Читать книгу Folded Hills - Stewart Edward White - Страница 27

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The passing of so long established an institution was a dramatic enough revolution in the social structure, it might be presumed. It was certainly a change of enormous significance; what would seem an arresting symptom of movement away from a settled order of things. Yet it took place almost unremarked. Those in the center of affairs, like Alvarado and Vallejo and Castro, were fully occupied by the small opéra-bouffe conspiracies and revolutions that delighted the idle and the politically minded dilettantes of the pueblos. In addition the revolt of Texas and its ultimate winning to independence as the Lone Star State altered the whole situation as to California’s policy in respect to foreigners. What to do about them? The sentiment as to the slowly increasing numbers of immigrants had been, on the whole, if not of welcome, at least of tolerant friendliness; provided, of course, the newcomers were apparently of good character. A Swiss named John Sutter had charmed Alvarado with his pretensions and his evident ability; and had been granted much land; and had built himself a fort on the American River; and had so rapidly established his power that the Mexican government began to make inquiries. The place was becoming a rendezvous for wandering hunters and trappers, whom he kept with him without price. At times he showed his teeth in almost open defiance. Matters adjusted themselves for the moment; but Alvarado and Vallejo remembered Texas.

It was all very puzzling and alarming to the few who could see. Alvarado began to break a little under the strain of it. He caused the arrest of Isaac Graham and the miscellaneous lot that had gradually collected about that worthy and his still at Natividad. It was reported to him that Graham was about to stage an “uprising of American settlers,” which is doubtful. Alvarado took pains to specify that no one was to be arrested who “had passports or who were married to native women or who were honest and regular in their mode of life”; which was fair enough. Unfortunately for him there happened to be in Monterey at that time an individual of a type familiar enough in our modern politics but strange to the simple californios. His name was Farnham, and he was an expert at viewing with alarm. No one knows who had stepped on his toes; nor how hard; but it is obvious in time’s perspective that his grouch was personal. He followed the deported “Grahamites” to Tepic, where they had been banished, and there managed to interest the British consul in their behalf. Twenty-six were forever excluded from Mexican territory; but Graham himself, and a score of his fellows, were permitted to return to Monterey and the still. Farnham then went home, where he published a book. Since at that time California was as remote from the world as Mars, he felt he could say what he wished without danger of being checked. So he left us a caricature of Castro and the Dastardly Spanish Tyrant that contrasts nicely with that of the haloed and sainted Graham and his gang. He incidentally describes taking part in a grand buffalo hunt in the Sacramento Valley as a sort of check or control on his general veracity. All of which helped.

Andy Burnett, at Folded Hills, knew very little of all this; and cared less. He had laughingly resisted Ramón’s importunities to join one of the numerous expeditions to the south. Undoubtedly it would be good “essport”; but he was too busy at home. He chuckled over the deportation of Isaac Graham and his crew. He knew Ike’s type very well; he would not want a better man to back him in the mountains or the plains. But for some years now Graham had been in a different business that gathered all the idle renegades to itself. Andy would not himself have liked that crew as neighbors; he could hardly blame Alvarado for wanting to get rid of them. Not that the “Grahamites” were a wholly bad lot, by any means. They were idle; and drink was handy. Graham when sober was inclined to be reticent and quiet, hospitable and industrious. But with the drink in him he was loud-mouthed, unprincipled, profligate and reckless. In other words, he was neither the Noble American Pioneer of some, nor the Drunken Desperado of others; but a typical frontiersman, out of place for the moment. Shift of scene would probably do old Ike good, thought Andy. But when Farnham’s efforts resulted in Graham’s return, Andy sympathized sardonically with Alvarado. He heard of Sutter and his fort and his other activities, of course; and intended to ride over there some day and make Sutter’s acquaintance and see for himself. But New Helvetia was a long distance, occupying in men’s mental feeling of travel about what an excursion to New York would represent now to a Californian.

Naturally he was, like his fellow rancheros, aware of the decline of the missions. Like them he regretted the fact. Like them, also, he speculated as to whether something should not be done about it. He was even a trifle indignant at some of the rumors. But again like them, he failed to see the picture as a whole. Once more intervened the element of remoteness, of the isolated instance. He, like all the others, was unaware of change. The surface of the waters was as placid as ever; but the tranquillity was no longer that of calm, but of a current smoothed by the gathering haste of its movement toward the cataract.