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 until 1825, when by the opening of the Erie Canal, it became the gateway from the great valley to the Atlantic States. Cleveland in the same way benefited by the opening of the Erie Canal, as did Detroit, the oldest of the western cities. Steamboats plied regularly between Milwaukee and Buffalo in the season of lake navigation. As a general rule the French and English clung to the seacost, while the German, Scandinavian and Cech pushed into agricultural states. Before an all-rail connection had been established between New York and Chicago, Buffalo was a kind of Mecca, where immigrants, journeying westward assembled. The city presented a sight one could not have seen elsewhere on this continent. Endless caravans of coaches, of lumbering moving vans, of country wagons, the latter loaded with household furniture, agricultural implements, boxes, trunks, moved through the principal thoroughfares. Immigrants with packs and baskets strapped to their backs, lounged on the sidewalks or crowded in front of lodging houses. In 1845, syssays [sic] a chronicler, 96,000 Europeans passed through the city. Boats which maintained communication with points west of Buffalo—by way of the canal, river or lake—seemed to do no other business, save the transport of immigrants and their luggage. The decks of these boats were provided with stalls for domestic animals; in appearance, these boats reminded one of nothing so much as of Noah’s Ark: their expansive decks were loaded with passengers, horses, horned cattle, vehicles and household belongings. Ordinarily, travelers journeyed from New York to Albany by water, from Albany to Buffalo by rail, from Buffalo to Detroit by a lake boat. From the latter named city to Chicago again by boat the journey lasted from five to six days. The Missouri Republican of July 20, 1849, advertises the trip from St. Louis to LaSalle, a distance of 281 miles, for $5. From LaSalle to Chicago, 100 miles, $4. From Chicago to Buffalo via Buffalo and Detroit from $5 to $8. From Buffalo to Albany by rail $9.45. From Albany to New York by boat 50 cents. Owing to the popular clamor that transportation companies overcharged immigrants, a committee was appointed in New York to investigate the alleged charges of extortion. It was claimed that immigrants were treated brutally by agents and runners, particularly those of them who were unable to speak English. Buffalo, which is the home town of one of the largest Polish settlements in America, somehow or other never appealed to Čechs. Borecký mentions by name about ten families who lived there in the mid-fifties. Even these few moved to other parts, eventually, save the Myškas or Mischkas as the name came to be spelled later.

In the following seacoast, river and lake cities the nuclei of settlements began forming in or after the fifties: New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Buffalo, St. Louis, Dubuque, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Racine, Manitowoc and Kewaunee. Always small, the settlements in New Orleans, Buffalo, and Dubuque soon disappeared, owing partly to removal, partly to assimilation.

The first farming communities sprang up in Wisconsin. This state possessed advantages over others which strongly appealed to the Central Eulropean.The climate though severe and the winters long, was salubrious and singularly free from those frequent and unhealthy changes which prevailed further south. The soil was adaptable for the raising of maize, rye, wheat, oats, vegetables, all products with which the Čech husbandman was familiar. Moreover, there was no fear of humilating competition with negro labor. Wisconsin’s attractions were widely advertised in German and Austrian newspapers. In the aggregate, it had the largest proportion of foreign citizens. Out of a population of 305,391 in 1850, there were 106,691, or more than one out of three, born abroad. Of that number nearly 40,000 were Germans. “The state (Wisconsin) commended itself to settlers in other ways. Taxes were low; one could become a citizen within one year. Good land could be bought at $1.25 an acre and the ground of poorer quality for less price than that. The state maintained in New York City a salaried official, so called Immigration Commissioner, whose duty it was to seek to divert the flow of newcomers thither. This commissioner advertised extensively in the foreign language press, mainly German, sending besides, generous quantities of printed matter to points in Germany, Austria, Switzerland”. One of the pamphlets read: “Come! In Wisconsin all men are free and equal before the law Religious freedom is absolute and there is not the slightest connection between church and


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 moment choaked his voice; "father!" continued he in faltering accents, "I am a woman!"

The abbot started at this unexpected avowal. Prostrate on the ground lay the feigned Rosario, as if waiting in silence the decision of his judge. Astonishment on the one part, apprehension on the other, for some minutes chained them in the same attitudes, as they had been touched by the rod of some magician. At length recovering from his confusion, the monk quitted the grotto, and sped with precipitation towards the abbey. His action did not escape the suppliant. She sprang from the ground; she hastened to follow him, overtook him, threw herself in his passage, and embraced his knees. Ambrosio strove in vain to disengage himself from her grasp.

"Do not fly me!" she cried. "Leave me not abandoned to the impulse of despair! Listen, while I excuse my imprudence; while I acknowledge my sister's

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 story to be my own! I am Matilda; you are her beloved."

If Ambrosio's surprise was great at her first avowal, upon hearing her second it exceeded all bounds. Amazed, embarrassed, and irresolute, he found himself incapable of pronouncing a syllable, and remained in silence gazing upon Matilda. This gave her opportunity to continue her explanation as follows:

"Think not, Ambrosio, that I come to rob your bride of your affections. No, believe me: Religion alone deserves you; and far is it from Matilda's wish to draw you from the paths of virtue. What I feel for you is love, not licentiousness. I sigh to be possessor of your heart, not lust for the enjoyment of your person. Deign to listen to my vindication: a few moments will convince you that this holy retreat is not polluted by my presence, and that you may grant me your compassion without trespassing against your vows."—She seated


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 herself. Ambrosio, scarcely conscious of what he did, followed her example, and she proceeded in her discourse:—

"I spring from a distinguished family; my father was chief of the noble house of Villanegas: he died while I was still an infant, and left me sole heiress of his immense possessions. Young and wealthy, I was sought in marriage by the noblest youths of Madrid; but no one succeeded in gaining my affections. I had been brought up under the care of an uncle possessed of the most solid judgment and extensive erudition: he took pleasure in communicating to me some portion of his knowledge. Under his instructions my understanding acquired more strength and justness than generally falls to the lot of my sex: the ability of my preceptor being aided by natural curiosity, I not only made a considerable progress in sciences universally studied, but in others revealed but to few, and lying under censure from the blindness of superstition. But


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 while my guardian laboured to enlarge the sphere of my knowledge, he carefully inculcated every moral precept: he relieved me from the shackles of vulgar prejudice: he pointed out the beauty of religion: he taught me to look with adoration upon the pure and virtuous; and, wo is me! I have obeyed him but too well.

