But Valencia tells me that the fellow is cutting down trees for a house, and that I do not like." "Some emigrants seem to think, because they have traveled over so much wilderness, there is no land west of the Mississippi that they haven't a perfect right to take, if it suits them.

They are a little like your countryman Columbus, I suppose.

Every man who crosses the desert feels as if he's out on a voyage of discovery to a new world; and when he does strike California, it's hard for him to realize that he can't take what he wants of it." "I think you are right," admitted Don Andres after a minute.

"And your government also seems to believe it has come into possession of a wilderness, peopled only by savages who must give way to the march of civilization.

Whereas we Spaniards were in possession of the land while yet your colonies paid tribute to their king in England, and we ourselves have brought the savages to the ways of Christian people, and have for our reward the homes which we have built with much toil and some hardships, like yourselves when your colonies were young.
Twenty-one years have I looked upon this valley and called it mine, with the word of his Majesty for my authority! And surely my right to it is as the right of your people to their haciendas in Virginia or Vermont.