Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/421

 Rh it all as his own, and obtained in this way such consideration in her eyes—as a person exceptionally well-to-do in the world—that she advised her daughter to "set her cap" at him, and all was happily accomplished before the ruse was discovered.

On another occasion—whether in this same courtship or not the chronicles do not say—Pat Murray disposed of rivals, who visited in the evenings a comely damsel of the general acquaintance, by soft-soaping the log serving as approach to her cabin across a small stream. Having thus arranged, he sat calmly enjoying the fair one's society, and listening with appreciative ear to the splash of the successive victims as they slid off into the water.

Stories are told of Spanish bandits and treasure of precious metals in the mountains, and of the wild administration of justice in early times, when offenders were occasionally executed first and sentenced afterward.