The Creole pauses before the Judge, who replies, "You must stay
here; we must get California out of the Union."

"If we do not, then the cause lies on Lone Mountain," says Valois,
pointing westward toward the spot where a tall shaft already bears
Broderick's name.

Hardin nods assent. "It was terrific, that appeal of Baker's," he
murmurs.

Both felt that Baker (now Senator from Oregon) would call up the mighty
shade of the New York leader. Neither could foresee the career of
the eulogist of Broderick, after his last matchless appeals to an
awakening North. That denunciation in the Senate sent the departing
Southern senators away, smarting under the scorpion whip of his
peerless invective. Baker was doomed to come home cold in death
from the red field of Ball's Bluff, and lie on the historic hill,
beside his murdered friend.

The plotters in the cold midnight hours then, the glow of feeling
fading away, say "Good-night." They part, looking out over twinkling
lights like the great camps soon to rise on Eastern plain and
river-bank. Will the flag of the South wave in TRIUMPH HERE? Ah!
Who can read the future?

Cut off from the East, the excited Californians burn in high fever.
The grim dice of fate are being cast. Slowly, the Northern pine and
Southern palm sway toward the crash of war. As yet only journals
hurl defiance at each other. Every day has its duties for Hardin