peace. At one time when there was an insurrection of some of the Indian
tribes farther south, and for a few days it looked as if there would
be a general Indian war, he removed the greater part of his band, men,
women, and children driving their flocks and herds with them, to
Los Angeles, and camped there for several days, that they might be
identified with the whites in case hostilities became serious.

But his labors did not receive the reward that they deserved. With every
day that the intercourse between his people and the whites increased,
he saw the whites gaining, his people surely losing ground, and his
anxieties deepened. The Mexican owner of the Temecula valley, a friend
of Father Peyri's, and a good friend also of Pablo's, had returned
to Mexico in disgust with the state of affairs in California, and was
reported to be lying at the point of death. This man's promise to Pablo,
that he and his people should always live in the valley undisturbed,
was all the title Pablo had to the village lands. In the days when the
promise was given, it was all that was necessary. The lines marking off
the Indians' lands were surveyed, and put on the map of the estate. No
Mexican proprietor ever broke faith with an Indian family or village,
thus placed on his lands.

But Pablo had heard rumors, which greatly disquieted him, that such
pledges and surveyed lines as these were corning to be held as of no
value, not binding on purchasers of grants. He was intelligent enough
to see that if this were so, he and his people were ruined. All these
perplexities and fears he confided to Alessandro; long anxious hours the
father and son spent together, walking back and forth in the village, or
sitting in front of their little adobe house, discussing what could be
done. There was always the same ending to the discussion,--a long sigh,
and, "We must wait, we can do nothing."

No wonder Alessandro seemed, to the more ignorant and thoughtless young
men and women of his village, a cold and distant lad. He was made old
before his time. He was carrying in his heart burdens of which they
knew nothing. So long as the wheat fields came up well, and there was
no drought, and the horses and sheep had good pasture, in plenty, on the
hills, the Temecula people could be merry, go day by day to their easy
work, play games at sunset, and sleep sound all night. But Alessandro
and his father looked beyond. And this was the one great reason why
Alessandro h