Despite the fact that there was an adobe on the land, I could not dispose of the property at any price. One day a half-breed known as the Chicken Thief called on me and offered a dozen chickens for the adobe, but--not a chicken for the land! Stealing chickens was this man's profession; and I suppose that he offered me the medium of exchange he was most accustomed to have about him.
Sheriff William C. Getman had been warned, in the tragic days of 1858, to look out for a maniac named Reed; but almost courting such an emergency, Getman (once a dashing Lieutenant of the Rangers and bearing grapeshot wounds from his participation in the Siege of Mexico) went, on the seventh of January, with Francis Baker to a pawnbroker, whose establishment, near Los Angeles and Aliso streets, was popularly known as the Monte Pio. There the officers found Reed locked and barricaded in a room; and while the Sheriff was endeavoring to force an entrance, Reed suddenly threw open the door, ran out and, to the dismay of myself and many others gathered to witness the arrest, pulled a pistol from his pocket, discharged the weapon, and Getman dropped on the spot. The maniac then retreated into the pawnbroker's from which he fired at the crowd. Deputy Baker--later assistant to Marshal Warren, who was shot by Dye--finally killed the desperado, but not before Reed had fired twenty to thirty shots, four or five of which passed through Baker's clothing. When the excited crowd broke into the shop, it was found that the madman had been armed with two derringers, two revolvers and a bowie knife--a convenient little arsenal which he had taken from the money-lender's stock. The news of the affray spread rapidly through the town and everywhere created great regret. Baker, who had sailed around the Horn a couple of years before I arrived, died on May 17th, 1899, after having been City Marshal and Tax Collector.
Such trouble with men inclined to use firearms too freely was not confined to maniacs or those bent on revenge or robbery. On one occasion, for example, about 1858, while passing along the street I observed Gabriel Allen, known among his intimates as Gabe Allen, a veteran of the War with Mexico--and some years later a Supervisor--on one of his jollifications, with Sheriff Getman following close at his heels. Having arrived in front of a building, Gabe suddenly raised his gun and aimed at a carpenter who was at work on the roof. Getman promptly knocked Allen down; whereupon the latter said, "You've got me, Billy!" Allen's only purpose, it appeared, was to take a shot at the innocent stranger and thus test his marksmanship.