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A RANGER is not an antiquarian, and when one writes a book of reminiscences he is expected to confine himself to the subject of broils, raids, and frontier life generally. But, notwithstanding, the author is going to hazard the assertion that the traces of ancient civilization found scattered over the vast plateau extending from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean, as also the ruins found further south, in Mexico and Central America, many of which he has examined, are not of such remote antiquity as the scientific searchers for ancient ruins would lead the world to believe. That either the Casa Grande and kindred remains found on the Gila and in other parts of Arizona, or Palenque, Quiche, Copan or Quirigua found in Central America, are of an antiquity greater than the advent of the Spanish conquerors, the writer is constrained to question. That all of those places, and many others, the remains of which are to be found in all parts of Central America, were of very ancient origin, there is no kind of question; but that they were deserted by their inhabitants, or that they had ceased to be the abiding places of a highly civilized and intelligent race of people when Columbus discovered America, is not supported by the test of practical experience. Antiquarians, in their eager search for the remote, overlook all evidence of the modern. It is well known to practical persons that timber rots and decays with remarkable rapidity in the

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humid climate of Central America, yet timber is found in the ruins of Palenque, as also in other ruins in Central America, and in as good a state of preservation as some found in old bridges of masonry intermingled with timber, built by the Spaniards after the conquest of the country. The theory that those cities were in ruins, and were enveloped in the mists of antiquity before the coming of the Spaniard, is not supported, when subjected to the tests of common practical experience.

We may apply a plain, practical test as to the remote antiquity of ruins and remains found in Arizona. It is well known that violent storms with drifting sands prevail in that country, yet, the traces of irrigating canals are to be found wherever large or considerable streams of water are contigious to extensive bodies of arable lands. How long would the trace of a ditch remain in such a country, or even here in California where violent winds are scarcely known? Would they endure the corrosions of time and storms for one hundred years, two hundred years, or at the furthest three hundred years? With the writer's observations in that direction, he most emphatically maintains that they would not. That these old canals were the property of those who inhabited these ruined places, all are agreed. Then why not at once discard the preposterous theory that the ruins of Arizona verge even on the borders of remote antiquity, and accept the one that by Spanish spoliation and conquest the former people of Arizona have been driven from their civilized abodes and become the prey of the fierce Apache, or, that pestilence, famine, or some other reasonable cause has left their lands waste and their habitations and temples in ruins. Antiquarians not only look too far, but they generally go too far for common sense practical research. For instance, if one of our angels should be inclined to investigate the vestiges of antiquity, he would hie himself to the Pyramids, and take a look at the mysterious characters engraven on those time-honored remains, and return to us looking as wise as an owl,

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and would really know as much of the Pyramids as did the donkey or the dragoman who carried him thither. On his return he might take in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and by the time he reached his modern angel home he would at least feel entitled to a degree with A.M. attached to his former title, if any be had, and if he undertook to lecture to us wondering angels on Pompeii and Herculaneum, he could tell us just about as much of the wonders of those long buried cities as could the dead dog of the 2,000 years dead Diomede. But if our angel antiquarian should shoulder his shovel and walk out of our back door into the Mojave desert and go to work excavating, he could unearth a modern Herculaneum that has lain buried not more than three hundred years, and about the great buried city of the Mojave, the center of a civilization not remote, but still a populous city, situated in the "valley of perpetual bloom," buried and hidden from the face of man only about one hundred and fifty years before the Jesuitical explorers first set their sandled feet in this valley of the angels; to write what he knows, or has learned of that buried mystery, will now be the task of this antique Ranger.

A tradition has existed, and really exists now, that the Mojave desert was once a fruitful, beautiful and well watered valley, that the mountains, those we call the Sierra Madre, but which in point of fact are the Sierra Nevada, were covered with soil and verdure, that there came a terrible wind that denuded the mountains of their soil, blew the rocks bare and filled up the beautiful Mojave beyond, leaving it the howling waste as seen to-day, the home of the coyote, the hideous, burning plain of drifting sands, whereon so many ill-fated miners have wandered and perished of heat and thirst. Don Francisco Garcia, the oldest man in the City of Angels, who came here more than eighty years ago a Spanish soldier, and yet marches on foot in our patriotic processions, says he conversed with many Indians, who remembered hearing their ancestors

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speak of the ventarron and substantiated by oral evidence, on their own knowledge, what has passed into vague tradition.

The reader has of course heard of Tehachepi, "The Windy Pass." The immortal Daniel Boone, vagabondizing on the then verge of American civilization, won a name immortal by becoming the first white man of Kentucky. To be the first white man of Kentucky at the present time would be a consummation devoutly to be wished, because Kentucky is the land of giants, and to be first among giants is, to say the least, a very big thing, but to have been the first man when old Daniel Boone was there was no great shakes, because Boone was by himself and alone, and skulking from the Indians, and didn't so much as have a "nigger to boss," and came within just one man of being nobody. So this writer could never see why that old squatter should have been so lauded for being the first white man of Kentucky, when at the time there was no second white man. In 1854 this adventurous Ranger became the first white man of Tehachepi, and like the immortal Boone, was the only one. It is a great thing, however, to be the first white man of any country, and this Ranger maintained all of that regal dignity until the advent into that now classic spot, of Jack King, when the author yielded his claim in favor of Jack, and then he became the first white man of Tehachepi. When the writer was the first white man of Tehachepi there was none other nearer than San Fernando, more than a hundred miles, so he experienced little difficulty in maintaining his position, especially as contrary to the case of Boone the three Indian families who inhabited the valley were extremely friendly. After giving a brief description of that classic locality the antiquarian Ranger will inform the world of what he learned concerning the buried city of Mojave while occupying the honorable position of being the first white man, and as a preface to what he intends to relate he will state as a fact, based on information and general acceptation that, since the coming of the gringo

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the buried city of the Mojave could be traced on the desert by its outcropping walls, and if sought for could without doubt be yet definitely located. Is this not a field promising a harvest of results to any of our antiquarian angels? Have we not a Pompeii or Herculaneum at our very back door?

Tehachepi, at the time this truthful historian enjoyed the proud distinction of being the "first man," was the most beautiful and romantic place that is possible to conceive of a region so elevated and so windy. The valley proper, or pass, is a wide open plain, and the grass, only trodden and cropped by the innumerable herds of antelope and deer that inhabited the region, was most abundant, beautiful and contiguous and smaller valleys, romantic canons, forests of pine, groves of evergreen and spreading oaks, purling brooks, gushing springs, green meadows, verdant slopes and craggy hights, went to make a picture of arcadian beauty that would have raised the enthusiasm of a landscape painter to the seventh heaven of bliss. Tehachepi has since been, and is yet, the paradise of the stock raiser, and is settled by a hardy set of frontiersmen, who promise fair in the future to raise up a race of mountaineers, fleet of foot and strong of limb, to stand as a bulwark of liberty when the effeminate angels inhabiting this modern elysium have faltered in its defence, and have retired from the conflict to their orange groves, to lead a life of indolent ease. Tehachepi at the present time produces cattle; in the future it will produce men. The rugged surrounding mountains, the purity of the water, the extreme healthfulness of the climate, the purifying winds, sweeping through canon and valley, from the Tulare valley on the west to the arid Mojave desert on the east, its elevation, 3000 feet above the sea level, its magnificent springs of mineral water, the climate never hot and never cold, but always windy, gives promise that Tehachepi will, in the future, grow a race of physical giants.

The great Southern Pacific Railroad, in surmounting the

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Tehachepi, performed one of the most curious engineering somersaults known to the science of railroad building, and by its great combination of tunnels and loops has given a fame to Tehachepi never before enjoyed. During the dark days of the civil war the locality gained an evil repute on account of one patriotic citizen named Mason, who collected a gang of cutthroats, unfurled to the balmy breeze the three-barred banner of the lost cause, declared for the Southern Confederacy, and robbed and murdered all who failed to pay him tribute. The gang became the terror of the country, ruined the reputation of the windy pass, and where the mad career of the gay guerrillas would have ended had not a woman stepped in and caused the death of the chief, is left to conjecture. That is to say, the chief becoming enamored of the charms of the wife of one of his band, was smiled on by the fair and fickle one, which caused the reverse of a smile in the outraged husband, who ended the amorous dalliance of the two guilty lovers by putting an end to the redoubtable Robin Hood of the windy pass. On the death of the leader the band disbanded, and has passed into the history of Tehachepi.

The sturdy old oaks that stand exposed to the driving winds of the windy pass have about the same rake as the masts of an old-fashioned Yankee slave-brig; that is to say, they all stand on an angle with the horizontal. To be still more plainly understood, I mean to say that all the trees at Tehachepi have a strong leaning toward the east; and still more wonderful, the west side of the trees are devoid of bark, and are as polished as were the masts of the slave-brig aforesaid, all of which is caused by the continuous and cutting character of the winds howling through the windy pass. Once speaking of the latter peculiarity to an enthusiastic citizen of the windy locality, he said that was a mistake; "the wind had not blown the bark of the trees." "What'else could have caused such curious phenomenon?" queried the writer. "Why," said he, "you know

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when the valley was first settled we all got into a squabble about our claims and got to bushwhacking each other in regular old-fashioned, backwoods, Indian style, and all of the trees were filled full of bullets. This we continued for about two years, when we settled our difficulties and quit shooting at each other, and then one fellow here, who had been an old lead miner, concluded that he could make wages at mining the bullets and buckshot out of the trees, the bullets and buckshot, you know, that had lodged in the trees during our two years scrimmage, so in the first place he had to peel off the bark to enable him to find the bullets, and that is the reason the west side of the trees are so bare of bark." "The devil and Tom Walker," said I, "that story won't go down. How was it that the bullets and buckshot only lodged in the west side and none other?" "Oh!" said he, "I forgot to explain that; you see, just as soon as the gun was fired, no difference which way she was pointed, the wind would just catch up the bullet or buckshot and away they would go whizzing with the wind, and if they struck a tree it had to be on the west side, because you know, the wind at Tehachepi always blows from the west." "Well," queried the inquisitive author, "you must have made bloody work among each other in your two years' conflict?" "Oh, not very," said he, "sometimes we would catch a fellow in a sheltered nook in the mountain and then we would settle his hash, but where the wind was blowing you could no more hit a man with a bullet or buckshot, if you aimed at him, than you could by throwing a handful of red beans."