"With such dispositions, judge whether I could observe with any other sentiment than disgust, the vice, dissipation, and ignorance which disgrace our Spanish youth. I rejected every offer with disdain: my heart remained without a master, till chance conducted me to the cathedral of the Capuchins. Oh! surely on that day my guardian angel slumbered, neglectful of his charge! Then was it that I first beheld you: you supplied the superior's place, absent from illness.—You cannot but remember the lively enthusiasm which your discourse created. Oh! how I drank your words! how your eloquence seemed to steal me from myself! I


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 scarcely dared to breathe, fearing to lose a syllable; and while you spoke, methought a radiant glory beamed round your head, and your countenance shone with the majesty of a god. I retired from the church, glowing with admiration. From that moment you became the idol of my heart; the never-changing object of my meditations. I enquired respecting you. The reports which were made me of your mode of life, of your knowledge, piety, and self-denial, riveted the chains imposed on me by your eloquence. I was conscious that there was no longer a void in my heart; that I had found the man whom I had sought till then, in vain. In expectation of hearing you, again, every day I visited your cathedral: you remained secluded within the abbey walls, and I always withdrew, wretched and disappointed. The night was more propitious to me, for then you stood before me in my dreams; you vowed to me eternal friendship; you led me through the paths of virtue, and assisted me to support the


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 vexations of life. The morning dispelled these pleasing visions: I awoke, and found myself separated from you by barriers which appeared insurmountable. Time seemed only to increase the strength of my passion: I grew melancholy and despondent; I fled from society, and my health declined daily. At length, no longer able to exist in this state of torture, I resolved to assume the disguise in which you see me. My artifice was fortunate; I was received into the monastery, and succeeded in gaining your esteem.

"Now, then, I should have felt completely happy, had not my quiet been disturbed by the fear of detection. The pleasure which I received from your society was embittered by the idea, that perhaps I should soon be deprived of it: and my heart throbbed so rapturously at obtaining the marks of your friendship, as to convince me that I never should survive its loss. I resolved, therefore, not to leave the discovery of my sex to chance—to confess the whole to


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 state In Wisconsin no religious qualification is necessary for office or to constitute voter; all that is required is for the man to be 21 years old and to have lived in the state one year”.

Wisconsin, for a long time, stood at the front of Čech effort in the United States. The weekly Slavie made familiar in every household the names of Milwaukee, Racine, Caledonia, Manitowoc and Kewaunee. The Germans called Milwaukee the German Athens, the Čechs baptised Racine, where stood the cradle of the Slowan Amerikanský and later Slavie, the Čech Bethlehem.

At one time or another, Wisconsin was the home of Vojta Náprstek, John Heřman, John Koříček, J. B. Letovský, Václav Šimonek, Vojta Mašek, Charles Jonáš, Ladimir Klácel, Franta Mráček, John Borecký, John Karel. Here were projected and came into existence, at the promptings of the Slavie, the first Čech language schools; here, too, were organized the Slovanská Lípa chain of societies. When the newer states, Nebraska and Kansas, had been thrown open to settlers, the hardy Wisconsin pioneer was ready to advise his less experienced countrymen in those states.

It gives me great pleasure upon my return from Czecho-Slovakia to write for the Czechoslovak Review a short account of my impressions and experiences, while on the staff of General Štefanik. As some of you know, Captain Wheeler and myself went to Siberia on the staff of our beloved General, Milan Štefanik, and after seeing a little service with your boys in the Ural Mountains, we were ordered to proceed from Siberia to France and thence to Czechoslovakia, via America. We arrived in America last March and after a short stay, proceeded to Paris where we again joined General Štefanik, who had come from Siberia by way of the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. After we had spent a week or more with General Štefanik in Paris, he went to Italy and ordered us to go to Czechoslovakia and await his arrival; he intended to get there by aeroplane from Udine, Italy, where he was to spend a few days with his fiancée.

I cannot explain my feelings when early one cold morning we found we had passed over the Austrian border and were on Czechoslovak territory. We stood at last on the soil for whose freedom we had been fighting, the land of the people whom we had come to love and honor. We had heard stories of the beautiful country we were going to visit, but the ride that morning—we arrived at Prague about two o’clock in the afternoon—was indeed a revelation. Beautiful forests with the marks of intelligent forestry shown in the alignment of the trees, rolling hills and delightful valleys which were in full cultivation every where, showing the marks of the industrious farmer of your country, here and there old castles built centuries ago, all made a picture which neither Captain Wheeler nor myself can adequately describe. We had come through the beautiful, the truly magnificent, Alps of the Tyrol, but neither the scenery of Switzerland, nor of Austria presented such wealth of resources and potential power, as that of our adopted country. One need not ask after having been there why the Hapsburg dynasty held so tenaciously to that wonderful country.

