LAGUNITAS.
BOOK I. — THE LAST OF THE DONS BY THE BLUE PACIFIC.
CHAPTER I. — UNDER THE MEXICAN EAGLE.—EXIT THE FOREIGNER.—MONTEREY, 1840.
"Caramba! Adios, Seflores!" cried Captain Miguel Peralta, sitting on his roan charger on the Monterey bluffs. A white-sailed bark is heading southward for Acapulco. His vaqueros tossed up their sombreros, shouting, "Vive Alvarado! Muerte los estrangeros!"
The Pacific binds the hills of California in a sapphire zone, unflecked by a single sail in sight, save the retreating trader, which is flitting around "Punta de los Pinos."
It is July, 1840. The Mexican ensign flutters in the plaza of Monterey, the capital of Alta California.