There were three Indian families at Tehachepi when this Ranger was enacting the role of Daniel Boone in that unknown place, and were quite comfortably situated in a cosy little sheltered nook on the north side of the pass, overlooking the great Mojave desert. Occupying a hut all to himself, was a very old Indian, who received the most kind and unremitting attention from the three families, all of whom seemed to vie with

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each other in their kindness to the old man. For the information of the reader, I will here state that these Indians were of the Tejon tribe, inhabiting the beautiful region in and around the head of the Tulare valley, fishing in Lakes Kern and Buena Vista in summer time, and hunting in the Tejon Mountains and region in and around the Tehachepi Pass in winter. The most of them spoke the Spanish language. By small donations from my small stock of provisions, and the distribution of powder, ball and caps with which I was well supplied, among the three hunters of the little rancheria I soon gained their confidence. When the sun was warm the old man, who was unable to walk, used to be brought out and sat down on a pile of deer skins, carefully arranged in a warm sunny exposure protected from the wind, where he would sit and smoke till eventide, when he would be carefully carried in. He was the oldest-looking human I ever beheld. Old Dona Ulalia, who recently died at an age ranging anywhere from a hundred and thirty to a hundred and fifty, was a modern compared with this antique relic of past ages. The first time the old man was out after my arrival at the camp and I gazed upon his wrinkled form, I felt as if standing in the very presence of a living mummy. He looked like an embalmed Egyptian who had lain three thousand years in the catacombs. I inquired of the hunters if he could talk, "Oh, yes; very well, if you can understand him." "Oh, then," said I, "he don't speak Spanish?" "Muy bien," said the hunter, "but his voice is very curious, and unless you are familiar with it, the same as the wind." "Has he any senses left?" inquired the Ranger. "Es muy sabio y muy vivo," (he is very wise and lively,) said the Indian hunter, "if you can only understand him." "Is he your grandfather, or is he your great grand-father?" I inquired. "He is not of our race," said the hunter. "Who, and what is he, then?" I again inquired, beginning to feel an interest in this sublime and bent monument of antiquity. The hunter, who was an

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intelligent fellow, went on in his pretty good Spanish to inform me that the old man, who claimed never to have been married, and to have no living kin in the wide earth, was, according to his statement and the belief of the Indians, to be the last of a race of civilized Indians who once inhabited and cultivated the beautiful Mojave, until that valley of perpetual bloom was submerged by the ventarron.

I then bethought me, if the old man can only talk and I can only learn to understand him, what a world of information can be derived as to the prehistoric people, if any, that had inhabited the desert of the Mojave. So I at once put myself in a way to open communication with the ancient relic of a bygone race. First I gave him a white clay pipe, well filled with tobacco, and found that he smoked like a Turk, and that he was greatly delighted with the gift. I soon gained on the old man's confidence, but it was a difficult matter to understand his speech, if such sound as the rushing of the wind through dry rushes could be so designated, but in the course of time I was enabled to glean from the old relic, by what I could myself understand, and with the assistance of the intelligent Indian hunter, the following concerning the ventarron and the destruction of the great city of Mojave. To use the old man's language would be impossible, and the author will use his own to convey to the reader the substance of what he was more than a fortnight in learning, all of which was to the following effect:

"The great plain spread out before us as we look at the rising sun was, when my grandfather was in the prime of life, and when my father was yet an infant, a valley of perpetual bloom, inhabited by a dense population of highly civilized people, who lived by agriculture and manufactures. At the furthest stretch of the eye from where we now sit, the capital city of Mojave stood in all its majestic beauty, with its walls of solid stone and its massive buildings, its towers and turrets. My grandfather and father, long, long since gathered to the spirit land,

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and one or two families who belonged to the watch tower that then guarded this same pass, were the only surviving inhabitants of the lost people, and all of them have years and years ago died and left me alone. I am all that is left of that once proud and powerful nation; what I learned of the great ventarron was from my grandfather, who died when I was yet a young man. The ventarron (whirlwind) did not strike this place. Although the three days' wind from the north blew with destructive violence, the strong watch tower that guarded this pass against the barbarous hordes of the north withstood its fury, and the twin mounds that yet stand here as sentinels are the remains of the great northern watch towers of the Mojaves, occupied by my grandfather and his friends when the ventarron swept over the valley of perpetual bloom, and left in its place the withering sight that for so long a time has blasted the eyes of all who have gazed upon its glaring surface. As I said before, all beyond us to the setting sun was then barbarism, and my grandfather who was here said (and I remember myself his oft-repeated description of the dire catastrophe) to this effect:

For three days the wind blew with terrific violence from the west. For three days the wind blew from the north with a fury that shook the foundation of these mountains that now surround us. Then for three more days it blew from the east, and three days from the south. The whole world seemed to be falling to pieces, and the mountains rattled in their sockets like teeth in an ancient skull. Then the four winds roared together in a grand conflict. The whirlwind lifted up the rocks and ground them to dust. Great cliffs were torn to pieces and driven in gyrating circles until reduced to powder, and filled the air with dust until the sun was obscured, and darkness fell upon the face of the earth. The world seemed going back into chaos. Then the thunders of Heaven joined in the appalling commotion, and the universe seemed to be in the last throes of dissolution, and

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that general annihilation was at hand. As a last final effort of enraged nature, the flood-gates of heaven were opened and rain fell like the pouring out of an ocean, the flying dust returned in mud and settled upon the earth. The darkness passed away and revealed a sight too dismal for contemplation. The valley of perpetual bloom lay before us like a blackened and hideous corpse. The walls and towers of the great city of Mojave reared their desolation above the ruin in silent mourning over the buried multitude, and the ventarron had performed its mission of fell destruction.

When the renowned and pious father of all the missions in California, Padre Junipero Serra was at San Gabriel he was so impressed with the belief that a great city existed somewhere on the east of the Sierra Nevada, that after a vast amount of persuasion he induced some of his Indian converts to accompany him in search of it. In using the word persuasion, I would here remark that the mission Indians always had a superstitious awe regarding that mysterious region. Tradition has it that the good father with his neophyte guard came in sight of a large and magnificent city on the Mojave desert, that he journeyed toward it but got no nearer, and being seized with the superstitious fear of his Indian companions hurriedly retraced his steps to San Gabriel, declaring that the city he saw was a machination of the devil to lure him from his missionary labors among the heathen. Now as to whether the good father was deceived by a mirage, or that he did actually behold a real city, and was deceived by false appearances as to distance, we are not permitted to imagine, but it is a well known fact that in the great purity and clearness of the desert atmosphere the distance of twenty miles seems less than one. The tradition excited the poetical genius of Kercheval, and with the following from him we drop the curtain on the dark mystery that broods over the lost people of the valley of perpetual bloom.

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THE PHANTOM CITY.

Where the desert's face lies glaring,
Like a corpse forever staring,
And the zephyr's moan despairing,
Wand'ring o'er the deathly waste,
Came a Padre meek and lowly,
Hasting onward, blindly, slowly,
Seeking with his emblem holy,
Dying souls with zealous haste.
Far away with quivering shimmer,
Sank the mountains dim and dimmer,
Shone the sunset's dying glimmer,
With a faint, expiring glance;
Came no earthquake's voice to mutter,
Not a trembling zephyr's flutter,
Slept a silence deep and utter,
o'er the lonely, dread expanse.
On, o'er ghastly wastes and dreary,
Thro' the night's long watches weary,
Journeyed stont old Padre Serra
Till the ghostly shadows fled,
And the moon came silent wending,--
Still before him vague extending,
Stretched the level waste unending,
Lifeless, soundless, boundless spread.
'Neath the dim horizon's circle,
Where the shadows crouch and darkle,
What is that the sun's bright sparkle
Gilds as with a flash of fire?
Lo! a city vast and hoary,
Dazzling as some fairy story,
Clothed as with celestial glory,
Dome and battlement and spire.
Like the swelling tides of ocean,
Thrilled the Padre with emotion,
In his soul a grand commotion,
Thankfulness and glad surprise
Stirred his holy spirit greatly,
Waving palm trees tall and stately,
Towering in their pride sedately,
Rose beneath the desert skies.

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Was it but a mocking seeming?
Was the holy Padre dreaming?
Rose a city tall and gleaming,
Queenly 'mid the desert lands;
Temples proud and princely places,
Terraced heights and fount-kissed spaces,
Like some hidden, blest oasis
'Mid Sahara's burning sands.
Then of dangers nought regretting,
Heedless of the toil and sweating,
All the thirst and heat forgetting,
Spake the Padre stout and brave:
"Though the way hath worn and spent me,
Surely Heaven its aid hath lent me,
Surely Christ himself hath sent me
Forth these heathen hosts to save!"
Gleamed the city clear and clearer,
Seemed it near, yet never nearer,
Almost might the list'ning hearer
Seeming catch its busy din;
But there smote no clang of sabre,
Rose no song of flute or tabor,
And no pulsing tides of labor
Drifted out or entered in.
Yet in vain his weary toiling,
'Neath that glowing furnace broiling,
Ever some curs'd spell seemed foiling
All his efforts in the chase;
Shrank the phantom ever fleeting,
Ever from his grasp retreating,
Where the dim horizon meeting
Kissed the desert's deathly face.
Still the holy father wandered
Ever on and ever pondered--
"Here the heathen hosts have squandered
All the world's bright golden store;
In this vast and lonely centre,
With the cross, their faithful mentor,
I will be the first to enter
At their desert-guarded door."
"If my weak endurance fail not,
Satan's wiles shall him avail not;
Here the holy cross shall trail not
Longer in the sighing dust.

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Here with zealous, brave endeavor,
Error's head His sword shall sever,
And His Kingdom reign forever,
Conquering over sin and lust."
Still more gorgeous glowed the splendor
From each column, tall and slender,
Slept a glory soft and tender,
With its far o'erarching light
From each temple skyward springing
Countless rays of glory flinging,
Dazzling, flashing, trembling, clinging
Round each spire's far-piercing height.
Fiercer gleamed that furnace glowing
Like the lava-tide o'erflowing,
Ever hot and hotter growing,
Withering as some demon's spites;
Deadly as the path of error,
Though no mute lips made demurrer,
Fell a vague, despairing terror
On his trembling Neophytes.
Long with fruitless, vain endeavor,
Followed he the phantom ever,
On and onward, nearing never,
Till at eve, ere fell the night;
Like some fairy's bright creation,
Like some dazzling exhalation,
Dome and turret and foundation
Melted from his longing sight.
Then said Padre Serra grieving,
"This is some curs'd spell deceiving,--
But a charm of Satan's weaving,
Luring souls to death," he said,
"With some cunning incantation,
From the pastures of salvation,
To this deadly desolation,"--
Then he crossed himself and fled.
Still the traveller, worn and weary,
Wand'ring o'er the deserts dreary,
Sees that phantom dim and eerie,
Gleaming, beck'ning far away.
But it flees his longing vision
Like a spectre in derision,
Fades its gorgeous gleam elysian,
As a dream at break of day.

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IN DECEMBER, '54, I first met the subject of this brief sketch, and this was the circumstance of our meeting and first acquaintance. Having been on a scout in the Cajon Pass, and on my return having dined sumptuously at old man Thompson's, the pioneer tavern-keeper at El Monte, which was just beginning to smile under the benign influence of American squatter sovereignty, which said squatter sovereignty produced the reverse of a smile on the Workmans, Rowlands and Temples who owned lands in the historic "Monte," and had herds roaming ad libitum therein and thereabout. Oh, no! When the Rowland or the Workman would miss a cow, a heifer, or a bullock, they would never suspect a Monte squatter of being a beef eater! It would not have been safe to have entertained, or at most to have expressed, any such suspicion, and furthermore, because did not the said sovereigns come from the land of hog and hominy and corn whisky, and had not been here long enough to adapt themselves to the habits and tastes of the country? The Monte promised to be the paradise of the farmer; the face of the earth would smile whenever touched by the hardy pioneer, and crops of corn would grow almost without labor.