Lieutenant Lakomý, Secretary to General Štefanik, was on the train with us. He was going to Prague once more to see his wife and children whom he had neither seen nor heard of for over four long, weary years of war and privation. There they were at the station, when we arrived in Prague. Words could not express the joy and happiness that beamed all over our dear friend’s face. The faith and fortitude shown by him on the entire trip, for he was with us from New York to Prague, are the things that have made your people what they are today: one of the most honored nations of the world. A committee from the Foreign Office was at the station and soon had us comfortably lodged in a hotel in Prague. We could hardly wait to eat a few bites of food, before we went out again to ramble around the beautiful old town and see the castle of which we had heard so much, where at last a real Czech, a real man, was holding the reins of the govern-


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 you, and throw myself entirely on your mercy and indulgence. Ah! Ambrosio, can I have been deceived? Can you be less generous than I thought you? I will not suspect it. You will not drive a wretch to despair; I shall still be permitted to see you, to converse with you, to adore you! Your virtues shall be my example through life; and, when we expire, our bodies shall rest in the same grave."

She ceased.—While she spoke, a thousand opposing sentiments combated in Ambrosio's bosom. Surprise at the singularity of this adventure; confusion at her abrupt declaration; resentment at her boldness in entering the monastery; and consciousness of the austerity with which it behoved him to reply; such were the sentiments of which he was aware: but there were others also which did not obtain his notice. He perceived not that his vanity was flattered by the praises bestowed upon his eloquence and virtue; that he felt a secret pleasure in reflecting that a young and seemingly lovely


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 woman had for his sake abandoned the world, and sacrificed every other passion to that which he had inspired: still less did he perceive, that his heart throbbed with desire, while his hand was pressed gently by Matilda's ivory fingers.

By degrees he recovered from his confusion: his ideas became less bewildered: he was immediately sensible of the extreme impropriety, should Matilda be permitted to remain in the abbey after this avowal of her sex. He assumed an air of severity, and drew away his hand.

"How, lady!" said he, "can you really hope for my permission to remain amongst us? Even were I to grant your request, what good could you derive from it? Think you, that I ever can reply to an affection, which"

"No, father, no! I expect not to inspire you with a love like mine: I only wish for the liberty to be near you; to pass some hours of the day in your society; to obtain your compassion, your friendship, and es-


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 teem. Surely my request is not unreasonable."

"But reflect, lady! reflect only for a moment on the impropriety of my harbouring a woman in the abbey, and that too a woman who confesses that she loves me. It must not be. The risk of your being discovered is too great; and I will not expose myself to so dangerous a temptation."

"Temptation, say you? Forget that I am a woman, and it no longer exists: consider me only as a friend; as an unfortunate, whose happiness, whose life, depends upon your protection. Fear not, lest I should ever call to your remembrance, that love the most impetuous, the most unbounded, has induced me to disguise my sex; or that, instigated by desires, offensive to your vows and my own honour, I should endeavour to seduce you from the path of rectitude. No, Ambrosio! learn to know me better: I love you for your virtues: lose them, and with them you lose my affections. I look upon you as a saint: prove to me that you are no


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 more than man, and I quit you with disgust. Is it then from me that you fear temptation? from me, in whom the world's dazzling pleasures created no other sentiment than contempt? from me, whose attachment is grounded on your exemption from human frailty? Oh! dismiss such injurious apprehensions! think nobler of me; think nobler of yourself. I am incapable of seducing you to error; and surely your virtue is established on a basis too firm to be shaken by unwarranted desires. Ambrosio! dearest Ambrosio! drive me not from your presence; remember your promise, and authorise my stay."

"Impossible, Matilda! your interest commands me to refuse your prayer, since I tremble for you, not for myself. After vanquishing the impetuous ebullitions of youth; after passing thirty years in mortification and penance, I might safely permit your stay, nor fear your inspiring me with warmer sentiments than pity: but to yourself, remaining in the abbey can produce none


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 ment. I will not describe in detail my first view of Prague, for those of you who have not been there have all no doubt had far better pictures made for you by pen or camera, than I could ever hope to draw here. The next day we reported up at the Hradčany castle, and once again saw President Masaryk. Both of us could not help but think of the day we left him in Washington as he stood on the steps there to wave goodbye to us, when we started off for Siberia. Little did we think at that time that we should so soon meet him in Prague as the accepted President of a liberated people. And now we were standing in that famous old room in the castle on the hill, congratulating the President upon his wonderful successes, and telling him of the activities of our General in Siberia. In fact, we pinched ourselves to see if it could all be true.

For the next week or so we were requested to look over the town of Prague, to meet your people and get better acquainted with the Czecho-Slovaks as a nation, to tour the surrounding country by automobile that we might get a clearer idea as to the actual conditions of the country agriculturally, and better conception of the feeling of your people towards their government and a keener knowledge of the actual condition of the people themselves, not, as I have said before, their mental condition, but their physical. Let me say right here that the patriotism of Bohemia is no less ardent than that of my own country, for your men, women and children are behind their government as a single man. Everywhere all over the country the names of Masaryk and Štefanik are revered and honored.

Your people are working industriously in all lines as far as possible, under the straightened conditions which the war has imposed upon them, trying to bring their country to that place in the world where they may be an economically self-supporting nation. A little incident might be of interest to you. One morning rather early, while on the train going through Slovakia, Captain Wheeler and I arose from our berth so that we might miss none of the scenery past which our train was rushing. It was not yet full dawn, when suddenly Captain Wheeler pointed out to a field where we saw a man plowing. We looked at our watches, and found that it was half past three. Can one have any doubt as to the purpose of the people who possess such industry and energy?

