While gold still pours out of the mines, and the young State feels
a throbbing life everywhere, the native Californians are sorely
pressed between the land-getting and the mining classes. Wild herds
no longer furnish them free meat at will. The mustangs are driven
away from their haunts. Growing poverty cuts off ranch hospitality.
Without courage to labor, the poorer Mexicans, contemptuously
called Greasers, go to the extremes of passive suffering. All the
occupations of the vaqueros are gone. These desperate Greasers are
driven to horse-stealing and robbery.
Expert with lasso, knife, and revolver, they know every trail.
These bandits mount themselves at will from herds of the new-comers.
The regions of the north, the forests of the Sierras, and the
lonely southern valleys give them safe lurking-places. Wherever
they reach a ranch of their people, they are protected; the pursuers
are baffled; they are misled by the sly hangers-on of these gloomy
adobe houses.
In San Joaquin, the brigands hold high carnival; they sally out on
wild rides across the upper Sacramento. The mining regions are in
terror. Herds of stolen horses are driven by the Livermore Pass to
the south. Cattle and sheep are divided; they are used for food.
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