Spaniards, Shysters and Shylocks

"He shook his head as he rode down the still-busy dirt street, thinking that with the railroad would come even more shysters and shylocks, card-sharps and crooks, flooding into the Western Land of Opportunity, a hundred years after the Revolution and two hundred years since Portola and Father Crespi had sat talking around the camp fire there beside the Rio Porciuncula." 

In Old Los Angeles

"Riding through the gate he glanced back at the Pueblo. Large trees and the hills to the west were silhouetted against a bright golden sunset. He was thinking that not even crime and war stopped the beauties of nature. He had seen terrible killing take place against a backdrop of peach blossoms and a  beautiful sunrise, and sometimes a field of dead soldiers silvered by moonlight."   (from Amargosa Ambush)

Centennial days in the Pueblo

"Every business, office, dance hall and saloon in Los Angeles had a flag or two flying to demonstrate their Centennial patriotic fervor. And up on Fort Moore Hill, where the American Marines had been besieged during the Californios' brief resistance, there was a bigger flag than usual streaming in the cool Spring breeze. He smiled, wondering if someone had also decorated the nearby gallows."