In all the history of American desperadoism and of the movements which have checked it, there is no page more worth study than this from the story of the great Golden State. The moral is a sane, clean, and strong one. The creed of the "Committee of Vigilance" is one which we might well learn to-day; and its practice would leave us with more dignity of character than we can claim, so long as we content ourselves merely with outcry and criticism, with sweeping accusation of our unfaithful public servants, and without seeing that they are punished. There is nothing but manhood and freedom and justice in the covenant of the Committee. That covenant all American citizens should be ready to sign and live up to: "We do bind ourselves each unto the other by a solemn oath to do and perform every just and lawful act for the maintenance of law and order, _and to sustain the laws when faithfully and properly administered_. But we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary, assassin, _ballot-box stuffer or other disturber of the peace_, shall escape punishment, either by quibbles of the law, the carelessness of the police or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice." What a man earns, that is his--such was the lesson of California. Self-government is our right as a people--that is what the Vigilantes said. When the laws failed of execution, then it was the people's right to resume the power that they had delegated, or which had been usurped from them--that is their statement as quoted by one of the ablest of many historians of this movement. The people might withdraw authority when faithless servants used it to thwart justice--that was what the Vigilantes preached. It is good doctrine to-day. Chapter VI The Outlaw of the Mountains--_The Gold Stampedes of the '60's_--_Armed Bandits of the Mountain Mining Camps_.