So prolific was the soil, that the pioneer bed posts, table legs and benches would put forth verdure and take root, reattach

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themselves to the soil, and again become real estate. Such was really the case at El Monte, particularly so at Thompson's Willow Grove House, and this is the way it so came to pass:

Willow poles were the great staple of El Monte. They were used for houses, fences, pig-pens, corn-cribs and all kinds of furniture, and as mud floors were the order of the times, a bed-post would, when sat on a damp mud floor (and the floors at El Monte were always damp), at once take root, and within the briefest space of time the occupants of the original rude couch would find themselves enveloped in a canopy of sylvan green. Such was the kind of real furniture found at Thompson's old pioneer Willow Grove House, where this truthful Ranger gormandized on roast beef, beefsteak, beef boiled with cabbage, and beef soup, after his lonely and arduous ride and short rations, as before stated.

After dinner and a gossip with mother Thompson and her two interesting daughters, the Ranger hied himself to the Mission Headquarters, and it being Sunday, the bar was being over well patronized. Dismounting and sending an Indian in quest of barley for my mustang charger, I sat down to take in the surroundings of the classic Headquarters.

There must have been at least three hundred persons in and around the place. "Old Jackson," the village pettifogger, stood behind the bar dealing out whisky to the American, aguardiente to the Mexican and Indian, angelica to the feminine angels therein congregated, and a miscellaneous mixture to the squaws who were just beginning to get hellarious. Two Monte games were in full blast in the "Saloon," cock-fighting and a Mexican circus going it at 2:40 in the rear, and a horse race about to come off in front. Roy Bean in all the pomp and glory of being the cock of the walk, walked up and down, in and around, bucking here and there, and offering to bet on his favorite cock, making a "cow" for the horse race, dressed in his usual Mexican costume--silver-hilted bowie and pair of

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navies, showing and assuming all the importance and brief authority of lording it over the Headquarters and all that reckless throng. A large percentage was Americans, desperate, worthless fellows, generally, the summit of whose ambition was a horse, a woman for the time, a good revolver, and a "stake" to play monte on.

Soon after the arrival at Headquarters there arrived an elegantly-dressed, handsome young fellow of possibly twenty years of age, of exceedingly graceful and polite demeanor, of smooth, clean, an such exceedingly neat appearance as would at once suggest his employment behind the counter of a fancy dry good store.

Dismounting and good naturedly entering headquarters, he carelessly leaned against the counter, and while quietly surveying the scene, he was rudely accosted by a ruffianly-looking fellow, who went around with the swaggering intent of having a fight or a foot-race. He seemed a sort of free rover, who knew no one by name, neither did any one seem to acknowledge an intimacy with him. Taking a position directly in front of the young man, with a querulous and deriseve grin, surveying him from head to foot, said:

"Well; whar in hell did yer come from?"

"I," said the young man, "Why, I just came from Los Angeles."

"Ye werent raised thar, war ye?" said Mr. Bully.

"Oh no," replied the young man; I was not 'reared' in Los Angeles. I came from New York."

"Whar! whar did ye say?" staring with evident mistification in the youngster's face.

Said the young man: "New York, sir, New York. Of course you know where New York is."

"I know whar New York is?" I jest don't; but reckon its away up North sumwha whar ye pries the sun up with a handspike. Is it not so, sah?"

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"The sun never sets on New York, sir," responded the young man.

Then came a banter for a fight, which the young man politely declined. Then the bully's demeanor became still more overbearing, until he declared himself to be "the Wild Wolf of the Arkansaw," and said:

"I was the bloodiest man in the Cherokee Nation; I am a half-breed Cherokee, I am, and I belonged to the Ridge party, and I've killed more Ross men than any dozen of men in the party. I killed two Mexicans in New Mexico, on my way out here, and I killed a soldier at Fort Yuma, and then dared old Heintzelman to take me up. I've been here three weeks, and haint killed no one yet, and I'm going to kill you if you just open your mouth. I'll give these Mexicans a chance to have a funeral."

"Please, sir, don't let them bury me alive," said the young man, ironically.

"Stranger, do yer know who ye are talkin' to this kinder way? Let me hear from yer. I'm from the Cherokee Nation, and I shoot, cut and kill, I do."

At this stage of proceedings Roy came on the scene, and informed the citizen from the Cherokee Nation that he must desist from molesting the boy, and that being in his house he would protect him.

The boy thanked Roy politely, and said: "The gentleman is not dangerous, in my opinion, and won't hurt me." Now the volcano burst forth. "Get out of the way, I'm going to shoot," said "the bloodiest man."

A general rush was made for the four doors, as was always the case when a fight was imminent. The boy stood quiet and smiling until the bloodiest man laid his hand on his revolver, when, in the twinkling of an eye, the boy had the muzzle of a small revolver within a foot of the pit of the desperado's stomach, when, with a voice as polite and gentle as

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if soliciting the hand of a fair lady in a quadrille, said: "My dear sir, hold up your hands or I'll kill you dead."

With his eye steadily resting on the eye of the bully, who, feeling that he had found his master, had mistook his man, mechanically obeyed.

"Now," said the boy, "unbuckle you belt and let that six-shooter fall," which without demur was done.

"Now take your position at the corner of the room," pointing to the place indicated. The cowed bully obeyed, and the boy picked up the revolver, then called for a cigar, and quietly lighted it.

The crowd now recovered from the panic, looked on the strange proceeding in mute wonder.

"You stay there till I call for you or I'll kill you," said the boy, puffing vigorously at his cigar, and all the time keeping his eye on his disarmed foe.

When the boy got his cigar well started, he walked quietly up to the bully with his little revolver presented, and said: "Sir, hold your hands behind your back. I'm going to stick the fiery end of this cigar in your nose, and you must let it remain there until it goes out, and if you flinch, sniffle or or attempt to take it out "I'll make a funeral for these Mexicans."

He then proceeded to put his threat into execution by thrusting the fiery end of the cigar in the ruffian's nose, and then stepping back to the counter, said: "Gentlemen, resume your games, there will be no further trouble," still keeping a dead aim on the bully, who stood the burning like a martyr for a full minute, when the strange youth, handing the bully's pistol to Roy, said: "When I'm gone give him his revolver, unless he would like to step outside and exchange shots with me like a man. My name is Joe Stokes, and I can whip any man in

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California who don't like me, and I like to lay for such soft snaps as the 'Wild Wolf of the Arkansas.'"

A hoot, a general hurrah in English, and "Viva el muchacho tan valiente" went up from the Mexicans, and the "bloodiest man" was hooted and pelted from the crowd, and "little Joe Stokes" was the Napoleon of the "San Gabriel Headquarters" until a late hour in the day, when he and myself rode into Los Angeles. He was the greatest, bravest and most magnanimous of all the desperadoes of early times, and who he was, what he did, how he died, and how in dying he dealt death and destruction around him, will be next in order.

Joe Stokes was a brother of the Stokes who killed Jim Fisk, so I understand, and belonged to a fighting family. The father of the Stokes' was a banker at Philadelphia. Joe was a book-keeper in Sacramento in 1852, and was about twenty years old. The "Woodcock," the "Humboldt" and the "Empire" were the three principal of the many flourishing gambling houses that abounded in the "Crescent City." After business hours it was the custom of the moral denizens of that fast place to become lookers-on at these fashionable places of gilded vice. Among other frequenters was poor Joe, who was in the habit of once in a while "bucking a slug or two." Joe, however, was quiet, well-behaved, and extremely gentlemanly in his manners, and almost timid in his retiring modesty, and was, at the time of his first appearance in and around the "Humboldt" and "Woodcock," the last person in the world that might be suspected of becoming a debutant in the bloody arean of the desperado. Such, nevertheless, was the case. He killed a gambler, which was his first appearance on the stage of death. Tom Collins was a full-fledged scion of Red River chivalry, who could draw a Colt or wield a bowie equal to the leading artist of the time. Tom was eminent as a first-class fighter, and was master of one of the numerous monte banks in full blast at the "Humboldt," and Joe was bucking thereat,

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and detected Tom in "drawing waxed cards" while dealing, and boldly accused him of the dishonorable, and at the time regarded by the sporting fraternity, reprehensible act.

Tom frowned on Joe as a lion might be supposed to frown on a rat, and gave him just two minutes to leave the house, threatening death in case of refusal, or if he ever caught him within its sacred portals.

Joe quietly dared the gambler to put him out, whereupon Tom sprang from his seat, out with his revolver and blazed away at Joe who quietly folded his arms and informed the cowardly ruffian of his being unarmed and if "you are cowardly enough to shoot an unarmed man then blaze away. I don't belong to the breed that runs."

The brave Tom fired two more shots, Joe standing at ten feet distance and defiantly looking the would-be murderer in the eye. The first shot cut Joe's hair, the second passed between his arm and his body, and the third hit him in the muscle of the arm, inflicting a severe and dangerous flesh wound. At this stage of the game a bystander ran up and gave Joe a loaded revolver, and the brave Collins ran behind a column supporting the ceiling above and fired the fourth shot, missing Joe, who in the meantime deliberately aimed and fired at the only exposed part of Tom's body, hitting him in the neck and killing him instantly. From thenceforward Joe Stokes became a terror. He seemed to delight in broils and was only happy when mixed up in a first class fight, always refused to take an unfair advantage, and was never known to come out second best. He absolutely seemed to delight in danger, was never quarrelsome, always in good humor, cool, quiet and calculating, he was "without doubt the most dangerous man in California," and so said good old Recorder Baker, of San Francisco, in 1855, while imposing a fine on Joe for some small affray. To bring out a salient point in Joe's character, I must take up the "ubiquitous" and

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venerable Ned McGowan who, by the bye, has been reminiscencing San Francisco, and this truthful and impartial author feels constrained to reminiscence Ned, which he will now commence to do in finishing up our present hero.

Ned McGowan; what memories historical, political, warlike, tragic, dramatic, melodramatic, farcical, comic and amorous, cluster around thy name Oh, Ned! sublime relic of American chivalry never to be known again, for thou art the last of thy kind. When thy gray locks go down to an honored grave, thy deeds of unselfish and noble generosity will survive thee, if not on the page of history, then surely in the memory of all who in the glorious times of the argonaut and the pioneer knew thee.

"So gallant in love and so dauntless in war."

In morals and chivalry Ned was emphatically an exaggerated edition of Aaron Burr. In 1855, what Jack Powers was to Santa Barbara, Judge Edward McGowan was to San Francisco. In '56, when Ned shook the sands of the Bay City from his feet, and hied him in the direction of the "City of Vineyards," the halo of glory that surrounded San Francisco the peerless, departed with him, and the blighted metropolis never recovered from the blow of Ned's involuntary emigration. The price of drinks went down from four to two bits in less than a week. Oh! it was a sad falling off, indeed it was. Alas! Alas!

In '52 the author first met the gallant McGowan whose magnificent Magyar- like moustache was at that time whitened by the frosts of nearly fifty northern winters.