You have received reports of the starving children and malnutrition of your people. They are all unfortunately true, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated. We will not indulge here in statistics, but will merely state that with the help of your own country a well organized force of American officers have been working to the best of their ability to aid in the distribution of the important foodstuffs such as milk, flour etc., which were so badly needed in the past, and which are now being supplied by America. When I left on May 15th, a steady stream of trains laden down with the precious materials, was coming in daily, and after the harvest in the fall fear of famine will be obliterated.

But before closing, I wish to add a little about our lost friend and adviser, General Štefanik.

On Sunday, May 4th, 1919, General Štefanik, Minister of War of the Czecho-Slovak Bepublic, was killed in an aeroplane accident at Bratislava, as he was returning to his people and parents, no longer the scientist and professor Štefanik, but patriot, diplomat and military leader, General Štefanik; he was coming back as one of the shining lights brought into view during the great world war, as a man loved by all who knew him and idolized by every Czechoslovak soldier, as a diplomat without a peer, a friend in the noblest sense of the word.

The country was draped in black. Not only the black that is seen by the eye, but the black of a mourning people. You and I have lost a friend, whose loss cannot but be emphasized to us as time goes on. And yet it may be truly said of him: “He is dead, but he liveth”, for the continued memory and inspiration of his life will have an undying influence upon us all.

An important event for Chicago will be the “All-American Exposition” to be held at the Coliseum on August 31. It is to present a careful survey of the cultural and artistic accomplishments of all the various races living on the hospitable soil of America. Czechoslovak art and work will be well represented at this exposition. Mr. Forsberg of the Chicago Art Institute is chairman, and on the committee is the well-known Bohemian artist Rudolph Ingerle.


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 sible. Hellfried having consented to it, the two friends took their places by the fire-side lighted their pipes, and Herrman began as follows:

"Thou knowest, brother, that I, having finished my studies, was appointed governor to the young Baron de R, to conduct him on his travels. On our return from Italy we took our way through Switzerland and Germany, and met, on this last tour, with the most remarkable adventure of our whole journey."

"Being arrived at the skirts of the Black Forest, our postillion missed his way, as it began to grow dark, and, at length, did not know what direction he should take. Our fright was not little, when he apprised us of his distress, being desirous to get out of that dreadful forest as soon as possible, on account of the many instances of robberies and murders committed within its precincts, which the postillion had enlarged upon on


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ON ABRAHAN CRUZ Y GARVANZA rode leisurely ahead of his wagon, in the manner of a man upon whom occasions were accustomed to wait. The low hills at his right hand were green with wild oats; before him the waters of San Pedro Bay leaped gladly in the morning sun. Last night's rain had left pools in the roadside depressions, and ruts cut by lumbering cartwheels in the clayey sand; the refreshment of its passing was still sweet to the nostrils, still gladdening to the eye in the sparkle of clinging drops on grass and verdant leaf.

Although the midwinter California sun was fair around him, Don Abrahan's brow was corrugated with displeasure; in the mask of his gray beard he bit his nether lip as a baffled man sets teeth in his own flesh, or as a rattlesnake is said to turn in the frenzy of impotent anger to sink its fangs into its own loathsome side. When a man has been cheated and has redress at hand, it is one thing; when he knows himself cheated without recourse, it is another.

Don Abrahan knew that the skipper of the

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 the road; we therefore exhorted the fellow to go on, whatever might be the consequence. He did so, and after half an hour we came to an open spot."

"Now we are safe!" exclaimed the postillion, joyfully, "and, if I am not mistaken, not far from a village."

"He was right We soon heard the welcome barking of dogs not far off, and a little while after we saw lights."

"We entered a large village, but the inn was very indifferent, and the landlord was amazed at the uncommon sight of gentlemen. His whole stock of eatables consisted in some smoaked puddings, and a coarse sort of bread; he told us that neither wine nor beer could be got within the distance of many leagues, and even our postillion could not drink his brandy. We asked him where the Lord of the village resided; he answered, that he never lived there, because the castle had not


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 Yankee ship lying at anchor far out in the shallow bay had cheated him on yesterday's count of hides. It had happened because Don Abrahan had been detained in the pueblo Los Angeles, leaving the count to the honor of the skipper and the watchfulness of a hired man. Three leagues back upon this morning's journey Don Abrahan had met this hired man Felipe, designated by the high title of mayordomo, and received from him the count.

A trifling thing, this difference of forty-three hides, to a man whose dominion extended over scores of square miles of land, yet a rankling thing to brood upon, a matter touching the dignity and superiority of a don who stood high above these vile Yankees who came shouting and knocking men down with bare fists, raiding in their commercial ways like pirates up and down the California shore.

There, half a league from shore, lay this base captain's ship, a thing of beauty, Don Abrahan was not reluctant to confess, even with its bare yards black against the holy blue of a rain-washed sky. The chains which held it secure in its berth were invisible from Don Abrahan's distance. The ship seemed to float there by some secret power known to the indomitable ruffians whose life was barter and whose heaven was gain, lifting its long and graceful stem to the waves, turning a bit seaward, as if straining with impatience to be away on some new adventure of profit and wrangling trade.

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 vanza, a progressive man for his day and country. The wagon that came behind him was a Yankee wagon, brought from a New England factory by one of these hide-droghers such as lifted to yonder swell; the harness on the eight mules which drew the great wagon was Yankee-made, strong and reliable, even though from such tricky hands. Even the man who drove the eight mules, the confusing lines of leather familiar to him as the strings of a harp to a musician's hands, had learned the art from a Yankee freighter, across the mountains and desert in distant Santa Fe.

