerbol watched over them as though they had been his own children. Sometimes, with a few trusty followers, with his sacred charge, he would conceal himself in the mountains, to escape the wrath of his less chivalrous countrymen. Alas! poor Cerbol! your honest heart has long since

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become food for worms. The gringos have forgotten thee and thy noble generosity, save the few survivors of thy generous protection, who will soon meet thee at the judgment seat of Him who faileth not in His rewards.

If my memory is right, Don David, after his capture at Chino, was paroled and became the guest and protege of the Mission priest at San Fernando, and at about the beginning of the year '47 rumors floated along and reached San Fernando of the coming, like a northern blast, of the gringos of the upper country under the immortal "Pathfinder."

The rumors were that the coming torrent of vandal invasion swept everything before it, showing no respect for age, sex, condition, or the rights of private property. The god-father who had so hospitably sheltered and protected Don David inquired of him if it would not be better to betake himself to the mountains for safety until the tornado had swept by. Don David assured him on the honor of an American that these rumors of outrage and pillage were false. "You judge these men who fill the ranks of General Fremont from your own standpoint," said the priest. "You forget the class of men they are--hunters, trappers, outlaws, half-breed Indians, French voyageurs and all of the mountain adventurers that could be collected from the Columbia river to Monterey." Don David answered that notwithstanding that many of the men forming Fremont's command were, or might be, bad characters, that Colonel Fremont was an officer of high rank in the army of the United States, and that for him to permit such acts of pillage as was charged against his command would be more than his commission was worth. Upon this assurance the good father concluded to stand by his altar and trust to his saints and the chivalry of the Pathfinder. At about four o'clock one afternoon the "storm" struck San Fernando and made things fly, but soon it subsided and things went well enough for the night. In the morning the battalion mounted and rode

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rapidly over the twelve mile stretch of plain to the Cahuenga pass, where an intrenched army with frowning artillery confronted it. And right there at that old adobe house, a part of the walls of which are yet standing, at the opening of this famous pass that was not, yet might have been, a modern Thermopylæ, was achieved the greatest military triumph known to history, eclipsing in brilliancy the battle of Providencia itself. As Fremont approached Cahuenga he was met by a truce party, and a parley ensued, and the treaty of Cahuenga was the result. Colonel Fremont was the high contracting party on the part of the United States, and General Andres Pico represented the Republic of Mexico. General Pico proposed to disband his army at Cahuenga, the officers retaining their private arms. All of the arms, artillery, and munitions of war belonging to the Mexican Government at Cahuenga should be delivered to Colonel Fremont, and he was to be permitted to march without opposition to Los Angeles. That after the treaty was signed, General Pico was to have two hours in which to stack his arms and retire his forces from the fortifications. Then Fremont was to march in and possess the spoil. On the other hand, Colonel Fremont agreed that the army under General Pico should be permitted to retire peaceably to their homes, and should there remain unmolested, and that certain officers who, under Cerbol Barelas had in September previous violated their paroles theretofore given should be pardoned; and to this the gringo commander pledged the faith of the gringo government.

The treaty was signed in duplicate, each high contracting party retaining one copy. When this was done, General Pico, with not over forty followers retired from the fortifications at Cahuenga, and the gringo conqueror marched in to reap the reward of his victory.

Two batteries of artillery, consisting of a dozen California live oak logs, mounted on so many native carretas, became the

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spoils of the victors. One old blunderbuss that, from the date graven on its brazen barrel, suggested former service in the seige of Granada, two old flint-lock Spanish horse-pistols, and about forty Mexican ox-goads with flaming red pennons thereto attached, made a full inventory of the spoils which, by virtue of the great treaty of Cahuenga, passed forever from the hands of humbled Mexico and went to enrich the arsenals of the gringo nation. Smothering his pent-up wrath, the hero of Cahuenga put spurs to his Cayuse charger, and with the fires of revenge burning in his bosom, followed in hot haste by his buckskin batallion, hurried on to Los Angeles, where booty and beauty awaited their coming in plentiful profusion. With their wild war song of:

"Hail to the Chief who stole the injun's blanket,"

the northern barbarians, with the pathfinder at their head, entered the Angel city to suffer another disappointment, more direful than that of Cahuenga. They found that the "army of the west," under Brigadier General W. S. Kearney, consisting of U.S. dragoons and the Mormon battalion under Lieutenant-Colonel Philip St. George Cook, of the Regular Army, and some marines and volunteers, had been quietly settled down in the Angel capital for near a fortnight and were preserving the most perfect order, and the angels of peace were as secure in person and property as though they were domiciliated in orderly Boston. The Pathfinder, however, not at all abashed and determined to carry out the role of conquerer, obtained the elegant and commodious house of the patriotic Captain Alex. Bell, the same building that now stands at the corner of Los Angeles and Aliso streets, then the best house in California, quartered his men on the ground floor and up stairs hung up his hat, issued a proclamation and declared himself Governor of California by virtue of the conquest of the country at Cahuenga, gathered around him some dilapidated Dons and questionable Donas, gave an

