Mariposa groans under their attacks.
Valois concludes this bloody warfare is a logical result of the
unnecessary conquest of California. To lose their nationality is
galling. To see Mexico, which abandoned California, get $15,000,000
in compensation for the birthright of the Dons is maddening. It
irritates the suspicious native blood. To be ground down daily,
causes continual bickering. Ranch after ranch falls away under
usury or unjust decisions. In this ably planned brigandage, Valois
discerns some young resentful Californian of good family has assisted.
The terrific brutality points also to a relentless daring nature,
aroused by some special wrong.
Valois muses at night in his lonely office. His ready revolvers are
at hand. Even here in Stockton a Mexican, friendly to the authorities,
has been filled with bullets by a horseman. The assailant was swathed
to his head in his scrape. He dashed away like the wind. There is
danger everywhere.
The young lawyer pictures this, the daring bravo--hero by nature--made
a butcher and a fiend by goading sorrows. It must be some one who
knows the Americans, who has travelled the interior, and has personal
wrongs to avenge.
These dark riders strike both innocent and guilty.
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