52 
CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATED. 
you.” After having satisfied their thirst and hunger, they sallied 
forth without taking the trouble to learn the precise amount of 
damage done. 
During the night, after committing several robberies, they 
entered a Chilian tent, and, after committing the most brutal 
outrages upon the mother and daughter, murdered the former, and 
in their struggle with the latter, she, after receiving several 
severe wounds, caught a bowie-knife from the hand of one of 
them and, after dealing him a deadly blow, made her escape. 
She immediately gave the alarm, and although robberies had 
been committed with impunity, this outrage upon defenceless 
females, awakened an impulse that was irresistible. The 
excitement was most intense; citizens flocked together, armed 
with a determination to meet out summary punishment to the 
perpetrators of this inhuman outrage. 
Several arrests were made, and, although many were in favor 
of summary vengeance, better counsel prevailed, and they were 
put into the hands of the authorities and locked up. They re¬ 
fused to give any information as to the stolen property, but upon 
searching the tent of an accomplice, various articles were found, 
and snugly stowed away in a mattress was a large amount in 
gold dust, the wages of their infamy. A few hours after the 
above arrests, a demonstration was made by accomplices, in order 
to force open the jail, and release their comrades. This caused 
the strongest feelings of indignation, and the citizens assembled 
en masse in the plaza, all armed to the teeth, determined to 
avenge this additional aggravation to the atrocious crimes 
already perpetrated. They immediately organized themselves 
into a police, and determined to act with decision upon any 
proposition that might be sanctioned by the meeting. Had a 
resolution passed to hang the prisoners it would have been car¬ 
ried into immediate effect. Notwithstanding the excitement of 
the moment, many of the “hounds” had the effrontery to show 
themselves, and during a speech by one of the citizens, made 
some menacing jestures, upon which the speaker drew a revolver 
from his bosom, and with a determined emphasis requested all 
those who sympathized with the prisoners to separate from the 
crowd. ' Had they complied, the determination manifested in 
every countenance gave fearful token of the doom that awaited 
