Valuable
personal articles were scarce. Few trophies were ever recovered.
The gold-dust was unrecognizable. Valois reluctantly gives up
the search. He returns convinced that mere lust of blood directed
Joaquin Murieta Carrillo.
The bandits under him represented the native discontent. Their
acts were a protest against the brutal Americans. They were goaded
on by the loss of all property rights. This harshness drove the
Indians, decimated, drunken, and diseased, from their patrimonial
lands. It has effected the final ruin of the native Californians.
Frontier greed and injustice have done a shameful work.
Maxime Valois blushes for his own nation. He realizes that indigenous
dwellers must go to the wall in poverty, to their death. They go
down before the rush of the wolf pack, hunting gold, always gold.
Taking the precaution to leave men to bear to him any messages
from the padre, Maxime leaves Lagunitas for Stockton. The affairs
of the community call him home. Property, covered by his investments,
has been exposed to fire and flood at Sacramento. Sari Francisco
has been half destroyed by a great conflagration. These calamities
make thousands penniless.
Before he rides away, old Don Miguel comes to say adieu to his savior,
once his prisoner.
Pages:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212