William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

San Jose, one of the Free Towns, has, like Los Angeles, a lower class of mongrel breed and vicious life; one of the great sinks from which such chiefs as Soto and Vasquez draw their bands. But these bad elements in the town, though rough and noisy, quail before the steady courage of the upper class --White men of British race, who having grown rich as advocates and physicians, bankers and merchants, have built their country houses on Coyote Creek; converting a camp of troops and squaws, with their unruly progeny, into a paradise of villas, colleges, and schools. These new comers are enrolled as vigilants, and are masters of the town.

While waiting trial, Vasquez is behaving like a true half-breed, lying in the faces of his friends, boasting of his noble deeds, and acting basely towards the woman who has wrecked her soul for him. He tells all those who go to see him, that he never killed a man in his life — not even Davidson. Leiva, he says, shot all the three men who were butchered at Tres Pinos. Having won Rosalia's love, in fair rivalry against her husband, he asserts that Leiva, like a jealous cur, betrayed him to the sheriffs out of envy at the preference of his wife.