More: the capacity of that one wagon, grinding over the sandy road on its broad tires, was that of twenty ox-drawn carts such as Don Abrahan's conservative, tradition-serving neighbors employed. There was a tale of hides piled under that trifling Simon—good for nothing in the world but driving eight mules—to make a man's heart stretch with pride, even a Yankee captain's eyes open in sluggish surprise. To a man who could command such things, a man who graced a station of eminence, to whom men removed their hats, to be cheated of forty-three hides was a humiliation and affront. It was from that reason, all his might and consequence considered, that Don Abrahan gathered his brows as he rode, with a thought of adjustment in his hour.

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 Don Abrahan's eyes. A man stood in the stern, urging the sailors at the oars to bend to their heavy task. Even at that distance Don Abrahan knew him for the Yankee captain who had cheated him out of forty-three sound bullock hides in the count of yesterday.

Don Abrahan halted back a little way from the point where the road bent down the steep hillside, directing by an imperious sweep of the arm his driver to bring the wagon around and halt on the level from which the cliffs fell away sharply to the ocean side. This was as far as any man of consequence went to meet the Yankee traders. From this point the hides were carried down, or thrown over the cliffs, by the sailors to be transported in small boats to the ship; to this point the sailors came laboring up the steep with the goods taken by the Californians in exchange. Here Don Abrahan remained, seated in his saddle, waiting the coming of the captain.

Soon the boat came ashore, shooting through the breakers with such impetuosity that, it seemed to the Mexican rancher who watched in fear and admiration, it must be crushed on the hard sands of the beach, its precious cargo swallowed by the sea. Instead, there seemed scarcely a drop of water to reach the goods heaped between the thwarts, piled high in bow and stern.

The sailors, wearing shoes without stockings, their loose trousers rolled to mid-thigh, leaped out when the withdrawing breaker surged back toward

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 the sea, laid hold of the boat, and ran it inshore until its keel grounded, all with such admirable dexterity that spoke of long training at the hazardous work. Vikings, thought Don Abrahan, pirates of a species, who were insensible to all things but sharp liquor, sharp curses, heavy blows. A gentleman did not stand waiting on foot the arrival of such as these.

The Yankee captain had no such feeling of nicety in the case. If Don Abrahan could have seen into his mind, indeed, he probably would have been rudely disturbed in his stand upon ancient privileges, for aside from the Yankee captain's feeling of condescension and patronage for a people so unenlightened in religion and politics, his one concern was to be done with this dangerous harbor and standing out to sea. He came bounding up the steep shore now, his long legs cutting the distance as shears in a tailor's hands devour their way through a width of cloth.

"Well, Don Abrahan!" the captain hailed, making it hearty, and warm as he knew very well how to put friendliness and equality into a trade salutation. "Glad to see you here so early with them hides. Does this wind it up for you?"

"Wind it up?" Don Abrahan repeated, displeased with what he took for an unwarranted familiarity of address, rather than mystified by the meaning. "If you mean is this all, then this is all—for me."

"Of course that's what I meant," the captain

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 returned, both thought and eyes on the immense load of hides.

He hurried on past Don Abrahan as he spoke, to clamber on a hub, and from there to a wheel-top, where he stood lifting the corners of the hides, as if counting them to form an estimate of the number.

"Must have a hundred and fifty here," he ventured, turning sharply to Don Abrahan.

"Two hundred," Don Abrahan corrected him loftily, yet with gentlemanly indifference.

"That'll bring you up to twenty-eight hundred," the captain said briskly, descending from the wagon, bristling with business.

"And forty-three," Don Abrahan amended, fixing the Yankee captain with accusing eye.

"Not by a dam' sight!" the captain blustered, his weathered face darkening.

"My mayordomo reports to me"—Don Abrahan spoke slowly, each word standing precisely and distinctly alone—"that your count disagreed with mine by forty-three on yesterday."

"I don't doubt you had that many when you piled them: up here, colonel," the captain allowed. "We had a hard off-shore blow here at the harbor night-before-last, it's just likely some of your hides were whisked out to sea. I know I didn't git 'em, anyhow."

"We will balance the difference. Perhaps some mistake"

"Not by a jugful, we won't, old feller! You can take my count or you can leave it, but I tell you

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 once for all that my clerk never makes mistakes."

Don Abrahan crossed his gloved hands on his saddle-horn, and sat so a little while, head bent in consideration, it might be, of the infallible clerk aboard that lifting ship.

"Your mayordomo accepted payment for them hides accordin' to our count of 'em," the captain pursued. "That settles the matter, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to have these, but if you're not satisfied with the way I do business you can drive off. There's your stuff down there to pay for this lot. Take it or leave it. That's me!"

Still Don Abrahan considered the situation. Shrewd as the captain believed himself to be, crafty at a bargain as he undoubtedly was, and great as the profit between what he gave and what he received, he was only a crude and inelegant savage compared with the finesse of Don Abrahan. There were peones on Don Abrahan's great ranch who labored three months for a pair of those Boston-made shoes which the sailors were unloading from the boat. His pose of consideration was but acting. He wanted it to appear that he yielded only after solemn deliberation, foregoing much that a man should stand for because a squabble and contention in the Yankee way was beneath him.

It might be a fitting thing to his dignity to order Simon to turn and drive away with the load of hides; it might put the blustering pirate of a Yankee in his place, cause him to leap and dance, shout

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 and run after them to stay them, for Don Abrahan knew the cargo was almost complete, that the captain was keen to be setting his prow in the direction of home.

On the other hand, such a move might result only in loss. Don Abrahan needed shoes and cotton goods, sugar, codfish, mackerel, pork. He needed trinkets of combs, buttons, buckles, and gauds for women's hair, the vain adornments of a weak and simple people such as lived in servitude beneath his hand. Fifty thousand cattle fed in his valleys and hills, each one of them representing no more than the value of a hide.

