On November 18th, 1862, our little community was greatly stirred by the news that John Rains, one of Colonel Isaac Williams' sons-in-law and well known in Los Angeles, had been waylaid and killed on the highway near the Azusa _rancho_ the night before. It was claimed that one Ramón Carrillo had hired the assassins to do the foul deed; and about the middle of February, 1863, a Mexican by the name of Manuel Cerradel was arrested by Thomas Trafford, the City Marshal, as a participant. In time, he was tried and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin Prison. On December 9th, Sheriff Tomás Sanchez started to take the prisoner north, and at Wilmington boarded the little steamer _Cricket_ to go out to the _Senator_, which was ready to sail. A goodly number of other passengers also boarded the tugboat, though nothing in particular was thought of the circumstance; but once out in the harbor, a group of Vigilantes, indignant at the light sentence imposed, seized the culprit at a prearranged signal, threw a noose about his neck and, in a jiffy, hung him to the flagstaff. When he was dead, the body was lowered and stones--brought aboard in packages by the committee, who had evidently considered every detail--were tied to the feet, and the corpse was thrown overboard before the steamer was reached. This was one of the acts of the Vigilantes that no one seemed to deprecate. Toward the end of 1861, J. E. Pleasants, while overseeing one of Wolfskill's ranches, hit the trail of some horse thieves and, assisted by City Marshal William C. Warren, pursued and captured several, who were sent to the penitentiary. One, however, escaped. This was Charles Wilkins, a veritable scoundrel who, having stolen a pistol and a knife from the Bella Union and put the same into the hands of young Wood (whose lynching I have described), sent the lad on his way to the gallows. A couple of years later Wilkins waylaid and murdered John Sanford, a rancher living near Fort Tejón and a brother of Captain W. T. B. Sanford, the second Postmaster of Los Angeles; and when the murderer had been apprehended and was being tried, an exciting incident occurred, to which I was an eye-witness. On November 16th, 1854, Phineas Banning had married Miss Rebecca Sanford, a sister of the unfortunate man; and as Banning caught sight of Wilkins, he rushed forward and endeavoured to avenge the crime by shooting the culprit. Banning was then restrained; but soon after, on December 17th, 1863, he led the Vigilance Committee which strung up Wilkins on Tomlinson & Griffith's corral gateway where nearly a dozen culprits had already forfeited their lives. CHAPTER XXIII ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN 1864-1865