THURSDAY, MAY 27. A ranchero, living some forty miles distant, not liking his own land, had lifted his boundary line, and projected it some six miles over that of his neighbor. Quite a lap this would be among farmers in the United States, but a small slice here. I was called upon to decide the difficulty. Taking with me from the public archives a certified copy of the original grant to each of the rancheros, I proceeded to the spot, where I found some twenty men under the shadow of a great oak-tree, and each ready to locate the boundaries agreeably to the interests of the party that had summoned him. I listened to the stories of each, and then asked the ranchero, who had lifted his line, to show me his grant. He drew it from his pocket—a document signed, sealed, and delivered with all the formalities of law. I then drew out the original, and found their topographical lines as much alike as the here and there of an unresting squatter. The fact was, the man had two grants; but the last one being a palpable invasion of his neighbor’s domain, as secured to him under the seal of the state, he must of course retreat within the limits of the first. A township of land being thus judicially and justly disposed of, I started on my return; fell in with a grizzly bear—levelled and fired—but without waiting to see if the ball took effect, dashed on. A loadless rifle, with an enraged bear at your heels, makes you value a fleet horse in California. CHAPTER XIV. A CONVICT WHO WOULD NOT WORK.—LAWYERS AT MONTEREY.—WHO CONQUERED CALIFORNIA.—RIDE TO A RANCHO.—LEOPALDO.—PARTY OF CALIFORNIANS.—A DASH INTO THE FORESTS.—CHASING A DEER.—KILLING A BEAR.—LADIES WITH FIREARMS.—A MOTHER AND VOLUNTEER. FRIDAY, JUNE 18. One of the prisoners, who is an Englishman, ventured a criticism on the stonework of another prisoner, which revealed the fact of his being a stonecutter himself. I immediately sat him at work at his old trade. But he feigned utter ignorance of it, and spoiled several blocks in making his feint good. I then ordered him into a deep well, where the water had given out, to drill and blast rocks. He drove his drills here for several days, and finding that the well was to be sunk some twenty or thirty feet deeper, concluded it was better for him to work in the upper air, and requested that he might be permitted to try his chisel again. Permission was given, and he is now shaping stones fit to be laid in the walls of a cathedral. He was taken up for disorderly conduct, and he is now at work on a school-house, where the principles of good order are the first things to be taught.