"Very well," said Don Abrahan, lifting his face, the wind from the sea flattening his beard against his breast. "Bring up the goods."

Sailors came running at the captain's shouted command, swarmed upon the wagon, throwing off the hides. The captain himself checked them off as they fell, Simon, the teamster, sitting placidly on the ground beside the mules, smoking in sleepy-eyed indifference of the haste and turbulence around him.

Don Abrahan dismounted, drew off his gauntlets, put them away in his saddle-pouch. He must, by force, accept the captain's count of the hides which were already in his hold; there was no argument that would compel him to accept the captain's count of shoes, or weight of sugar-boxes, or number of bales of cotton goods. He signaled forward several Indians who were loafing somnolently

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 in the sun around a mean camp pitched a little way off, retainers of his who had been employed with the hides already aboard. They brought at Don Abrahan's direction a tripod of strong timbers in which a steelyard swung, setting it up near the wagon for weighing the goods.

Don Abrahan took his stand beside the scales, waiting the coming of four sailors who were toiling up the steep shore bluff of yellow sand and clay. The way was slippery from last night's heavy rain, rough and insecure. Between them the sailors bore upon two oars, held in the manner of a barrow, a large box of goods. Their approach was laborious and slow. Don Abrahan watched them narrowly, thinking only that a slip might precipitate the box down the sharp pitch of the shore into the sea.

Don Abrahan was tall, almost grotesquely thin. His sharp features seemed given an edge by the narrowness of his great nose, no broader it looked than the back of a saber. His dark, languishing, oriental eyes attested to the Moorish stock upon which his foundation was built; his beard, reaching half-way down his breast, was of a fineness and luxuriance that repudiated any charge of Indian blood.

California-born, of Spanish stock, Don Abrahan had been quick to align himself with the Mexican patriots when he saw which way the day was likely to go in the uprising against Spanish oppression. His foresight had saved his lands, where his less sagacious neighbors in many instances had lost

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 theirs and been harried out of the country by the victorious Mexicans. Don Abrahan was fully in the confidence of the new government. He was a magistrate in the name of liberty and equality, yet a despot and an aristocrat to whom the commonalty cringed, in whose presence men removed their hats.

The magistrate's boots of tawny soft leather reached to his knees; the legs of his dark, ribbed velvet pantaloons were gathered into their broad tops. There were silver trinkets and adornments of silver cord on his immense sombrero; the long rowels of his silver spurs goaded the ground as he stood, as if Don Abrahan would urge it beyond its usual bounty to yield according to his desires.

The four sailors came laboring up the shore, a quick, panting word of caution now and then breaking their otherwise silent approach. There was no gaiety in them, no willingness for the work of carrying to the feet of this bearded barbarian, as they esteemed him, the goods which he was too proud or too indolent to come down to the water's edge and take away, after the manner of men in civilized places, everywhere. Now, as the two men in advance reached the top, one of them who held the blade-end of an oar stumbled and fell. The weight of the box thrown thus suddenly and completely on the dropped oar snapped it.

In a commotion of curses and shouts the sailors set their shoulders to the box of goods to hold it, while the captain, lithe as a leopard, came spring-

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 ing forward to add his commands and abuse to the general uproar. In a moment the box was safely heaved to the level near Don Abrahan's feet.

"Who let go his holt on that oar?" the captain demanded, passing his accusing look from face to face.

It was evident in the silence of the men, their averted faces, their dark frowns, that there was no friendliness for the captain among his crew.

"Who was it?" the captain demanded again, his evil temper mounting. He stood with feet set as for a spring, bent forward from the hips, hands fixed before him like a wrestler prepared to engage. "You can't cover it up that way, men, I tell you—you know me, you know my way. I'll fine the butter-fingered dock-loafer that broke that oar ten dollars, and if you don't speak up I'll make it ten dollars apiece!"

"I'm responsible for it, Captain Welliver, as far as there is any responsibility."

The sailor who had missed his footing and precipitated the disaster stepped forward as he spoke. Don Abrahan, bored by the interruption of his business, scornful of the captain's enlargement of a thing so trivial, looked quickly at the speaker, struck by the quality of his word and tone.

The sailor was a man of twenty-three or twenty-five, medium of stature, rather slender, yet nothing about him that suggested weakness or frailty either of body or soul. His bare limbs were smeared with the yellow mud through which he had toiled

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 to his disastrous climax; his sinewy arms were fouled with it, splashes of it flecked his ruddy-brown face. His countenance was frank and handsome, his eyes were quick and blue, a certain merriness in them that seemed the expression of the man's unconquerable hope. His fair hair was long, a waviness in it as irrepressible as the soul that looked out of his eyes. It was tossed and disordered; sweat glistened on his face.

Captain Welliver straightened from his threatening posture, triumph for his small victory glistening in his eyes.

"In your case I'll make it twenty dollars," he announced. "Now, get back to work!"

The other sailors who had brought up the box, joined by the four who had been flinging hides from the wagon, moved dispiritedly down the hill.

"I'll not go back to work until you modify that unreasonable fine, Captain Welliver," said the sailor whose unfortunate slip seemed in a way to cost him so dearly. "No oar that ever was turned is worth twenty dollars."

"Git back to work!" the captain ordered, whirling upon the insubordinate man.

"Not as long as that unjust fine stands against me, sir. I'm willing for you to deduct the cost price of the oar from my wages, although it wasn't my fault that it got broken."

"You'll go to work this minute, or by the Almighty! I'll knock your two eyes into one!"

"When you do me as much justice as your small

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 sense of honesty will allow, Captain Welliver," the sailor returned, unmoved by the captain's threat. "When you meet my terms, I'll go back to work."

