Don Miguel left the choice of the mansion site to his Juanita. Together they visit the different points of vantage. Soon the hacienda rises in solid, fort-like simplicity.
The bride at Lagunitas strives to aid her companion. She shyly expresses her preferences. All is at her bidding.
Don Miguel erects his ranch establishment in a military style. It is at once a square stronghold and mansion shaded with ample porches. Corrals for horses, pens for sheep, make up his constructions for the first year. Already the herds are increasing under the eyes of his retainers.
The Commandante has learned that no manual work can be expected of his Californian followers, except equestrian duties of guarding and riding.
A flash of mother-wit leads him to bring a hundred mission Indians from the bay. They bear the brunt of mechanical toil.
Autumn finds Lagunitas Rancho in bloom. Mild weather favors all. Stores and supplies are brought from San Francisco Bay.
Don Miguel establishes picket stations reaching to the Castro Rancho.
Save that Juanita Peralta sees no more the glories of the Golden Gate, her life is changed only by her new, married relation. A few treasures of her girlhood are the sole reminders of her uneventful springtime.
Rides through the forests, and canters over the grassy meadows with her beloved Miguel, are her chiefest pleasures. Some little trading brings in the Indians of the Sierras. It amuses the young Donna to see the bartering of game, furs, forest nuts, wild fruits and fish for the simple stores of the rancho. No warlike cavaliers of the plains are these, with Tartar blood in their veins, from Alaskan migration or old colonization. They have not the skill and mysterious arts of the Aztecs.
These Piute Indians are the lowest order of indigenous tree dwellers. They live by the chase. Without manufactures, with no language, no arts, no agriculture, no flocks or herds, these wretches, clad in the skins of the minor animals, are God's meanest creatures. They live on manzanita berry meal, pine-nuts, and grasshoppers. Bows and flint-headed arrows are their only weapons. They snare the smaller animals. The defenceless deer yield to their stealthy tracking. The giant grizzly and panther affright them. They cannot battle with "Ursus ferox."