In the zenith of his California prosperity McGowan had formed a convenient connexion with a blonde beauty of La Belle France, on whom the amorous Judge lavished all the wealth of his ardent affections and showered his golden tribute without stint. Whatever there was of luxury in the

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voluptuous city in the way of high living, expensive suppers, fine turnouts, wardrobe, jewelry and fine cottage on Pike street, the generous McGowan procured for this fair and frail daughter of fickle France. Now it so happened that the Democratic horizon in California in '55 was obscured by the Know-Nothing eclipse, and whatever of misfortune befel the California Democracy was most keenly felt by McGowan, because McGowan was the Democracy of California and the Democracy of California was Edward McGowan. Now, therefore, be it understood, that the frail sisterhood on the Pacific slope are and ever have been the best barometers of flush times, and hard times as well, and Mademoiselle was no exception to the generality of her kind, but if anything more acute, and felt the premonitory tremor of coming misfortune to her over-generous protector. The Judge owned the fee simple to the cottage on Pike, worth maybe $15, 000. To obtain a transfer of the title papers to herself this adventurous daughter of Gaul lavished her persuasive powers on her flexible lover, and with perfect success. She argued with the Judge that in his declining years he would have a home wherein to betake himself in case of a lame leg or a rainy day, a hook whereon to hang--a prop of support. The deed was duly signed, sealed, delivered and recorded--and lo! a change came o'er the spirit of his dream. The venomous vixen told the Judge that she had no further use for him and that he would her a "favor personal do" to vamose her ranch, to vacate her premises,--in vulgar parlance, to get out, and when the indignant Judge attempted to remonstrate a stalwart son of Gaul put in an appearance and offered a physical argument to that so sweetly urged by his mistress. So the Judge stood not on the order of his going, but went at once. This happened in December, '55, and at that time this truthful historian with the celebrated A. H. Clark (who has been heretofore mentioned as one of the Equadorian Filibusters) as a room-mate, lived under the same roof with the victim of

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this infernal French duplicity. Our lodging house was on Dupont, near Sacramento, and only a block and a half from the cottage on Pike, and kept by Madame Teresa Show. One Sunday afternoon at about four o'clock, while several of us, Ned being one, were quietly enjoying ourselves in the Madame's front parlor we were startled by a terrific explosion, and hurriedly emerging from the house betook ourselves in the direction thereof, which proved to have occurred at the third house from Sacramento on Pike, in fact was at the late love-nest of the venerable McGowan and the fair French blonde. By the time we were on the ground several had assembled, among whom we found Joe Stokes, apparently the most unconcerned of all. The alarm of fire having been sounded, the Monumental Fire Company were at hand, but there was no call for their service. On enquiring within it was ascertained that some one had deposited an immense petard under the window on the cottage porch and fired the fuse thereof, that the French stalwart aforesaid, Mademoiselle's man of all work, had accidentally opened the door, and observing the sizzing peculiarity, picked it up and pitched it toward the street, but it exploded almost on the instant of leaving his hand, knocking him into the next midsummer and so disfigured the front of that Belle cottage that the Judge himself would not have recognized it. The affair produced a sensation. McGowan was arrested, but easily proved an alibi, he being of the party in Madame Show's parlor when the petard went off. Who the perpetrator was was enveloped in mystery, and light never shone thereon, but the truth is that in the month of March following, on my way to Nicaragua, Joe Stokes being of my company, he informed me that he was the very person that attempted to blow Ned's former frail one into smithereens. He said:

"I once had a fight in the El Dorado, and killed a Frenchman, and but for Judge McGowan it would have gone hard with me. The Judge placed me under such obligations then

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that I was bound to return the compliment on the first opportunity; but," said he, "you ought to have seen that Johnny Crapaud when my petard exploded. I didn't think there was a piece left of him as big as a chew of tobacco. I guess it killed him."

In Nicaragua, with Stokes and some forty others, I boarded the steamer Cortez, intending to seize her for the Nicaraguan Government. The Cortez was commanded by Captain Napoleon Collins, U.S.N., who in place of permitting us to seize his craft, captured and carried us to Panama, where we happened to be at the great riot and massacre of April 6th, 1856, in which Stokes was killed. This affair being the most bloody and terrible of all of the circumstances of travel to and from California, I take the liberty of this digression to relate it.

THE GREAT PANAMA RIOT AND MASSACRE.

The situation of affairs in Panama at the commencement of the great riot was this: The passengers from three steamers--the Golden Gate, from San Francisco, with about nine hundred, the New York steamer with about the same number, the steamer from New Orleans with, say, five hundred, and some four hundred of the Cortez passengers, as also the passengers by the British steamers from the South American coast, on their way East and to England, aggregating in the whole not less than three thousand souls, all assembled at the railroad depot, making the change, the Pacific side passengers taking the train just vacated by the Eastern side passengers, who were to go on board the Golden Gate.

The cause of the riot was that a drunken, turbulent Irishman, who had given considerable trouble in the steerage of the New York steamer, got into an altercation with a native fruit vender about a watermelon, the one insisting on taking the melon without pay, and the other demanding an equivalent for his merchandise. A fight ensued, and some passengers,

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ignorant of the cause, ran to the assistance of their fellow when other natives interfered in behalf of their countryman, and a general fight took place, which in a few moments assumed the proportions of a raging, turbulent, uncontrollable, furious and dreadful riot. It was near sunset when the firing commenced, and at the same time all the bells of the Barrio de Santa Ana, a vile suburb, commenced ringing, with a general rushing of the vagabond part of the populace toward the depot. At the moment referred to, the writer hereof was enjoying a post-prandial siesta and cigar in the front parlor of one of the hospitable mansions of the city, and stepped on the side-walk just in time to see the soldiery go by in full force, with fixed bayonets and at a double-quick, in the direction of the scene of commotion. At the same time the ladies of the house raised a cry of "revolution! revolution!" which was taken up and passed from door to door, followed by an instantaneous barricading of doors and windows, which they all seemed to understand as if by intuition. I at once ran the distance of a block to my hotel--the Aspinwall--ran up stairs and buckled on my revolver, and started out to find the only egress from the house, an immense door, firmly closed and barricaded. I then went to the balcony above and took a piece of carpet out of a room, twisted one end around a railing, got a lady passenger and guest to hold on to one end to keep it from slipping, and I so dropped to the street, and hied me in the direction of the great uproar. Emerging from the dilapidated city gate in that direction, I was called by name, and turning to a crowd of gentlemen in seeming conference, I at once recognized Ran Runnels, an American resident of Panama, a man of great bravery and influence, and married to the niece of the Governor. He requested me to remain with them, informing me that all the approaches to the depot were barricaded, and it would be sure death for me to attempt to get there. "But," said he, "the Governor here is only awaiting the arrival of his staff to proceed thither and

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direct the troops in dispersing the rioters, and we will go along with them." By the time he had done speaking the officials referred to arrived, and the party started. The din by this time had assumed the proportions of a full-grown pandemonium--the screaming of hundreds of women and children, the cries of rage and defiance of the more determined of the men, the hoots and yells of the natives, the firing of guns and the smashing and crashing of doors and windows, the groans of the dying and the cries of anguish of men who were being literally cut into pieces--and, to add to the infernal character of the place, was the screaming of the locomotive, that was vainly endeavoring to escape with the train partly filled with passengers. At this state of affairs we arrived at a barricade near the Ocean House, and a hundred yards from the depot, when we were surrounded by an immense crowd of natives, under the leadership of a desperate- looking white Spaniard, all flourishing their cutlasses, and demanding of the Governor an order for arms from the Government arsenal, and threatening him with instant death if he did not comply. I stood within arm's length of the Governor, and remember his reply as well, word for word, as though they were spoken but yesterday. He said to the leader, "I know that this mob would murder me; I know that you have long wished for an opportunity to do so; but now hear me, all of you: Sooner than issue an arm for any purpose but for the suppression of this infamous disorder, I would suffer myself to be torn limb from limb!" The Governor was a tall, black-bearded, noble-looking Spaniard, and I say this, after a lapse of twenty-nine years, in his justification, and for the reason that at the time, and soon thereafter, the press of the United States accused the Governor of participating in the riot. Not so. The very contrary was the case. The Ran Runnels of this chapter is now United States Consul at San Juan del Sur Nicaragua, and has so been for many years.

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About this time, however, I was recognized, and a cry was raised: "Kill the big Filibuster!" when Ran Runnels stepped quietly up and took that great, desperate-looking Spaniard, the mob-leader, gently by the collar, and at the same time he said to me, "Don't shoot unless I kill this devil, and then let loose and we will break through the crowd." I was utterly astounded at the gentleness and firmness of his voice and manner. Then to the desperado, still continuing his hold on the collar, he said, in an almost whisper: "Keep those dogs off; and now, Don Diego, one motion or effort on the part of these vagabonds here to strike either my friend or myself, and I will send an ounce of lead through the waistband of your pants."

At the same time I saw that he had the villain completely subdued; with one hand so gently on his collar, he was holding in the other a derringer at the pit of Don Diego's stomach. "Keep cool, Captain," he would say to me; "and now, Senor, you must escort us through this crowd, and, when you do so in a satisfactory manner to me, I will release you; but one threat or demonstration on their part, and you, Don Diego, are a dead man." It was perfectly astonishing to see what an influence that one man had over that surging mass of vile humanity. At the wave of his hand they would fall back as gently as a receding billow on the sandy shores of the ocean, and so he safely delivered us on the outskirts of that murderous pack of hell-hounds.

"Now," said Ran, "you have so well complied with my little request that I will keep my promise with you--go! Now, Captain, let us get to your hotel. We can do no good here, and we may save that place if not too late. Oh, God!" cried he, "is it possible that these helpless passengers are to be butchered in this way?"

By this time the noise had become positively terrific. No tongue or pen could describe it. With all my subsequent experience in Nicaragua and on the battlefields of the great

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civil war, I witnessed nothing that could begin to compare with it in point of diabolical horror.

After several narrow escapes from assassination, we arrived at the Aspinwall and found everything in confusion. The place had been twice attacked, and the assailants were driven off by the Filibusters, who had assembled, some twenty in number, in obedience to previous orders. It was some eight or nine o'clock when we arrived at the hotel, where we found some dozen only, the others having gone to the place of riot in search of myself and others of the company known to be mixed up in the fight. They, however, returned in the course of an hour, having been unable to do more than skirmish on the rear of the main body of the mob.

They, however, did good service with their revolvers, and came back to the hotel with a large number of passengers, whom they had picked up, and also accompanied by quite a number of Jamaica men--so called in Panama--and mostly employes of the Railroad and Steamship Companies. We at once went to work to organize offensive and defensive operations. A party of Filibusters were sent out, accompanied by the Jamaica men--the Filibusters to act either offensively or defensively, and the Jamaicans to gather up the panic-stricken and fugitive passengers. The arrangement worked admirably. The Jamaicans, on account of their color and knowledge of the Spanish language, were enabled to penetrate the mob, when, by speaking English to the passengers, they inspired immediate confidence, and whom they would guide to the Filibusters in the rear, who, when a sufficient number had been collected, would escort them to the Aspinwall.

