“But, as George is to marry my daughter, he would be the last man from whom I would ask a favor.”
“What is that I hear about not asking a favor from me?” said George Mechlin, coming out on the piazza with Elvira on his arm, having just finished a waltz—“I am interested to know why you would not ask it.”
“You know why, my dear boy. It isn't exactly the thing to bother you with my disagreeable business.”
“And why not? And who has a better right? And why should it be a bother to me to help you in any way I can? My father spoke to me about a dismissal of an appeal, and I made a note of it. Let me see, I think I have it in my pocket now,”—said George, feeling in his breast pocket for his memorandum book,—“yes, here it is,—‘For uncle to write to the attorney general about dismissing the appeal taken by the squatters in the Alamar grant, against Don Mariano's title, which was approved.’ Is that the correct idea? I only made this note to ask you for further particulars.”
“You have it exactly. When I give you the number of the case, it is all that you need say to your uncle. What I want is to have the appeal dismissed, of course, but if the attorney general does not see fit to do so, he can, at least, remand back the case for a new trial. Anything rather than this killing suspense. Killing literally, for while we are waiting to have my title settled, the settlers (I don't mean to make puns), are killing my cattle by the hundred head, and I cannot stop them.”
“But are there no laws to protect property in California?” George asked.
“Yes, some sort of laws, which in my case seem more intended to help the law-breakers than to protect the law-abiding,” Don Mariano replied.
“How so? Is there no law to punish the thieves who kill your cattle?”
“There are some enactments so obviously intended to favor one class of citizens against another class, that to call them laws is an insult to law, but such as they are, we must submit to them. By those laws any man can come to my land, for instance, plant ten acres of grain, without any fence, and then catch my cattle which, seeing the green grass without a fence, will go to eat it. Then he puts them in a ‘corral’ and makes me pay damages and so much per head for keeping them, and costs of legal proceedings and many other trumped up expenses, until for such little fields of grain I may be obliged to pay thousands of dollars. Or, if the grain fields are large enough to bring more money by keeping the cattle away, then the settler shoots the cattle at any time without the least hesitation, only taking care that no one sees him in the act of firing upon the cattle. He might stand behind a bush or tree and fire, but then he is not seen. No one can swear that they saw him actually kill the cattle, and no jury can convict him, for although the dead animals may be there, lying on the ground shot, still no one saw the settler kill them. And so it is all the time. I must pay damages and expenses of litigation, or my cattle get killed almost every day.”
“But this is infamous. Haven't you—the cattle owners—tried to have some law enacted that will protect your property?” George asked. “It seems to me that could be done.”