Driven from their lucrative vices of old, the depraved element, at the polls, overawes decency. San Francisco's long wooden wharves, its precipitous streets, its crowded haunts of the transient, and its flashy places of low amusement harbor a desperate gang. They are renegades, deserters, and scum of every seaport—graduates of all human villany. Aided by demagogues, the rule of the "Roughs" nears its culmination. Fire companies, militia, train bands, and the police, are rotten to the core. In this upheaval, affecting only the larger towns, the higher classes are powerless.
Cut off, by the great plains, from the central government, the State is almost devoid of telegraphs and has but one little railroad. It has hostile Indians yet on its borders. The Chinese come swarming in like rats. The situation of California is critical.
Personal duels and disgraceful quarrels convulse high life. The lower ranks are ruled only by the revolver. The criminal stalks boldly, unpunished, in the streets.
The flavor of Americanism is no leaven to this ill-assorted population. The exciting presidential campaign, in which Fremont leads a new party, excites and divides the better citizens of the commonwealth.
Though the hills are now studded with happy homes and the native children of the Golden West are rising in promise, all is unrest. A local convulsion turns the anger of better elements into the revolution of the Vigilance Committee of 1856. James Casey's pistol rang out the knell of the "Roughs" when he murdered the fearless editor of the leading journal.
Valois, uninterested in this urban struggle, returns to Lagunitas. His domain rewards his energy.
All is peace by the diamond lake. Senora Dolores, her tutor, Padre Francisco, and the placid Duenna Juanita make up a pleasant home circle. It is brightened by luxuries provided by the new lord. Maxime Valois' voice is heard through the valleys. He travels in support of James Buchanan, the ante-bellum President. For is not John C. Breckinridge, the darling son of the South, as vice-president also a promise of Southern success?
San Francisco throws off its criminals by a spasmodic effort. The gallows tree has borne its ghastly fruit. Fleeing "Roughs" are self-expatriated. Others are unceremoniously shipped abroad. The Vigilance Committee rules. This threshing out of the chaff gives the State a certain dignity. At least, an effort has been made to purge the community. All in all, good results—though a Judge of the Supreme Court sleeps in a guarded cell as a prisoner of self-elected vindicators of the law.
When the excitement of the presidential election subsides, Maxime Valois joins the banquets of the Democratic victors. The social atmosphere is purer. Progress marks the passing months. The State springs forward toward the second decade of its existence. There is local calm, while the national councils potter over the Pacific railways. Valois knows that the great day of Secession approaches. The Sons of the South will soon raise the banner of the Southern Cross. He knows the purposes of the cabinet, selected by the conspirators who surround Buchanan. Spring sees the great departments of the government given over to those who work for the South. They will arrange government offices, divide the army, scatter the navy, juggle the treasury and prepare for the coming storm. The local bitterness heightens into quarrels over spoils. Judge Philip Hardin, well-versed in the Secession plots, feeds the ever-burning pride of Valois. From Kansas, from court and Congress, from the far East, the murmur of the "irrepressible conflict" grows nearer. Maxime Valois is in correspondence with the head of his family. While at Lagunitas, the Creole pushes on his works of improvement. He dreams at night strange dreams of more brilliant successes. Of a new flag and the triumph of the beloved cause. He will be called as a trusted Southron into the councils of the coast. Will they cut it off under the Lone Star flag? This appeals to his ambition.
There are omens everywhere. The Free-State Democrats must be suppressed. The South must and shall rule.