The Jamaica negroes acted nobly, and were the means of saving hundreds of lives, frequently refusing large proffers of reward from those whom they had saved. And so we kept up our sallies and rescues during the night, all of which time the infernal uproar continued. At about midnight regular volley

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firing commenced, and continued until half past three in the morning. It was the soldiers firing through the thin sides of the railroad baggage- room, where some hundreds of passengers, under the direction of Joe Stokes, the "little Filibuster," had securely barricaded themselves and could have held out against the mob until the crack of doom but for an unfortunate occurrence. The troops under the direction of their leader, while endeavoring to disperse the mob with the bayonet, were fired on by the barricaded passengers, who supposed them to be of the murderous mob. The soldiers returned the fire, became unmanageable, and thenceforward acted with the mob. Few of the passengers were armed, and those who were were unsupplied with ammunition to reload their pistols when fired off, and then the surprise, the panic--no possibility of organized defense--the only two efforts at organization, the Aspinwall and the baggage room, were effected solely by the Filibusters. Stokes defended the entrance to the baggage room, during the whole night--passengers loading and passing revolvers to him, and had repulsed repeated charges on the door, both by the mob and the soldiers, who were now, after midnight acting as a mob and without organization. During the fore part of the night Stokes and Bob Marks, a watchman at the depot, had got an old swivel into the baggage- room, loaded it to the muzzle with boiler rivets, placed it in position in the main entrance, and kept it for the final emergency, which they knew to be inevitable. At half-past three, when the firing had ceased from within, and when about every one inside was either killed or disabled, the military mob forced the door, and rushed in at a charge bayonet. Then Stokes opened his masked battery. When the mob received that full and unexpected blast of boiler rivets directly in the face, which killed outright fifteen of the soldiers and wounded many more, they fell back on the pursuing mob behind, only for a moment, to be thrust forward again. Stokes and Marks only waited long enough to witness the effect

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produced by their terrific farewell. The two heroes, having fired their last shot, ran up-stairs into the telegraph-room, and Stokes had succeeded in reloading his revolver, and had turned to go out, when he was met at the door by a soldier and shot through the lungs. Poor Bob Marks was bayoneted on the spot. All the wounded in the baggage-room were brained and bayoneted, and, except the general sacking, the Panama horror was at an end. Colonel Garrido, a brave and, I believe, a humane officer, having tried without avail to arrest the carnage in the baggage-room, and hearing the shot up-stairs that killed poor Stokes, ran up in time to save him from being bayoneted, administered to his relief, and on the day following, with the consent of the Governor, ordered a platoon of the military to fire a salute over his grave. Colonel Garrido himself, being present, said: "Poor fellow! What would I have given to have saved him? He was the bravest man I ever saw."

Poor Stokes, only a wayward boy, was the hero of that night, and when the news of his heroic defence of those passengers, and his death, reached San Francisco, a movement was at once set on foot to erect a monument over his last resting-place, but, unfortunately, Ned McGowan took an active part in it, and during its progress the great Vigilance Committee rose. Ned became an outlaw, and the matter was forgotten. Alas! poor Stokes! He died the death of a hero and martyr, and deserved a monument.

Many in San Francisco and Los Angeles certainly remember Stokes; if so, let them shed a tear to his memory.

The result of this great enormity was the murder of two or three hundred defenceless passengers of both sexes; the exact number was never known. The American Consul held inquests over the bodies of sixty-three. He also took an account of $450,000 in gold, stolen by the mob, and the matter has since been a subject of diplomacy between our Government and that of New Granada, now Columbia, and may so continue to be for

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a length of time far greater than the lives of the most favored of those who were either engaged in or witnessed it.

Having brought out the name of Clark in this chapter, and having heretofore spoken of him, I may be pardoned in making this chapter a little longer by paying a slight tribute to his memory. He was the first civil appointee of the Government who came to Los Angeles--he coming in '52 to look after Uncle Sam's Customs here and hereabout. He was a political protege of Senator Gwinn, a noble fellow, a polished gentleman, and possibly the most classical scholar of the age. But he had no capacity for looking out for himself; he couldn't make money, was always in debt. In '55 he came within two votes of being elected Judge of Los Angeles county, and in October of which year he left here and went to San Francisco, remaining a few days in San Pedro, whence he sent back the following manifesto to his creditors:

"Beard the lion in his den--the Douglas in his hall."

"BELOVED CREDITORS--The celebrated English orator, Charles Fox, fled from the multiplicity of his debts, and sought to resuscitate the drooping energies of exhausted nature, amid the glorious productions of that famous city where the gifted Powers first drew from the rude marble, a thing of matchless beauty.

"At a later day an humbler but no less impulsive speck on the surface of animated existence, retired from the indignation of confiding money gatherers, and on the margin of that beautiful valley which stretches in 'airy undulations' from the waves of the Pacific to the base of the Sierra Nevada, forgot the magnitude of his liabilities in the pursuit of 'calm contemplation, and poetic ease.'

"After an absence of several weeks Fox wrote back to London that the fevers of Florence had wrought such a damnable change in his appearance that his oldest creditors would not know him. A week has only passed since my departure from Los Angeles, and the sea breezes of San Pedro have already so tempered the ardors of youth that the most generous sympathizer in my fortunes would scarcely recognize the man who developed in others so many weaknesses of the human heart.

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"Fox returned to the English metropolis, and liquidated his indebtedness by the power of his genius and his eloquence. I might pursue the same course, gentlemen, and with like success, if such benefactions of nature were properly appreciated in this age of dollars and cents. But circumstances demand from me an adjustment of a far different character, and I trust the sentiments which have enabled me to outlive the storms of adverse life may afford you matter of personal consolation and themes for private contemplation.

"The most of you, gentlemen, belong to that class of men who have immigrated to these pleasant latitudes for no other purpose than to satisfy the cravings of cupidity, and then return to feather a nest in the place which threw over your first efforts the cold shadows of failure. You see nothing in this region that appeals to the higher instincts of nature and allures to noble action. Who among you that has built up for himself a permanent and generous identity? Who has struggled for the moral and intellectual elevation of the community in which he lives? Can you point to a single ornament or a single blessing conferred in a manner commensurate with your capabilities? With you gold is the standard of respectability and weigher of excellence. You stand in this beautiful country, which God has spread out for the theatre of progressive civilization, and manifest, by your fierce scramble after wealth, a disposition to make the accumulation of money the paramount consideration of your existence. You will soon depart for the land where the energies of manhood failed to find their oracles of hope and of success, and will you leave behind a single tribute of respect for the country which elevated you from a poverty that would otherwise have clung as the poisoned shirt to the back of Hercules?

"Gentlemen, your accustomed shrewdness will find no difficulty in seeing my justification. I lay it down as an axiom 'well worthy of general acceptation' that a permanent citizen is not restrained by the ordinary rules of morality in his efforts to prevent transient speculators from bearing away the circulating medium of his country. The contracting of debts in such cases is not the commission of an error to be deplored, but the introduction of a virtue to be admired. To you the commencement of my career was as 'glorious as the eve of a battle--its termination' sad as the morrow of a victory--and yet it furnishes many a fruitful and significant lesson. The failure of an obscure individual may develop truths as everlasting as any that ever resulted from the wildest revolution.

"In conclusion, gentlemen, remember that Jupiter enshrined himself in a shower of gold to corrupt the virtue of the

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beautiful Diana--that mammon poured into the lap of Spain deep streams of wealth to destroy her national modesty--that the love of money may cause you to forget the higher objects of creation, the ordinary incidents of humanity.

ALBERTO."

Poor Albert! he was too refined for this crude world, and died in 1862, dependent on a brother, W. T. Clark, formerly of Los Angeles, late of Indianapolis, Indiana; also dead. May they both rest in peace is the prayer of one who loved them for their many virtues and was blind to their faults.

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THE Know Nothing party had its origin in New York in 1853, and swept the land like a whirlwind for a time. It reached California in '55, and in the same year found its grave in the classic land of Virginia, Governor Henry A. Wise being the Wellington of the great Waterloo of the party. In California its bugle blast of battle was sounded in June, the resonant notes of which swept the southern plains, penetrated the canons and gorges of the great Sierras, reached the mountain fastnesses of the Trinity and Klamath, and ascended the highest habitable peaks of the snowy range. In September its fiery battalion marched with unbroken front and furious tread, crushing down all opposition, and carried the State by storm, exhausted itself, and died in December. When the Legislature met, in January, '56, the party was refused the rights of honorable sepulture. Such was the remarkable rise, career and death of this furious faction. The first misfortune that befel the party was in the land of its birth, in the nomination of one Daniel Ullman for Governor of the Empire State. Ullman was a foreigner, and as the creed of the party was political proscription to foreigners, the nomination was a fatal mistake. Ullman was an old humbug, who, had he only held his peace, would have been elected anyway, so formidable was the party in New York; but he opened his mouth, and sealed the doom of the party. The query of the campaign was,

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"What is he?" meaning Ullman. No one knew. The gubernatorial candidate refused to tell, and the answer to the question was that "Daniel Ullman is a Hindoo," and the party at that New York election was effectually Hindoo'd.

It may be interesting to some survivor of the great native American party to know the final fate of its illustrious New York standard-bearer, and this truthful writer of Reminiscences will claim his privilege of digression and take great pleasure in winding up Ullman in history as he did in fact, in February, 1865, when the "Hindoo" found his Waterloo on one of the bloodless fields of the great civil war. In 1863 the "Hindoo" came to New Orleans from Washington wearing the stars of a Brigadier, and surrounded by a full-fledged staff resplendent in blue, glitter and gold. The mission of these birds of brilliant plumage was to organize an army of negroes to fill the bomb-proof positions while the true boys in blue went forth to fight face to face with the grim graybacks of the Southern Confederacy. It may be a long time before the truth of history reveals itself, but when it does it will be found that for effective fighting the colored soldiers of the Union were not a success, but were certainly equal to the Generals, Colonels and subalterns who commanded them. Under General Banks the "Hindoo's" career was surpassingly brilliant,--good clothes, good pay, the best rations, most comfortable tents pitched on positions impregnable, good times and no fighting, no hard knocks, or any service greater than standing guard and raiding hen-roosts. The career of the "Corps de Afrique" under the "Hindoo" was the very perfection of military ease and idleness. Notwithstanding all this good cheer and an unlimited supply of whisky, the "Hindoo" hungered for the honors of the battlefield, and fretted and chafed like a regular Hindoo tiger to be let loose on the foes of human liberty. But no! the flesh and blood of these dusky warriors was too sacred to be sacrificed. White men were, in the opinion of the authorities, the only

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proper food for gunpowder, and the "Hindoo," with his colored cohorts to the number of about 10,000, with some two thousand white veterans to guard them, was forced to chew the cud of military disappointment at the camp of Morganza, twelve miles below the mouth of Red River, on the Father of Waters, and submit to a life of military inactivity, while the thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry resounded from the Rio Grande to the Potomac.

