All this for one hour's sport in one locality in Sacramento. What sort of amusements they were enjoying at the same time in other parts of the city I did not learn.
[Cattle Stealing in Contra Costa.]
August 17, 1854. My neighbor, Mr. R., has lost an ox. It was stolen; and a horse stolen also. Another neighbor, Mr. A., has lost three valuable oxen in the same way.
The great facilities for concealing oxen, horses, and other property in the innumerable deeply secluded valleys and hiding-places that occur in every direction in the mountainous country, which, commencing at these Redwoods, extend to the valley of the San Joaquin, offer too many inducements to the numerous idlers and vagabonds that prowl about the land to be visited; and consequently theft, robbery, and I may almost add, murder, are but every day occurrences. No man who owns a horse, an ox or swine, can feel secure of them for a moment when out of sight. These thieves are often associated in large gangs, and consist of both Americans and Mexicans; and so great is the number of their accomplices in some of the villages, that when one of their number is detected, means are immediately furnished him to escape. The very officer who is commissioned to secure him, is not unfrequently a party concerned in the thefts. Many of the butchers are supposed to be leagued with the thieves, and, by purchasing their stolen property at low prices, they thus share the profits with them.
August 23. Justice has at last overtaken two of the cattle thieves. Suspicion had for some time past rested on some butchers at San Antonio, and they were watched, and detected in the act of slaughtering in the night some cows and oxen that had just been stolen. Messengers were immediately sent many miles around the country to notify the inhabitants to assemble for the trial of the felons. The people of the Redwoods, who had suffered severely from the depredations of the thieves, turned out almost en masse. The house of the butchers was the place appointed for the trial. Passing by that place at the time, I had the curiosity to stop for a moment, and was surprised to observe a strange hesitation and faltering among the people assembled. A long discussion ensued as to the proper mode of conducting the trial, which ended in turning the thieves over to the legal authorities. This, under the existing state of things, was nearly equivalent to giving them their liberty; and it was resolved by a number of determined fellows, that they should not so easily escape. They were taken before a justice for examination, and their guilt fully proved. But they asked for an adjournment of the trial till the next day, for the alleged purpose of getting some witnesses, but in fact, to give their friends and associates an opportunity to rescue them. The adjournment was granted, and they were taken to a hotel and put under a guard, of which Andrews, from whom they had stolen the oxen, was the head. In the course of the day, a party proceeded to the house and corral of the thieves, and burned them to the ground with all their contents. Not an article was appropriated to their own use by these avengers of their own wrongs. It was justice, not plunder, they sought. Valuable saddles, harnesses and furniture, were all sacrificed.
There was a gathering of the friends of the thieves in the night, but they were driven off by the boys from the Redwoods, who had stationed themselves around the house. These men now began to see that they must act, and act promptly too, or the whole business would prove but a farce, and the guilty villains would escape. They therefore dispatched horsemen to the Redwoods to summon the people again to come and assist in the execution of the two principal criminals. Before morning, a sufficient number had arrived to carry out their plans, and they proceeded to action. A number of them went to the house where the prisoners were confined, and in defiance of the proprietor, who was supposed to be confederate with the thieves, they rushed to the room, and seized one of them, whom they hurried away. It was a scene of great confusion and terror. The guard made a show of resistance, but it was only a show. They fired several shots, but were careful to elevate their revolvers above the heads of their assailants; the balls lodged in the ceiling, and nobody was killed or wounded. The affair had doubtless been preconcerted between Andrews and the assailing party. They hastened the guilty thief to an oak a few rods distant, having at the outset fastened a rope to his neck; and scarcely a moment had elapsed ere he was dangling from a branch. They then returned to the house, and seizing another of the thieves, hurried him away as before. The fellow was in an agony of fear and horror, begged most piteously for his life, protested his innocence, and offered to make important disclosures if they would spare him. All this would not have saved him had it not been discovered by one of the party when they arrived at the tree, that this was not the man they intended to execute. He was therefore led back more dead than alive, having endured far more suffering and horror than his more hardened confederate, whom he saw hanging from the tree, and who had paid the penalty which he so narrowly escaped. The intended victim was then taken to the place of execution, and immediately suspended beside his dead comrade.
While these executions were taking place, many friends of the thieves gathered round, uttering threats and denunciations, but a dozen rifles and revolvers were leveled at them, and they were intimidated into silence.
These executions caused great excitement at the time, and much discussion ensued in the papers respecting them. But the community very generally acquiesced in the necessity of the measure, though every one regretted it. Complaint was made to the grand jury of the county against several of the leaders of the lynching party, but no bill of indictment was found against them for want of evidence. Many of the people of Oakland were highly exasperated at the audacity of the Redwoods boys, and threatened to go and hang them to their own trees. But this served rather to amuse the boys than to frighten them.
A few weeks after these executions, word was brought to the Redwoods that a poor man had been robbed of some oxen in Oakland through the villainy of one of the officials in that city. A company quickly assembled and marched down to the city, determined to have justice done the poor man, and hang the officer if circumstances required it. They had not forgotten the threats of the Oaklanders to hang them, and determined to put their courage to the test. The case was investigated by the mayor of the city, and the mob resolved to await his decision. But much time was occupied in the investigation, and they grew impatient and clamorous. Meanwhile many of them paraded through the streets, uttering defiance to the citizens. "Here is a target," said a brawny, black-bearded Kentuckian, (the same I had encountered in the Redwoods, and who sold me a vulture,) as he strode along with a rusty rifle on his shoulder, and struck his breast. "Here is a target for the Oakland sharp-shooters. Let 'em try it if they dare." "I'm from the Redwoods," roared out another. "Where is your Oakland company to hang me?" "What are you after?" asked a spectator of one of the boys. "Justice," he replied. "But how are you going to obtain it?" "By the halter, if the money isn't paid pretty soon," he replied with an oath.