William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[70] skins liked these Mormons, regarding them as honest men, who wanted squaws and paid for them in skins and cows. A lovely climate, a prolific soil, drew other settlers from the North.

If California is the garden of America, Los Angeles county is the paradise of California. Woods and pastures have been sold by the unthrifty natives; woods uncut, pastures ungrazed; and the purchase money of these woods and pastures has been spent on cards and drink. The district is becoming white. Banks, stores, hotels are being opened in the town, while round the suburbs, in and out of glen and water-way, white farms and villas are beginning to dot the country side. All sorts of wealth abounds, so that the robber's greed is tempted by variety of spoil. All hands are ready to help him in carrying on his trade. A brigand is always welcome to the people in an old Free Town.

Capitan Soto led a rattling life. One day he fled to Mexico, where the customers for his stolen horses lived; another day he smoked his cigarette in San Quentin, the Newgate of California. Once he broke that prison; a daring and successful feat, one of the many legends of that place of demons. But