From Morganza to the Achafalaya river was thirteen miles. About fifteen miles beyond, at a place called Big Cane, a former citizen of Los Angeles, a Confederate Brigadier, J. L. Brent, commanded a small force of Confederate cavalry, to watch the camp at Morganza, a Texas fellow named Collins, and a gallant creole, Carmouche by name, had small scouting parties on the Peninsula, formed by the Mississippi, the Achafalaya and Red Rivers.

This was the military situation in February 1865, when a small party of civil engineers went up from New Orleans to examine the condition of the levees near the mouth of Red River, and took with them an order from General Canby (who had relieved General Banks) for an escort to and from the place to be examined. In compliance with the order the "Hindoo" turned out with his entire staff, marshaled 5,000 of his "Corps de Afrique," with drum corps and bands; Colonel Chrysler, with his Second New York Cavalry; Colonel E. J. Davis, with his First Texas Cavalry, the Twenty-Fourth Indiana Infantry, and Marlin's New York Battery of rifled guns, with ambulances, medical corps, ammunition and provision trains, with three wagons to carry the stores (principally whisky) for himself and bibulous staff. The war was evidently drawing to a close, and the "Hindoo" had not as yet fleshed his maiden sword--his "Corps de Afrique" had never been baptized in the fire and flame of battle, and here was an opportunity not to be lost.

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It took about three days to place this army on its marching legs. Finally this great force, in numbers greater than Washington commanded at Monmouth, marched out of the splendid fortifications at Morganza, with flags flying, drums beating and bands playing inspiriting airs. It marched forth, first the "Corps de Afrique" with skirmish line extending from river bank to swamp, a mile back. Second in order of march was Marlin's battery; then came the General and staff, with the New York Cavalry regiment as a body guard; next the white infantry, and the Texas cavalry as rear guard.

This was a very deliberately planned campaign, and by the time the army had passed over the space of three miles, the rattle of musketry commenced on the skirmish line, and the "Hindoo" sent an aide-de-camp forward to learn the situation, who went off like a rocket, and soon returned, his war horse covered with foam, with the announcement of a large force of "rebels in front." Now the "Corps de Afrique" is deployed in line of battle and the white veterans are held in reserve. Marlin's guns are unlimbered and run into battery immediately in rear of the black and blue battle line. Skirmishers are rallied on the batallions, the bugles sound the advance, the bands play the charge, the "Hindoo" and staff ply their canteens. The "Corps de Afrique" give three cheers and a tiger, bravely advance and open a terrific fire from right to left, from river to swamp. The "Hindoo" and his staff dash along the roaring battle-line cheering, and urging it on to victory, and to "give no quarter." "Remember Fort Pillow." "Give 'em h--ll!" And now Marlin is ordered forward, the "Hindoo" himself guiding the battery into position. "Now, Marlin, turn loose my war dogs and make 'em bite," was the "Hindoo's" order. Marlin seeing no enemy, inquired, "General, am I to consider this as an order?" and the general put a flea in his ear.

Marlin now opened, and fired thirty rounds from his battery, and the "Corps de Afrique" kept up a perfect blaze of

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battle. The "Hindoo" next planned a combined movement of horse, foot and artillery, and in charging over the field to direct the movement in person, having become so waterlogged, he fell off his horse. Colonel Chrysler, disgusted with the infernal tomfoolery (for be it known, patriotic Americans, there were not fifty armed enemies within thirty miles of this field of the "Hindoo's" fall), came forward, stopped the waste of ammunition, ordered a Sergeant with an ambulance and guard to take charge of the "Hindoo," which they did in the most approved New York style, relieving him of his purse, his watch, diamond pin, studs and other valuables; then placing the dead drunk GENERAL in an ambulance, he was carted back to Morganza. The "Hindoo" General was deprived of the glory of writing a report of this bloodless battle, but nevertheless it was reported, and now finds its way into the war history. The writer of this warlike episode was at the time serving on the staff of General Canby, and happening to visit Morganza on the day following this great waste of ammunition, and being informed of the facts by Captain Marlin, Colonel Chrysler, and other white officers, did himself the pleasure of writing a report thereof to the Commanding General, who without any further inquiry ordered the "Hindoo" to Washington under arrest. The Ordnance Officer estimated the value of the ammunition expended in that sham battle, intended to redound to the glory of the "Hindoo" General and his "Corps de Afrique," to be $30,000. And such was the end of the Know Nothing candidate for Governor of New York. In that memorable Know Nothing campaign of '55, Los Angeles stood by the Democratic colors, and elected my gallant Ranger comrade, Don David W. Alexander, Sheriff of the county, and sent John G. Downey as representative to the Legislature. This was the ex-Governor's first move on the political chess-board. Aleck Bell was the luckiest man of the day, and this is the way his good luck cropped out:

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There were two Alexander Bells in Los Angeles, both captains, one having served under Taylor in Mexico and the other having served under Stockton and Kearney in California. The latter was a wealthy, most popular and estimable citizen of Los Angeles, and the former was a first-class adventurer and noted russler. Colonel Butts, of bear fighting fame, was the Know-Nothing delegate from Los Angeles to the State convention and suggested Alexander the rich, as a nominee on the State ticket for State Prison Director, an office with a $3,500 annual salary thereto attached and with perquisites of many more thousands thereto belonging. When the State ticket was announced Alexander the russler swore he was the man, interviewed Butts, promised him the prison beef contract if he'd keep mum, was the first to take the stand at the ratification meeting, accept the nomination and pledge his influence to the ticket. He next went to his rich namesake, begged his acquiesence, and, notwithstanding several indignation meetings, Alexander, the russler, brazened the thing through, claimed his election, got his certificate, took his seat as President of the Board, swamped the whole directory in less than three months by incurring immense debts for reckless prison expenditures which brought down the wrath of the Legislature, and the Board was abolished.

When Aleck claimed the nomination his worldly wealth would not have sold, including his wardrobe, for $20. When legislated out of office he had good clothes, not a dollar in money, but had incurred personal debts of about $20,000. This was Aleck's misfortune, he was generally flat broke and was the best borrower I ever knew. He borrowed from everybody and paid nobody. He never knew a man in California from whom he didn't borrow money in sums ranging from one to a thousand dollars. His manner was such that no one could refuse him. He was hale fellow well met with all classes of people from the highest in position to the veriest vagabond.

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When Aleck got into this first-class position some of his friends in San Francisco advised him to go through the insolvent court, get relieved of his debts and make a new start and a provision for his family. This he indignantly refused, maintaining that he intended to pay his debts.

"How much do you think you owe, Aleck?" queried one of his friends. "Do you mean in California?" said Aleck. "Yes, in California?" was the answer. "Well," said Aleck, "I don't think I owe over $2,000,000."

Now when Aleck took command at San Quintin, he found that among the ragged rascals there confined every fifth man was an old friend, each of whom claimed an indebtedness for small loans made when times were flush with them. Some had known him in Texas, some in the army in Mexico, others had followed him to Equador, and had worked for him at Panama. He found Los Angeles friends, San Francisco friends, friends from Stockton, from Sonora, Mokelumne Hill, Santa Barbara, and friends and kinsmen of his Sonorena wife.

Aleck was the most open-handed, whole-souled, generous and liberal of men, and his heart opened and yearned toward these former friends, now in prison rags and half-starved, and he hied him to San Francisco, and bought the best of blankets, underwear, boots, hats, black doeskin pants, red shirts and warm coats for his family of 500 convicts, two suits each; had the prison renovated from floor to roof, the convicts shaved, shorn, scrubbed, and made comfortable, and had the prison larder stocked, and the table supplied in such style as would have bankrupted a second-rate hotel; cigars and tobacco were furnished, and forlorn indeed was the poor convict whose throat got cobwebed for the lack of whisky. Alas for the poor devils at San Quintin, Aleck so ran the thing in the ground, that in less than a month a Committee of the Legislature investigated the prison management, and on their report, during the third month, as before stated, the directory was wound up.

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Another misfortune befel him. After his election, in September, Aleck took up his residence in the Bay City, and as a fact he was more widely known than any man in the State, and was besieged every day for a position at the prison, when he went into office on the 1st of January, and letters came from all quarters to the same effect, all of whom Aleck promised, and from all of whom he got a small loan to help him along till he went in. So when Aleck went over to take charge of the prison there was such a gathering of the clans as was never known on that side of the bay. Offices were multiplied. The guards were doubled, and sinecures created. Still not one in five could be provided for, but they were all invited to hang up their hats, eat, drink, and be merry, until something could be done for them, which caused some of the Committee to facetiously designate our State Prison as the "Loafers' Asylum." This now reminds me of a story. Old R. had a farm at El Monte which he sold at a sacrifice, and went to San Francisco to get a fat prison contract, Aleck being a great friend of his. Now it happened that Albert H. Clark and myself were rooming together at Madame Show's on Dupont street, adjoining St. Mary's cathedral, and one cold, wet evening in December I was reclining on a sofa and Clark was seated by the coal fire smoking. There was no light except that given by the coal fire. Old R. came in, took a seat, and after some preliminary conversation requested a loan until the Los Angeles steamer returned, saying he had sent to his wife for money.

"Why," said Clark, "R., I was thinking about hunting you up for a loan, hearing that you had sold your ranch; you certainly didn't come up here without a supply of coin."

"The fact is," said R., "I got here with about $600, and went up to Sacramento with Aleck Bell and Bob Haley to fix up those political appointments, and lent them my money and they came away and left me, and I don't know how I could have got back had I not met a man who knew me and paid my

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fare down. The truth is, Clark, I haven't eaten a morsel all day."

"What! is that all?" said Clark; "you a politician and complain about going without eating for a day! I sometimes go a week without eating. I went to Sacramento some time ago and was gone ten days and didn't eat a morsel during my whole absence. My friend, starting in as a politician, take my advice and train your stomach."

I could stand this no longer. Old R. was one of the best of fellows, and I stopped Clark's cruel joking and we took our mutual friend in and shared our comforts with him.

When Aleck went into office old R. was on hand, but failed to get a contract, and concluded to content himself with a hundred dollars a month and found, as a guardsman, but there were about five hundred ahead of him, and he for a time became a pensioner on the establishment until it happened that Texas Jack, a most eminent horse thief, who boasted of never having stolen less than twenty horses at one time, and sometimes a thousand, and was withal an old friend of Aleck's--a Texas friend. Jack was a convict, in for ten years, and was master of the equine establishment at San Quintin, that is to say he was chief hostler, and presuming on his old friendship with Aleck, and anticipating an easier place, resigned, and old R. was appointed to this honorable position, and reaped the reward of his political fidelity and with his $100 a month as successor to the renowned Jack, pined not after his Monte farm, sold for less than half its value, and his $600 invested in politics through the medium of Aleck Bell and Bob Haley.

