But it was with sullen reluctance; and
mutterings were to be heard, on all sides, that the time would come
yet. There was more than one way of killing a man. Farrar would
not be long seen in the valley. Alessandro should be avenged.
As Farrar rode slowly down the mountain, leading his recovered
horse, he revolved in his thoughts what course to pursue. A few
years before, he would have gone home, no more disquieted at
having killed an Indian than if he had killed a fox or a wolf. But
things were different now. This Agent, that the Government had
taken it into its head to send out to look after the Indians, had
made it hot, the other day, for some fellows in San Bernardino
who had maltreated an Indian; he had even gone so far as to arrest
several liquor-dealers for simply selling whiskey to Indians. If he
were to take this case of Alessandro's in hand, it might be
troublesome. Farrar concluded that his wisest course would be to
make a show of good conscience and fair-dealing by delivering
himself up at once to the nearest justice of the peace, as having
killed a man in self-defence, Accordingly he rode straight to the
house of a Judge Wells, a few miles below Saboba, and said that
he wished to surrender himself as having committed "justifiable
homicide" on an Indian, or Mexican, he did net know which, who
had stolen his horse.
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