all human villany. Aided by demagogues, the rule of the "Roughs"
nears its culmination. Fire companies, militia, train bands, and
the police, are rotten to the core. In this upheaval, affecting
only the larger towns, the higher classes are powerless.

Cut off, by the great plains, from the central government, the State
is almost devoid of telegraphs and has but one little railroad. It
has hostile Indians yet on its borders. The Chinese come swarming
in like rats. The situation of California is critical.

Personal duels and disgraceful quarrels convulse high life. The
lower ranks are ruled only by the revolver. The criminal stalks
boldly, unpunished, in the streets.

The flavor of Americanism is no leaven to this ill-assorted
population. The exciting presidential campaign, in which Fremont
leads a new party, excites and divides the better citizens of the
commonwealth.

Though the hills are now studded with happy homes and the native
children of the Golden West are rising in promise, all is unrest.
A local convulsion turns the anger of better elements into the
revolution of the Vigilance Committee of 1856. James Casey's pistol
rang out the knell of the "Roughs" when he murdered the fearless
editor of the leading journal.

Valois, uninterested in this urban struggle, returns to Lagunitas.
His domain rewards his energy.

All is peace by the diamond lake. Senora Dolores, her tutor, Padre