In the fall of 1855, James King of William founded the Bulletin, which fell upon San Francisco like a roaring lion, evidently intent on reforming public morals, or wiping out the general public, for be it known, modern reader, that, at that time San Francisco was not heavy on morals. All of the contemporaneous publications took a tilt at the audacious

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innovator, and they all in detail got their lances shivered in the encounter, for was not the virtuous reformer encased in the armor of purity, and armed with the sword of morality? The Alta pitched into him, and was sent to grass. The Herald was "knocked out of time," and the Daily American (of which Aleck Bell was the proprietor during its short life, and Edward Pollock was editor, while the author occupied the more humble office of local scribe), stripped itself to the "buff," imbibed a goodly supply of "Dutch courage," and entered the arena, determined to maul the mug of this champion of the editorial prize ring. James King of William was a broken banker, and the American called him a "ruined Shylock," a "morbid money changer," "honest Iago," and other such pet names. Pollock had too much editorial discretion to write such stuff. The closing editorial was written by the distinguished proprietor himself, under the inspiration of at least one hundred "cocktails" and undiluted "straights." It transpired that when King was on the Shylock lay-out, Aleck had deposited his I.O.U. behind King's counter for a small pecuniary accommodation, for which he was to pay the usual ten per cent. monthly interest. Now it came to pass that the American went for the Bulletin's blood in the morning, anticipating that King would "counter" in the evening. Not so, however; the Bulletin didn't say a single word in reply, but at about ten o'clock on the same day one of Sheriff Dave Scannell's deputies came around and closed up the pugilistic American, on a writ of attachment at the suit of the "Shylock" King, who demanded his money and his accumulated pounds of flesh. So the great American gun was most effectually spiked.

Early in '56, the Sunday Times made its appearance in the arena of journalistic pugilism. Supervisor James P. Casey was its editor, and gave the Bulletin such a stunning blow, square from the shoulder, as caused the claret to freely flow. The Bulletin replied by asserting the truth to be that the Times'

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editor was an ex Sing-Sing convict, which so riled Casey that he hied him hurriedly in quest of the great oracle McGowan, and is supposed to have communed with him on the subject matter of insult, borrowed Ned's Derringer, so thought at the time, and on the same day killed the king of San Francisco editors. To understand this matter more fully the reader must be informed that no one could be killed in San Francisco without McGowan's consent, and as Casey killed King, as was freely maintained, with Ned's pistol, it was quite easy to infer that Ned consented thereto, and the Vigilance Committee hung Casey for murder, held McGowan to be an accessory before the fact, and he was forced to flee the wrath of the Committee, and take refuge in the mountain fastnesses of the southern counties.

The author of these truthful reminiscenses, has frequently called himself the "truthful historian," and does not assert as a fact that Casey and McGowan conspired to kill James King of William, or that Casey killed King with Ned's pistol, or that the ex-Judge had anything to do with or knowledge of the intended assassination. The author is unwilling to infer such to be the case. But as McGowan was afterward indicted, tried and acquitted of the charge we must all agree that he was innocent thereof.

Notwithstanding the 9,000 members of the great San Francisco Vigilance Committee in their excess of zeal, believed McGowan to be guilty, sought for but didn't find him, and after having searched half the houses in San Francisco from garret to cellar, beat the bush in and around the sand hills, it was ascertained that the flying fugitive had reached Santa Barbara. A large force followed and would, but for the shrewdness and honesty of Jack Powers, have captured him. I repeat, honesty of Jack Powers. Jack saved Ned McGowan. The great Vigilance Committee offered $20, 000 for his arrest and Jack Powers could have pocketed that sum by betraying

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his guest into their hands. Does not this speak volumes for the honesty and manhood of that unfortunate and much abused character.

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IN MAY '55, Myon Norton, then Judge of the Court of Sessions of Los Angeles County, sent three of our gentle angels into a forced retirement at hard labor and harder fare in our State Asylum for thieves and other malefactors. The first of this trio was a red-headed gringo named Welch. Juan Gonzales, who had the year previous acted the part of hangman in the execution of the lamented Dave Brown was the second, and Juan Flores was the third, and apparently the most insignificant, but, as the sequel will show, the most important personage who ever represented our angel population in the halls of State at San Quintin. All three were sent up for the unromantic crime of horse stealing. Juan Flores was a dark complexioned fellow of medium height slim, lithe and graceful, a most beautiful figure in the fandango or on horseback, and about twenty-two years old. There was nothing peculiar about Juan except his tiger-like walk--always seeming to be in the very act of springing upon his prey. His eyes, neither black, grey, nor blue, greatly resembling those of the owl-- always moving, watchful and wary, and the most cruel and vindictive- looking eyes that were ever set in human head. These gentlemen from Los Angeles not relishing the boiled sturgeon and other fish diet with which the

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lessees of the prison fed their guests, and the brick yard having no charms for them, after a few months of service, with a hundred or two others made a break for liberty, were recaptured and subjected to a prison discipline and surveillance that rendered any future escape a moral impossibility. However, those ever watchful eyes of Juan only waited for half a chance to make another effort, and in October '56 an opportunity was seized which to Juan proved successful, though many of his comrades were slaughtered, more of them retaken, while a few of the more determined escaped. A few days only, before the most desperate of all breaks from San Quintin was made, a notorious desperado from Shasta was lodged within the walls of this celebrated prison whose name, if known to the prison officers, was never used to designate him, but, calling himself the "Red Horse," was so known to his fellows. Jim Webster, however, was his true name. A brig was loading with brick at the prison wharf. The gangs of convicts who were engaged in the work, on reaching the brickyard outside the walls early one morning, were raised to fury by the startling cry of, "Who dare follow the Red Horse? Onward, boys, for the brig and liberty!" Then was heard in response a terrific yell, the rattling of chains and firing of guns, as the crowd of chained demons rushed down the wharf and on board the brig. The guard, who were at hand, opened fire on them with their rifles and revolvers, and several were killed. Juan Flores was the first to follow the "Red Horse," and his wild carajo urged his countrymen on to death or liberty. The melee was awful. The captain and crew of the brig were driven below, and the guards on board disarmed and tumbled overboard. Overlooking the wharf was a promontory, on which was stationed a battery of one six-pounder field-piece and one twelve-pounder howitzer. The convicts, on boarding the brig, cast off her moorings, swung her to the outgoing tide, when lo! a shower of cannister was

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poured into them at a distance less than seventy yards, and the riflemen on the wharf shot them down like dogs.

In spite of all this slaughter the "Red Horse," commanding those who spoke English, and Juan, yelling his orders in the shrill language of Mexico, succeeded in setting the sails of the brig, and the wind being favorable, sailed beyond the reach of grape cannister and rifle ball, and those who were not killed, or who had not jumped overboard and were drowned, or who reached the wharf and surrendered, succeeded in crossing the bay to Contra Costa and escaped, Juan Flores and Pancho Daniel being of the number. A couple of weeks later Juan and Pancho were at San Luis Obispo with a party of fifteen or twenty followers and made known their intent to go to Los Angeles, raise the standard of revolt and rid the country of the hated gringos. At San Luis they met one Andres Fontes, who had served out a two years' term in the penitentiary, and who joined them on condition that they would help him to murder Jim Barton, Sheriff of Los Angeles County, whom Andres claimed had unjustly accused and sent him to the penitentiary.

This Andres Fontes was a native California boy and when sent to the penitentiary was only about eighteen years old. When taken from the Los Angeles jail he threatened the Sheriff with future assassination. There had been a difficulty between Andres and Barton about to this effect: Our angel Sheriff was an unmarried man and lived in illicit intercourse with an Indian woman, who, for some alleged ill treatment, left him and went to a family residing on the east side of the river. Barton went for her and on her refusal to go with him violently seized and was dragging her away, when Andres happened to be riding along the road, interposed in favor of the woman, and Barton was constrained to desist. One or two days thereafter Andres, at the instance of the Sheriff, was arrested on a charge of felony and was convicted

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and sent to San Quintin, and hence his desire to murder Sheriff Barton, and the cause that induced him to join the embryo revolution under Juan Flores.

In due course of time the party, with augmented numbers, arrived at Los Angeles, and dispersing around town, had a good time of it for a few days, and then, numbering fifty, departed for San Juan Capistrano, sixty miles toward San Diego. Arriving there, Juan raised the standard of revolt, dispatched couriers to notify the rancheros and invite them to his standard. Judging the temper of his countrymen by his own, he felt sure of a general uprising. Never was there a more fatal mistake. The native Californians, it is true, raised, not to assist in a hair-brained insurrection, but to put it down, and to punish the insurgents.

The first thing Juan did after dispatching his couriers was to raise the sinews of war. He first called on Juan Forster, who shelled out. Then he went from one gringo to another, until a German was found who refused to pay. He was, in conformity with the rules of revolution, taken to the plaza and shot. Juan then dispatched a false messenger to inform Sheriff Barton of the disturbance, and to mislead him, in order that he might be led into a trap and murdered, and thus the compact with Fontes would be made good. On the reception of the information falsely given as to the disturbance, Barton called for a few volunteers to go with him to San Juan. Cyrus Lyon inquired as to the number of men he proposed taking, and on being informed that ten would be enough, refused to go. Cy Lyon was one of our most efficient Rangers, and was better informed as to the magnitude of the danger than any other person, and told Barton that if he went with a less number than fifty or sixty men, it would be at the peril of being cut off and slaughtered. Accompanied by only twelve men, Barton set out for the scene of disturbance, and arrived at San Joaquin Ranch, within eighteen miles of San Juan. Here Don Jose

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Sepulveda warned him of his danger, and urged him to go no farther, but to send back to Los Angeles for more men, and await their coming. An old Frenchman, the ranch cook, assured Barton that a trap was set for him; also that a party of the robbers, double the number of the Sheriff's party, had just been at the ranch.

With all these admonitions of danger the Sheriff and his little party took up their line of march for San Juan. They had proceeded but a short distance when a man rode out of the tall mustard fired at them and galloped away up the road, pursued helter-skelter by the gringos who one at a time ran into an ambuscade and were shot down.

It so happened that Frank Alexander and Calvin Hardy were some little distance behind the main body, and as they galloped up saw the situation in time, wheeled their horses in the road and fled in the direction of Los Angeles, being pursued by members of the gang all the way to the Santa Ana River. With the exception of those two the party was massacred. Barton fired his double-barrelled gun without effect, fell from his horse and was riddled with bullets as he lay on the ground, still, however, discharging the six shots from his revolver without effect. In fact not a man of the insurgent band was either killed or wounded. When Barton had fired his last shot, Andres Fontes approached, and deliberately aiming, shot him through the head, as he aimed, Barton raised himself on one elbow, hurled his empty revolver at the assassin, and was at the same moment shot dead. Thus ended the massacre. Taking the arms, equipments and horses of the murdered gringos, the murderers returned to San Juan in triumph. When the news reached Los Angeles, it produced a most profound sensation. Gringos held their breath in the intensity of their alarm. Brave men looked at each other in blank terror and asked, "Where will this end?" There was some fear as to how the native Californians, the Spaniards, would act

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in the matter. This was soon settled by General Andres Pico and Don Tomas Sanchez calling for volunteers to put down the disturbance and punish the assassins. In a day they had a large force and were ready to take the field. In the meantime the gringos coming in from all parts of the country organized into companies, and the Board of Supervisors of the County having appointed Jim Thompson to the vacant office of Sheriff, he assuming command, the little army took up its line of march to the seat of war. On the advance nearing San Juan, the insurgents, in good order, and with pack mules carrying supplies, retired to the mountains and were not found till the afternoon of the day following, when, through the aid of Don Jose Sepulveda, they were tracked to an impregnable position in the Santiago canon.

