have no regrets, like the knights of slavery, to see their places
in life filled by free-born young pilgrims of life. All hail the
native sons and daughters of the Golden West!

But the Southern politicians forge to the front. The majority is
still with them. They carry local measures. Their hands are only
tied by the admission of California, as a free State. Too late!
On the far borders of Missouri, the contest of Freedom and Slavery
begins. It excites all America. Bleeding Kansas! Hardin explains
that the circle of prominent Southerners, leading ranchers, Federal
officials, and officers of the army and navy, are relied on for the
future. The South has all the courts. It controls the legislature.
It seeks to cast California's voice against the Union in the event
of civil war. As a last resort they will swing it off in a separate
sovereignty--a Lone Star of the West.

"We must control here as we did in Texas, Valois. When the storm
arises, we will be annexed to the Southern Confederacy."

Even as he spoke, the generation of the War was ripening for the
sickle of Death. Filled with the sectional glories of the Mexican
war, Hardin could not doubt the final issue.

"Get land, Valois," he cries. "Localize yourself. When this State
is thrown open to slavery, you will want your natural position.
Maxime, you ought to have a thousand field-hands when you are master
at Lagunitas. You can grow cotton there."

Valois muses. He revolves in his mind the "Southern movement." Is
it treason? He does not stop to ask. As he journeys to Stockton he