was looking for other worlds to conquer and after some weeks at the ranch another property was offered on somewhat similar terms to the above, and while the Scotch folks had no definite option, it was arranged that I should go down and look it over. It was the Santa Margarita ranch lying midway betwixt Los Angeles and San Diego. Mr. O'Neil, a promoter whose Christian name I forget, and the writer went to Los Angeles. From there we went to the little town of Santa Ana by train. It was as far as the locomotive had got by the present coast line. It was pleasant to run through the orange groves and vineyards that bordered the track. The sunshine from a sky as blue as on the Mediterranean, the shimmering foliage, dense green yet silvered as the leaves moved in the breeze, the gurgling ditches, the hum of insect life, the bees busy among orange blossoms, the wide spreading panorama of plain, mountain and sea: what a rich dreamy scene it was, like the fabled land of the lotus eater, the mild-eyed, melancholy race of whom Alfred Tennyson sings.

At Santa Ana we met Don Juan Foster, half English, half Mexican. His father had reached the Pacific on board a British ship and had cast his lot in this land of Cortez and Drake, later of Sutter and Fremont, the Pathfinder of Fenimore Cooper. Foster married a sister of Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of this great state. Juan was the eldest son, more Spanish than Anglo Saxon, a fine looking man, well built, with eyes of fire and all the dash of a Spanish cavalier, but evidently of poor business ability. No thought of the morrow. Towards evening we came to San Juan Capistrano. The village surrounded an old mission that is rich in architecture, with olive groves on the near hillsides. We tarried at an inn that was primitive in its fittings and arrangements, but the Frenchman and his wife who ran it knew their business and though the dining room had only an earthen floor and the table was only made of deal boards, the fare was generous and the wine beyond criticism. No village in the Gironde could have treated you better. The

padre from the mission and the local judge, Egan by name, kept us company. It was a fresh phase of life to me.

Juan Foster had a fine ranch of 10,000 acres near this place. Some miles away lay the old ranch, a Spanish grant of about 150,000 acres which was still a family concern and which was for sale. As our journey progressed it turned out that to the price of the ranch must be added the promoter's commission, and this ran into big figures. O'Neil and I had started with the understanding that it could be bought for a certain sum clear of incumbrance and title perfect. While the senior Foster had passed away years ago, his wife was still alive; in fact, was at the ranch when we got there. There were several children and the time had come when the property had to be sold. It was, at the time of our visit, not half stocked, some of it rented out and generally speaking it was in a run down condition. Leaving San Juan Capistrano, we reached Los Flores where Juan Foster made his home. It was on the sea coast and, as I remember, on the north corner of the ranch. There we had a lavish lunch and we reached the home ranch in the early evening. It stood on the banks of the Santa Margarita River. The house was built on the old Mexican method. It was a square with a courtyard inside, a lot of outhouses scattered around, while down in the valley was a rich vineyard where they made their own wine. It was biblical in its way. A broad stone piazza faced the West and you could see the waters of the Pacific some eight or ten miles away. Back of the house were swelling hills which rose up to the place where Fallbrook is situated. Down the valley ran a railroad, starting at San Bernardino and ending at San Diego. Except for the Mexicans and the vineyards, the orange and the olive trees, you might have thought you were in some Cheviot valley and looking eastward saw the dark waters of the wild North Sea. There seemed an endless lot of help round the ranch, whether servants, retainers or amigoes it was impossible to tell. You were in the land of Ramona, amid simple people with a lot of Indian blood in their veins. Dame

Foster who joined us at supper had a finely cut profile, but dried up like most old women in that climate. The young senoritas who helped at table and round the house were exceedingly good looking, but shy with strangers. You were back in medieval days, except for the whistle of the locomotive and the silent forward movement that began in 1848 and '49 to push the native out of his heritage in this fair

state.

We spent three or four days going over the ranch. There was a great quantity of feed on the hills and in the valleys. The latter were sweet places. You would drop suddenly upon rustic houses where some Basque shepherd tended a rather poor looking flock of woollies and round whose cottage a lot of bee hives were standing. What a picnic those dainty denizens had among the wild flowers that made the scene a gorgeous picture of blue, yellow, gold and crimson! The place was stocked with about 1,000 horses of a poor class and about 800 cattle. The exact number I do not recollect. At any rate, it was woefully understocked and there could be very little income. Don Juan went with O'Neil and myself, and one day we had Dan Murphy, a well known cattleman from San Francisco with us. O'Neil and Murphy were well matched, both of Irish birth, keen witted and very observant. Murphy bought a lot of horses. We left those hospitable folks with regret and journeyed back by the same route as we came, spending another night at San Capistrano. Although forty years have come and gone, the last night I spent there lives in memory. The padre, Judge Egan, Dick O'Neil, Dan Murphy, the big promoter, rather tarnished, for his clothes had lost their smartness and his face needed a razor badly, the impulsive, erratic Don Juan, a motley company with a great trail of experience behind them, the quaint hotel, the smiling face of the landlord, the fair landscape and the sunkissed sea. Then came the cool evening after a rather warm day, a serene night with sparkling stars and slumber long and sweet.

Nothing so far as we were concerned came of the trip.

The promoter stood firm for his added commission, so the deal fell through. Mr. Walker would not stand for it. The matter was never put up to the Scotch investors. It was unfortunate for them, but lucky for my good friend O'Neil. He saw the opportunity and later in the year he and Mr. J. C. Flood of bonanza fame, leaving our promoting friend out, purchased the property and still have it and I am told it is one of, if not the best, ranching properties in Southern California.

T

CHAPTER VI

OWARDS the end of July, 1880, on a journey across

the continent by the Union Pacific Railroad, I occu

pied an upper berth from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Ogden, Utah. The lower berth was taken by a short, stout man and a very attractive boy of ten or twelve years of age. They were father and son, and as we traveled along through Nebraska, we became acquainted and I shared the contents of a liberal lunch basket they carried with them, for in those days there were no dining cars and you had to stop off at points like Fremont, Grand Island or North Platte, in the above state, for your meals. There was but one train a day and you rolled along at seventeen miles an hour. There was plenty of time for visiting on a western journey. In the course of practically two days we were together it transpired that my companions were John T. Stewart and his son Charles of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Stewart was a wholesale. grocer, pork packer, speculator, and had a ranch on the Sweetwater, the brand being 2 (Seventy-one Quarter Circle). They got off at Rawlins, Wyo. Stewart made a vivid impression on my mind. He had a strong face, rather spoiled by a shifty eye, but all over he had the marks of strong tenacity, full of enterprise and aggressive push. There was the air of a successful man about him. He was an interesting talker, unfolding gradually his plans and policies, and how in the rough and tumble days of frontier life he had reached an era of easy independence.

It was just about two years later to a day that in the morning I was leaving the Santa Margarita ranch I got a telegram by special messenger repeating a cable from my friend Mr. W. J. Menzies telling me to go at once to Rawlins, Wyo., where I would meet Mr. John T. Stewart of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and to proceed with him to the Z ranch and report upon it. The cable was marked "Urgent."