The insurgents were insolent and defiant. Some firing and skirmishing took place without effect, when it was determined to surround, settle down and besiege the position, which before nightfall was successfully done. Flores now seeing that the tables were turned, and that he himself had fallen into a trap, resolved to lose no time in escaping therefrom, and at an early hour in the night made the attempt, with only partial success, himself and his Lieutenant falling into the hands of the gringos, and some fifteen or twenty of his men being captured by the vigilant Pico. The manner in which Flores and Pancho Daniel were captured was, in the darkness they rode over a precipice, and rolled and tumbled down, down, down, with a great clatter, and finally landed in a gringo camp at the bottom. The rest of the band escaped, for the time. The capture of the two leaders produced great joy and satisfaction, and the company from El Monte claimed the right to guard the prisoners, which they were permitted to do. The captive Captain and his Lieutenant were secured by tying their arms behind their backs, and disposing of them in the midst of sleeping Monte gringos, who, after re-posting their sentries, resigned

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themselves to slumber. Morning came, and with it an intense excitement. The two birds had flown. The Captain, his Lieutenant, and two of the best horses belonging to the now crestfallen Monte gringos, were missing. When they had fallen into camp, as it were, from the skies, the surprise was great, but now it was greater, and failing to find an aperture in the earth through which they might have continued their downward descent, and not finding the two horses missing, as aforesaid, the Monte gringos concluded that their two captives had in some mysterious manner outwitted them, and vamosed the ranch. (It was afterwards ascertained that the two prisoners had worked their backs together, and one had untied the other, and they thus escaped.)

Dispositions were now made for a vindictive pursuit. Thomas D. Mott, a handsome, quiet young fellow, who had up to this time stood modestly in the background, was in command of one of the companies, and was ordered to proceed in all haste to San Buenaventura, raise the people, watch the roads, and make sure that none escaped in that direction. Others were dispatched in the direction of San Diego, the Cajon and San Gorgonio passes as well as the San Fernando Pass. Captain Stanley who had succeeded Captain Hope, was in the saddle with his Rangers, and the military at Jurupa and Tejon were notified. These dispositions made to guard the passes, and to reach them required hard riding and fatigue, it being from the locus in quo to San Buenaventura full one hundred and twenty miles, to San Fernando seventy-five miles, and to other places not so far, and the main body was being disposed to scour the mountains and plains. Some prying gringo eyes now discovered that notwithstanding General Pico with his followers were present, the prisoners taken by him on the previous night were not visible, and upon inquiry Don Andres said he had "confessed" them. Some doubt being expressed as to how they might have been disposed of, Don

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Andres spoke to a weather-beaten, bronzed hero who galloped off up the canon, and soon returned wearing pendant from his burly neck, shot-pouch fashion, a most beautiful necklace made of human ears strung on a raw-hide string. These trophies being conclusive evidence that if the former owners thereof had not been "confessed," then certainly they had been otherwise piously disposed of. This being satisfactory, operations were resumed, and scouring the country commenced. Tom Mott rode rapidly to San Buenaventura and arrived just in time to fall in with a party of the insurgents, and the first notice given the good people of the quiet Mission village was the rattle of revolvers as the two hostile parties at early dawn met in the street. The robbers fled to a vineyard; some were shot down and others captured, and by the time the citizens were astir the affair was over. Espinosa, one of the leaders, was captured. Informing the citizens of the gravity of the situation, Mott delivered his prisoners to them for safe keeping, and hurried back to the Simi Pass to take position and endeavor to intercept others, and to dispatch a courier to Captain Thompson. By this time, however, it had been ascertained that the whole force of the insurgents, in broken bands, were working their way north, and most fortunately Tom Mott had got ahead of all of them.

This was the strangest circumstance in the uprising, that in breaking up they should have gone north, when it was only an easy day's ride, for men hard pressed, from the Santiago Canon to the Mexican line in Lower California. Before nightfall on the day Captain Mott struck the advance of the flying bandits, a large force guarded the passes going north. The San Fernando, the Santa Susana, the Simi and Conejo were filled with armed men, with intervening cordons that rendered escape in that direction next to impossible, while the plains and foothills were scoured in such manner that gave the fugitives no time for rest. The result of these masterly movements was that in

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parties of fives, tens and twenties the bandits blindly rode into the traps so adroitly set for them and were all captured, including Juan Flores and Pancho Daniel. Andres Fontes having accomplished his purpose, severed his connexion with the band before they left San Juan, and with several of the horses and other spoil taken from Barton and his men, hurried away to Lower California, and from him much information concerning the Flores insurrection was thereafter obtained. He, however, soon met his fate at the hands of the notorious Solomon Pico, of Lower California revolutionary fame, by whom he was shot. He was undoubtedly the last of the Juan Flores gang.

In a former chapter this Ranger historian declared his aversion to the relation of bloody and horrible incidents, and the very great pleasure it afforded him to write of amusing things. He therefore begs to be permitted to drop the curtain on the closing scenes of the terrible uprising of Juan Flores. An example was necessary, and a bloody example was made.

Since the death of Murietta, Vulvia, Senati and Vergara, and the imprisonment of the monster Moreno, our southern country had enjoyed a two years' immunity from blood and rapine, and in this instance the country rose as a man. Spaniard and gringo rode stirrup to stirrup, determined to make such an example and to mete out such retribution as would be a terrible warning to all future disturbers of the peace of our angel land. When the last man of the insurgent band had been hunted down and killed or captured, Tom Mott returned to San Buenaventura to get his prisoners, and found that, a la Pico, they had been "confessed." A large number had also been "confessed" at San Gabriel, and, in fact, in other parts of the country. And now we will drop the curtain on this bloody episode in our sanguinary history. The feeling of gratitude on the part of the gringo population to those noble heroes, Andres Pico and Tomas Sanchez, was such that Don Andres was soon thereafter appointed Brigadier-General of the National Guard,

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and Don Tomas was made Sheriff of Los Angeles county, and was permitted to hold the office for near ten years. Many of our citizens, both gringo and to the manor born, showed of what mettle they were made. The veteran Thompson gave evidence of a capacity to command that was an honor to "the school wherein he learned to ride," and proved that his training on the frontier of Texas had well fitted him for the honors that were thrust upon him. William H. Workman, now of Boyle Hights, then a mere boy, so distinguished himself for daring, dash and rough riding, as won the admiration of the country. Of our gallant comrade, Cyrus Lyon, the language of the immortal Byron can be well applied:

"Of all our band,
Though firm of heart and strong of hand,
In skirmish, march, or forage, none
Can less have said or more have done."

Cyrus Lyon, a twin brother of Sanford, was born in Machias, Maine, November 19th, 1831. The two brothers came here in 1849 as clerks for Alexander & Mellus. Both reside in Los Angeles County, prosperous and happy.

During this terrible excitement every man and boy in the city was under arms, the veteran Dr. John S. Griffin being in command. I believe V. A. Hoover was an aid to Dr. Griffin. Wallace Woodworth belonged to Mott's company.

There was a member of Mott's company that deserves more than ordinary mention. He was a clean, smooth and neatly dressed fellow named Alexander, universally known as "stuttering Aleck." Aleck had been well brought up, was of good address, polite and gentle in his manners, and a natural born wit and humorist, and was an out-and-out and inveterate gambler. By birth a Mississippian; the first we know of Aleck is when General Taylor's army was encamped at Walnut Springs, in Mexico, preparatory to its march on Monterey. One day while sunning himself around headquarters a Mexican was

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brought in, of whom the General wished to make some inquiries. He accordingly addressed himself to Aleck and ordered him to bring some one who could speak Spanish. Aleck departed and soon returned with a Mexican, to whom General Taylor addressed himself by saying, "Ask this man when he left Monterey."

The Mexican thus addressed looked mystified, and said, "No intiende."

"Do you understand what I say to you, sir?" repeated the General.

"No intiende, senor," was the reply; whereupon the General became irate, and turning sharply to Aleck, said:

"Did I not order you, sir, to procure me a person who can speak the Spanish language?"

"Wu-wu-wu-well, G-g-gu-Gen-er-al, I-I-I-I br-br-brought you a-a-a mum-mum- man, who can't speak anything but Sp-sp-span-ish."

It is needless to say that Aleck went away from the vicinity of General Taylor's headquarters on a double quick. At the close of the war Aleck went on board a transport at Vera Cruz to go to New Orleans, and gave his name as -- Alexander, M.D., and was summarily inducted into a state-room. Then came a fancy Lieutenant, whom the purser billeted with Dr. Alexander as room-mate for the voyage. It so happened that the Lieutenant recognized Aleck as an ambulance driver, and so reported to the purser, who hied himself to Aleck to know about it. "This officer," said the purser, pointing to the Lieutenant, "says you are not an army surgeon; that you are an ambulance driver." "Army surgeon?" repeated Aleck; "who said I was an army surgeon?" "Did you not give me your name, sir, as -- Alexander, M.D.?" demanded the irate purser. "Oh! certainly, sir," answered Aleck, in his inimitably droll and stuttering way; "but in my case, sir, M.D. stands for mule driver." None but officers being

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permitted to enjoy the accommodations of the cabin, Aleck had adopted this ruse to escape the hardships of the steerage, and succeeded, the joke being so good that the many officers on board interposed in his favor, and during the voyage he was by all designated as Doctor Alexander. Aleck was a very reckless gambler, and was alternately "high up" and "low down." During one of his periodical downs he got greatly in arrear for board at the revered Bella Union, and was approached delicately thereon by the host, Dr. J. B. Winston. In his droll, stuttering way, Aleck turned to the Doctor and said, "Doc, let's compromise this board bill." "All right," said Winston; "what do you propose?" "Well, Doc," Aleck continued, "fare's low to 'Frisco, and if you'll just come in here and buy me a ticket to go away on, I'll call it square." The Doctor seriously considered the proposition, bought Aleck a ticket for "'Frisco," and squared accounts.

One time when steamship opposition had ran fare down to five dollars Aleck went on board a steamer at San Pedro with only $2.50 in his pocket, hoping that he might strike a friend or increase his capital by a small game of short cards, in both of which he was disappointed, and in the morning the steamer lay at Santa Barbara, a point at which the Los Angeles passengers were always called on to produce their tickets or pay their passage. Aleck was in a desperate strait and was walking the upper deck, shuffling his five half-dollar pieces in his hand and devising some way in which he might double it. The only persons on deck besides himself was a lady and little boy, who were observing objects on shore. "Mamma," queried the little fellow, "what is that big house over yonder?" "That, dear, is a church," replied mamma. "Well, what is that house down this way with the big window in the end?" "That, dear, is somebody's stable," said mamma. "Now, mamma," still queried the little dear, "what is that little bit of a house there with two little holes in the end?" "That," answered

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mamma hesitatingly, "is somebody's pigeon house." This was the first chance Aleck had found to double his capital--the first thing to get a bet on. So promptly confronting the astonished lady, Aleck stuttered out, chinking his $2.50 up and down: " Madam, would you like to bet two dollars and a half that that is a pigeon house?"