With one or two mozos, Valois visits all
the old camps of the freebooters, within seventy-five miles. He
leaves his men at Lagunitas for safety. He threads the fastnesses
of the inviolate forests. They stretch from Shasta to Fresno, the
great sugar pines and redwoods of California.
The axe of man has not yet attacked them. No machinery, no tearing
saws are in these early days destroying their noble symmetry. But
they are doomed. Fires and wanton destruction are yet to come, to
leave blackened scars over once lovely areas. Man mutilates the
lovely face of Nature's sweetest sylvan retreats. Down the great
gorge of the Yosemite, Valois rides past the giant Big Trees of
Calaveras. He finds no hidden treasures, no buried deposits. The
camps near Lagunitas disclose only some concealed supplies. No
arms, valuables, and treasures, torn from the murdered travellers,
in the two years' red reign of Joaquin, the Mountain Tiger.
Valois concludes that Joaquin divided the gold among his followers.
He must have used it largely to purchase assistance from his spies,
scattered through the interior.
The stolen animals were undoubtedly all scattered over the State.
The weapons, saddlery, and gear, booty of the native horse-thief
bands, have been sent as far as Chihuahua in Mexico.
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