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inaugural ball, and enacted in miniature the same part that he played so grandly at St. Louis fifteen years thereafter. General Kearney the dignified, Phillip St. George Cook, the beau ideal of the cavalry man, and Major Emery, of the Engineer Corps, at first treated this attempt to play the Governor as a second edition of Sancho Panza in his government of Barataria, were soon brought to regard the matter in a more serious light, and General Kearney felt constrained to place the Governor under arrest and take him overland to Washington. General Kearney made an order that on the march the Pathfinder would be permitted to encamp within a certain distance of the General, and the same was maintained on the long journey.

When the Governor was well seated in his authority, as he thought, he sought out a Mexican tailor, who in a brief space of time assisted the Governor to don a pair of open-legged pantaloons (calzoneros), of parti- colored cloth, red geen, and gold, interspersed with scallops of purple velvet, with silver bell buttons extending from hip to bottom. Under the calzoneros he wore Mexican drawers of delicate white muslin, with each leg a yard wide; shoes of black buckskin, with very short round toes and high heels. Over his calzonzillos, or drawers, and reaching to the knee, he wore the Mexican bota, made of leather, embroidered in gold, silk, and silver, into which the Governor thrust his silver-hilted knife. Around his gubernatorial waist he wore a gaudy Mexican sash, at least five yards long. A very short embroidered jacket was donned by his Excellency. A red vicuna hat, with gold cords and tassels, surmounted the head of California's gringo Governor, and, as he thought, completed his expensive costume, and cost somebody several hundred dollars. The Governor, however, was mistaken, as the sequel will show; his costume was not yet complete. One of the Lugos, on beholding this wonderful get-up, determined to outdo it, and in a few days appeared upon the streets with

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a suit of clothes which, with his saddle and horse trappings, cost over $2000. Besides his gorgeous sash, he wore, tied low down on his loins, a great red bandana handkerchief, with the points hanging down behind like a swallow-tail coat. The Governor saw and gazed upon this strutting jackdaw as it flitted by, and until it faded from view in the dim distance; then, pondering abstractedly for a few minutes, hied himself to a Mexican dry goods store, purchased two bandanas in one, attached them to his rear in lieu of coat-tails by tying the corners in front, surveyed himself for a time, and walked into the street with every evidence of feeling that he was a conqueror, every inch of him. The gringos were justly proud of their Governor's Mexican costume.

The author does not wish to detract from the meritorious services of Colonel Fremont in the conquest of California. But his services have been so overrated, that persons not familiar with the truths of history, believe that no one other than Fremont had aught to do in the reduction of this golden land to the dominion of the Stars and Stripes. For instance, the world believes, and history holds out, that the ancient fortifications which overlook our Angel City, were constructed by Fremont, while the truth is they were constructed by General George Stoneman, and the late General Davidson, alternately relieving each other. Also, that the ancient flag-staff at Sonoma was raised by Fremont, while the truth again is that in 1851, General Stoneman, with strong and patriotic blows, wielded the axe that felled the tree that has for thirty years withstood storm and decay, and that he did most of the manual labor in raising that venerable pole. History also gives to Fremont all the honor attending the surrender at Cahuenga, and the writer alleges his belief to be that the Pathfinder is rightfully entitled to all the honor there was in it.

The true significance of the Treaty of Cahuenga was this. Early in 1846, Commodore Stockton occupied Los Angeles,

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established himself, and paroled certain Mexican officers, not to bear arms during the war unless exchanged. Now certain among these officers, in violation of their paroles, took up arms under Cerbol Barelas, in September, and drove the garrison under Gillespie out of Los Angeles, captured Wilson's command at Chino, and reconquered this country to Mexico.

General Kearney having crossed the plains (after the sharp cavalry encounter with General Andres Pico at San Pasqual near the Mission San Luis Rey), formed a junction with Commodore Stockton at San Diego, marched on Los Angeles, and after the battles of San Gabriel and La Mesa, entered and occupied Los Angeles on the 8th of January, 1847.

Those officers who had violated their paroles were now in a bad fix--they either had to flee the country or run the chance of being arrested and shot.

General Andres Pico who was yet in the saddle, hearing of Fremont's coming, met him at Cahuenga, and throwing dust in his eyes as to the re- occupation of Los Angeles, induced him to make a treaty and bind the United States to the pardon of those officers.

It was a masterly stroke on the part of Don Andres and reflected great credit on him as a diplomat, he having theretofore demonstrated his prowess on the field. Don Andres was a great humorist, and took huge delight in laughing over his Quaker demonstrations at Cahuenga.

General Kearney, in his dispatch to the government, said that he thought the pacification of the country demanded his approval of Fremont's Cahunega treaty, and on that ground he did approve it.