round the camps, these Spanish soldiers struck their roots into the soil; so deep, that when their time of service came to an end, they were unable to remove. Their families could not be carried into Spain, or even into Mexico. A viceroy had a puzzling question to resolve. The policy of his Church had been to exclude White settlers from the soil: a policy of prudence if the natives were to be converted and preserved. Except the friars, no man had a right to hold land in California. Except the soldiers, sent to guard these friars and execute their orders, no man had a right of domicile in California. Civil laws and civil magistrates were unknown. California was treated as a Holy State, a paradise of monks, a patrimony of the Church. This clerical policy had always been supported by the king and council in Madrid. A pope had given California to Spain, and Spain was eager to restore it to the church. Yet how were veterans, grown grey in service on a distant shore, to leave their children, dear though dusky, to the chances of a savage life? Fear, as well as pity, held the clerical policy in check. If left behind, they must remain a progeny of shame, an evidence of moral failure, in the neighbourhood of every

mission in the land. Holding no place in any Indian tribe, these Hybrids would have to live as outcasts. Every hand would be against them. Rapine and murder might become their trade.

Taking a middle course, which seemed to him. the lesser of two evils, the viceroy formed three camps of refuge, which he called Free Towns; a first camp at Los Angeles in the South, a second camp near Santa Cruz in the Centre, and a third camp at San Jose in the North. These camps were ruled by martial law, and wholly separated from the great Franciscan Commonwealth. About Los Angeles he gathered in the refuse from San Diego and Santa Barbara; about Santa Cruz he gathered in the refuse of San Carlos, San Juan, and Soledad; about San Jose he gathered in the refuse of Santa Clara and San Francisco. Within these camps the veterans and their savage progeny were to dwell, but they were not to wander from their limits, under penalty of stripes, imprisonment and death.

Some strangers joined the settlers in these Free Town; few, and of an evil sort; quacks, gamblers, girl-buyers, whiskey sellers; all the abominable

riffraff of a Spanish camp. From these vile sources, nearly all the present Hybrids of the country spring.

In time, these mixed breeds grew too strong for

either priest or captain to control. From Los Angeles they have roamed into the plains of San Fernando; from Santa Cruz they have crept up the Pajaro and Salinas; from San Jose they have spread along both shores of San Francisco Bay. Not many of this mongrel crew can read and write. Not one in ten is born in wedlock, for the custom of their country fills the hut with squaws, whom the sons of White men disdain to marry. Gross and sickening superstitions cloud such brains as they possess. Aware that they are neither red nor white, and have no place among the Indian tribes, they loath their mother's kith as fiercely as they hate their father's kin. The vices of two hostile breeds are mixed in them; the pride and cruelty of their Spanish sires, the laziness and licentiousness of their Indian dams.

The land, they say, is theirs. They are not strangers, like the foreign troops, nor savages, like the native tribes. In Mexican days, they fought the soldiers, robbed the friars, and helped them

selves to squaws. In every riot they are first and last; the first in outrage, and the last to be subdued. When Mexico threw off the yoke, they fought against the crown of Spain, and when that fight was done they turned against their comrades in the camp. Unstable as water, they rallied to the Single Star, and after causing the young republic of California much annoyance, they rallied to the Stars and Stripes.

This treachery brought men into these plains, compared to whom the Mexicans are boys, the Alert and strong, these strangers

Indians girls.

push the native to the wall.

stock-man is playing at cards or

While the Hybrid

capering through a

dance, his fields are fenced, his cattle driven away, his streamlets dammed, by these intruding and unsleeping Whites. What can the Hybrid do? American courts are in these strangers' hands. He cannot meet them in the field. What then? Must he lie down and sprawl at their feet?

Jesu Maria-no! He may take to the woods, become a bandit, and avenge the wrongs he is too feeble to resent in open strife.

67

CHAPTER VIII.

BRIGANDS.

IN California, as in Greece and Italy, brigands are the privateers of public wrongs, or what the peasants call their public wrongs. A brigand is a malcontent, who waits his chance to rise in a more threatening shape.

Los Angeles and San Jose, the Free Towns peopled by disbanded soldiers, squaws, and camp followers, are two great nests of rogues and thieves, gamblers and cut-throats. From these Free Towns, a line of brigand chiefs have drawn their scouts and helps. A mixed blood hates the agents of all rule and order. Years ago his teeth were clenched against the Spanish friars; at present his knife is whetted against the American police. Much of his passion is political, and the conflict in the jungle and on the mountain side is one of race with race.

High reputations have been made by these