The sailor was watching his captain as a fencer holds his opponent in his eye. The captain stood as he had turned, checked both in his physical and mental process, it appeared, by this expression of open defiance.

"I've taken your kicks and curses, I've stood by and seen you haul my mates up and lash them—I've taken your illegal severities in a thousand ways because I was cooped up in that floating kingdom with you," the sailor continued, holding the astonished, raging captain eye to eye.

"You'll take more—yes, by the Almighty! you'll take more than you ever got!" the captain threatened, gathering himself to lay on the chastisement then and there.

"You're ashore now, you're not a hard-tack king here," the sailor defied him. "We're man to man, Captain Welliver. I'm not going back to that ship, you tyrannous brute!"

"I'll learn you, you mutinous cur!"

Captain Welliver leaped as he spoke, sweeping with open hand a blow that must have knocked the sailor senseless if it had reached its aim. But the sailor, nimble as a fly, darted aside, stooped and snatched a piece of the broken oar, and struck with it in the vigor of his wrath and culminated vengeance. The captain seemed to stand a moment, checked so suddenly in his assault, as if surprise

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 persisted above concussion. Don Abrahan drew back a step as he fell, to look down with cold satisfaction into his twitching face.

The mate in charge of unloading the boat came running to his chief's assistance. He scrambled up the steep, fury in his face, ordering his men up to seize the mutineer. The sailor dropped the fragment of oar, exchanging it for the other, and longer, piece. So armed, he stood where the slippery footway met the level.

"I'll brain the first man that comes!" he declared. "Mates, I've got no quarrel with any of you, but I'll brain the first man that tries to lay a hand on me!"

Valiant as he was against defenseless, cowed men on the deck of his ship, the mate stopped to deliberate his chances against the six-foot butt of the oar. The sailor backed away, his weapon ready; the mate, watching calculatively, came on again, the reluctant sailors at his back.

Captain Welliver flopped like a fish, rolled to his side, gathering his dispersed senses and strength with amazing rapidity, and righted himself to his knees, a pistol in his hand.

"No," said Don Abrahan, placing himself between the captain's weapon and the retreating sailor; "there must be no violence on this shore. As a magistrate I command you to respect the law."

"Law hell!" said Captain Welliver, shifting to take aim at the sailor, "that man's desertin' ship!"

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 "Let him go, then; the world is full of men," said Don Abrahan, calm and undisturbed.

"My ship ain't!" the captain retorted sharply. "Out of my way, damn you! or I'll drill you through."

Don Abrahan waved his arm in what seemed nothing more than a slow, indolent gesture of denial. Simon, the driver, sprang out of his smoky lethargy, which even this affray among the Yankees had not disturbed. Captain Welliver found himself confronting a pistol, which Simon waited but the command of his master's lifted hand to fire. The argument was good with the captain; he put his own weapon away, fairly inundating that shore, and all who stood upon it, with the stream of his profane abuse.

"It will be time to return to business," said Don Abrahan, cutting him short in such relief as he was finding in that wordy vent.

"Twenty-five dollars to the man or men that bring that deserter back!" the captain offered, bringing away his hand from the side of his face, seeing blood on it.

Nobody but the mate moved to win the reward. He sprang up the bank and started after the sailor, who was entering the thick tangle of brushwood a little distance beyond the Indians' camp. Don Abrahan interposed again.

"What is one man, more or less?" he inquired, the inflection of contempt in his words. "There is a good one, an Irishman with red hair, in the jail at

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 Los Angeles. For even fifteen dollars, probably ten, you can get him for your ship, friend captain."

"I don't know what your damned law in this country is, but I know it ain't goin' to stand between me and my man," the captain declared. "I'll make it fifty dollars to anybody that brings that mutineer back."

Still there were no takers, save the battered-face mate, who hesitated against the threat of Simon's great pistol, rusty though it was as if it had been fished up out of the sea.

"For as much as fifty dollars I will, myself, guarantee that your sailor returns again to your ship," Don Abrahan said. He depreciated the matter almost to nothing by the slight lifting of his brows, the waving of his hand, as if to say that a man must descend to small affairs when in the company of despicable inferiors.

"Hell! he'll be forty miles away before you fellows can turn around!" the captain swore.

"Let him go; it cannot be far," Don Abrahan returned. "There are mountains and deserts to turn a man back when he runs away in this country. I have only to give the word, and your man returns."

"And if you don't give the word?" Captain Welliver asked, looking at him sharply.

"Who knows?" Don Abrahan replied. "My hides blow out to sea and never find their way into your ship. Perhaps your sailor may be carried off by a wind, as well. How is any man to know?"

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 Don Abrahan seemed to beam kindly on the captain, a brightness in his eyes that was like the reflection of inner laughter. Captain Welliver's anger rose black to his face again, and cooled and fell when he saw the Mexican magistrate unmoved and serene, his face softened by the hidden laughter in his eyes as if his heart were warm within him in the satisfaction of some worthy deed.

"That's why you done it, was it? you damned old humanitarian!" Captain Welliver said.

"It will be time to get to business," said Don Abrahan, glancing up at the sun.

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T WAS past the turn of day when Don Abrahan concluded his business with the Yankee captain and took the road home again, with his goods coming after him in the great wagon, his Indian servants tramping beside it. Night would settle long before they could reach the ranch, there was the taste of rain already on the wind; but there would be no halting on the way either for night or rain. When Don Abrahan left an order behind him, men must forego all that was their right and desire to carry it out to the final word.

As for Don Abrahan himself, he rode in excellent spirits, already half-way to his hacienda, or estate, at least that part of it where his homestead lay. The estate itself would have required a day's journey to cross at its greatest width, although it did not extend so far as this toward the sea.

