himself is aware of them; only in this way I
can escape my fate; and should he,
notwithstanding all my precaution, kill me, all people
would ask him, 'Crow's Head, who killed
Blue Jacket he was continually your
companion?' Besides, as long as I can make
Crow's Head believe that I am of any
important use to him, he will spare my life."

These confidences were not calculated to
inspire me with sympathy in respect either
to Blue Jacket or Crow's Head. But, on the
other hand, I was not particularly interested
in preventing the cattle-stealing, as I then
only possessed Old Cream, a mare of most
capital intrinsic virtues, but of so shabby an
appearance that, to a thief, she presented no
temptation.

My next neighbours were seven Frenchmen,
living together in a small cabin, on a place
which they called Low Point. Six of them
were deserters from French men-of-war, and
had, for many previous years, tried all the
varied fortunes of a vagrant life on the islands
and shores of the Pacific Ocean. The eldest
of them—and a very kind-hearted fellow, too—had
even been, for a year or so, a regular
pirate on a small scale. His three fellow
pirates had been hanged. Now, the six mariners
and a late trumpeter of the Parisian Garde
Mobile were very harmless and honest fishermen,
who worked hard all the day long, and
got up little domestic concerts in their rare
hours of recreation.

On the opposite side, and nearly at the
same distance from my house, there was
another French settlement of five fishermen.
All these twelve fishermen owned nothing in
the form of cattle except a goat, which, of
course, was a most precious one, as it had
come with its master from France round the
Cape Horn. Its loss would have been felt as
a public calamity in both colonies. But, as it
always remained with its master, and
accompanied him even in travelling, either by land
or by sea, there was no great danger to be
apprehended from the thieves. Had there
not been persons more interested in checking
the cattle-stealing than the Frenchmen and
myself, the thieves would have been quite at
their ease on our little peninsula.

But besides the hunting and fishing people
there was also a regular farmer, called the
Irish Captain, although he was neither Irish
nor a captain. By birth he was a Dane, and
by trade he had been all his whole life a
farmer. The Irish Captain had a stock of
cattle, and a very valuable one, too, as his
oxen ploughed the land, and his cows
produced milk. Both the oxen and cows were
emigrants. Californian bullocks—oxen there
were none—would not work In a plough, and
the Californian cows defied all human industry
to get milk from them. They would rather die
than give rnilk to any one except their calves.

A little further in the interior, on the
other side of the mountain-range, was the
Cornelia Kancho, a Californian manor-house
constructed of rough beams, and
surrounded, instead of gardens and parks, by
an immense extent of mud, on which
pigs and dogs basked in the sun, and little
black birds, in a most familiar manner,
picked up the vermin from them. Senora
Cornelia was a native grandee of California;
a kind of duchess or marchioness. She
claimed the right of property over four or
five hundred square miles. Some thousand
heads of cattle belonged still to her, although
the herds had greatly diminished since the
invasion of foreigners that had taken place
after the discovery of gold. She looked very
magnificent when she was in full dress,
adorned with gold chains, pearls, and jewels,
seated in a waggon at least as large as
Gordon Cumming's African hunting waggon,
now exhibited in Piccadilly, and slowly
drawn by two bullocks and ten or sixteen,
mules over the country, unprovided with
roads. But such occasions of great state
were rather rare. In her house generally
she wore an old broad-brimmed straw hat,
her son's boots, a loose white shirt and a short
petticoat of coarse red flannel. Besides her
son, about twenty years of age, a
Portuguese adventurer filled the place of
prime-minister, and ruled over twenty or thirty
Indian servants. But prince-hereditary,
premier, and all the subordinate servants
were of little service, since the aspect of the
country had been so entirely altered. No
one in the Cornelia Rancho was able to speak
English, or, as it was called there, American,
the only language for official and the common
one for commercial business. Moreover, the
population that had inhabited California
before the annexation to the States, was
commonly regarded as belonging to an inferior
race, in consequence of which it was extremely
difficult for them either to repel encroachments
upon their property, or to assert their
right in a court of law.

The Irish Captain was not slow in availing
himself of the disadvantageous position under
which Senora Cornelia was labouring. He
proposed to her that he would take care of
her cattle, and sell it at the best prices
possible, on the condition that he should
have one half of the money realised. Senora
Cornelia held a long privy council, and then
reluctantly accepted the proposal.

This done, the Irish Captain called a general
meeting. In a very impressive speech he
suggested a kind of covenant, by virtue of
which each one was bound to take care of the
property of his neighbours, and to withstand
aggressions with armed force, if necessary.

The Frenchmen joined with all their hearts
from mere love of excitement. So I alone
could not have opposed the motion without
endangering my position, even if I had been
inclined to do so. But I had weighty reasons,
too, for wishing that a kind of police should
be established, not only for the benefit of the
cattle, but also for my own personal security.