“Not immediately, unless they were to be guided by honorable motives. The rancho will be surveyed first, and then the patent issued after the survey is approved by the Surveyor General,” George replied.
“Ah! The endless red tape,” said Elvira.
“Poor papa, he has so much trouble,” Mercedes sighed. “In another year all the cattle will have been killed.”
“And the squatters will be more murderous, when they learn that their appeal is dismissed,” George said.
“Yes, I was thinking what will be the best to do to meet the emergency. I shall speak about that to Don Mariano on my return,” said Clarence.
“Yes, you help him all you can,” George said.
“Most undoubtedly. I will be able to do much more if I can persuade my father to take a correct view of the matter. But he might not, for as he has had so much trouble sustaining the rights of squatters, he has got to feel as if he were the champion of a misunderstood cause and much maligned people,” Clarence said, smiling sadly.
“No doubt, if Mr. Darrell is to be unfriendly, papa will have much more trouble to manage the others,” Elvira said.
“How singular that a man as bright and honorable as he is, can find any reason to justify ‘squatterism,’” said George.
“I think he began by being persuaded to take a claim in the Suscol rancho, honestly thinking it was government land. Afterwards the grant was confirmed, I think, but then he already felt compelled to maintain his position to justify his action, and so he began by a mistake which his pride will not let him acknowledge. I was a little child then, but I know he has had a great deal of trouble. For the last ten years we have been leasing land, but he had been wishing to have a farm of his own, so as not to be putting his labor and time and money to improve some one else's land. Thus he was induced to come south on the representations that there was plenty of vacant government land, and that the Texas Pacific railroad would soon be built and southern California be prosperous,” said Clarence, anxious to extenuate his father's errors.