When the excitement of the presidential election subsides, Maxime Valois joins the banquets of the Democratic victors. The social atmosphere is purer. Progress marks the passing months. The State springs forward toward the second decade of its existence. There is local calm, while the national councils potter over the Pacific railways. Valois knows that the great day of Secession approaches. The Sons of the South will soon raise the banner of the Southern Cross. He knows the purposes of the cabinet, selected by the conspirators who surround Buchanan. Spring sees the great departments of the government given over to those who work for the South. They will arrange government offices, divide the army, scatter the navy, juggle the treasury and prepare for the coming storm. The local bitterness heightens into quarrels over spoils. Judge Philip Hardin, well-versed in the Secession plots, feeds the ever-burning pride of Valois. From Kansas, from court and Congress, from the far East, the murmur of the "irrepressible conflict" grows nearer. Maxime Valois is in correspondence with the head of his family. While at Lagunitas, the Creole pushes on his works of improvement. He dreams at night strange dreams of more brilliant successes. Of a new flag and the triumph of the beloved cause. He will be called as a trusted Southron into the councils of the coast. Will they cut it off under the Lone Star flag? This appeals to his ambition. There are omens everywhere. The Free-State Democrats must be suppressed. The South must and shall rule. He often dreams if war and tumult will ever roll, in flame and fire, over the West. The mists of the future veil his eyes. He waits the signal from the South. All over California, the wealth of the land peeps through its surface gilding. There are no clouds yet upon the local future. No burning local questions at issue here, save the aversion of the two sections, distrustful of each other. It needs only the mad attack of John Brown upon Virginia's slave-keepers to loose the passions of the dwellers by the Pacific. Martyr or murderer, sage or fanatic, Brown struck the blows which broke the bonds of the brotherhood of the Revolution. From the year 1858, the breach becomes too great to bridge. Secretly, Southern plans are perfected to control the West. While the conspiracy slowly moves on, the haughtiness of private intercourse admits of no peaceable reunion. Active correspondence between officials, cool calculations of future resources, and the elevation to prominent places of men pledged to the South, are the rapid steps of the maturing plans. On the threshold of war. For the senators, representatives, and agents in Washington confidentially report that the code of honor is needed to restrain the Northerners under personal dragooning. Yankee self-assertion comes at last.