A matter of six or seven miles north of the pueblo of Los Angeles, Don Abrahan's ranch buildings lay snugly against the hills. Although much of his secular and political interest centered in the town, there was more that was dearer to him, ambitious man that he was, which he loved to sequester and nurture in the quietude of the hills.

A few miles ahead of him as he rode, the pueblo

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 of Los Angeles lay, a dot of whitened walls and greenery of trees in the great plain spread between mountains and sea. Don Abrahan's most direct way home passed to the westward of the town. A matter of business, incidental in his life of large affairs, but one that gave him satisfaction to contemplate, far out of proportion to its importance, called him to deflect from the direct road and visit the alcalde, or mayor, of the place.

There was certain information to be placed before this official, a certain request appended to it. As he pondered this thing, riding lightly as a cushion, that quickening of laughter, which yet was not laughter, but more a reflection of inward satisfaction, as the comfort of a fire is suggested but not felt by one who watches from without its dancing glimmer upon the walls; that quickening of light grew again in his eyes, spreading to his face, softening it with a kindly gleam. It is a trait of some men to appear benevolent only when satisfied.

Between the harbor and the pueblo, a distance of twenty-five miles, there were few habitations, two or three large estates holding jurisdiction over that immense sweep of land. Such houses as there were by the roadside were only the huts and small adobe dwellings of the servitors on these estates. Freedom from imperial Spain had not meant freedom for all men, any more than it had assured equality.

Grazing lands these were, mainly through which Don Abrahan rode that day, patched by small culti-

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 vated areas, widely scattered, where grain was grown in its season, where orchards and vineyards were green in their time. Just ahead of him, a little way from the point where the highway branched to the pueblo, a homestead of considerable pretensions had been established many years. Here olive trees had been planted by the roadside. They had grown until their branches almost met above the narrow highway, speaking eloquently to one familiar with their slow increase, of the age of that hacienda. Such a man would have known, passing that way for the first time, that the hands that planted the olives had gone back to the dust long ago, as well as Don Abrahan was cognizant of that fact as he entered the aisle of gray-green sentinels.

As he rode between the olives, Don Abrahan quickened his pace, his head lifted alertly. It seemed that he would not be under the necessity of visiting the pueblo, after all. At the farther end of the avenue a man was plodding, that moment passing from the shadow of the olives into the sun. From the white trousers that he wore, from the light color of his uncovered hair, Don Abrahan knew him for the sailor who had deserted the Yankee captain's ship, with his own crafty assistance, only a few hours past.

It was a lucky thing that the sailor was such a poor traveler on land. A peon would have been in the pueblo long enough to have made himself drunk three hours ago, It was well, indeed, that

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 the fellow had not yet come to the junction of the road, where the trend of traffic as marked in the soil would have told him on which hand the pueblo lay. The lucky circumstance saved Don Abrahan five or six miles; very likely, almost certainly, it saved him something more. What that additional gain to him might be, one who did not know Don Abrahan never could have read from the humane softening of his rather bony, harsh face. But it was sufficient in its hour to make Don Abrahan smile.

"It is you, then, my bold marinero?" said Don Abrahan, as the sailor drew aside to let the rider pass, scarcely lifting his head to mark who it was that came after him. It was certain that he had little fear of any of his mates pursuing him in that fashion.

The sailor's eyes spoke the gratitude of his heart ahead of his tongue for the magistrate's interference in his behalf that morning. He stopped, his brown-weathered face illumined by a smile.

"I'm grateful to you for stepping between me and that ruffian's pistol," the sailor said. "He'd have killed me if it hadn't been for you."

"It is nothing," Don Abrahan disclaimed, waving his gratitude away.

"It may be a little thing to you, sir, but life means a great deal to me," the sailor protested earnestly.

"Yes, you scarcely have taken hold of it yet. At your age a man has only one hand on the ladder,

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 it might be said. Would you be going to the north?"

"To the pueblo Los Angeles. Is it far?"

"A matter of six miles. Would you have friends there?"

"Neither there nor in all of California. But it seems a land of kind strangers."

Again the smile, frank, winsome, flashed like a sudden light, Don Abrahan thought, and passed on as quickly, leaving the dark face with a fixed sadness that seemed a settled melancholy.

"Perhaps we are a kinder people, we Mexicans, than we are given credit for in your country," Don Abrahan said.

Even as he spoke he was weighing the sailor, marking his light bone structure, his small feet and hands, the evident hardness of his muscles, the promise of endurance in his deep chest. Not a common man, Don Abrahan, who had been among the Yankees even in their own Boston, recognized at a glance.

"Still it was not misfortune that made a sailor of you," he ventured, speaking what had come into his thought.

"Misfortune enough to be cursed by a romantic hunger for adventure that drove me to ship with that beast, Welliver," the sailor answered in bitter contempt for his own weakness.

"It is to be regretted that you lose your pay, as Captain Welliver assures me you will, by leaving the ship this way," Don Abrahan said, his voice

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 finely modulated with regret, as only one of Spanish blood can seem to sympathize while the heart is as indifferent as wood. 'How long were you on board of that vessel?"

"Fourteen months," said the sailor, speaking it with a heavy sigh that was at once relief for his redemption to freedom and marvel that mancould, unbroken, endure oppression for so Iong.

"It is considerable money to lose. Have you any in your pocket?"

"Very little. But enough to keep me till I can find something to do—or I hope so, at least."

Don Abrahan rode on slowly, accommodating his pace to that of the man on foot, who went a bit lamely on account of his salt-hardened shoes having dried, and shrunk until they were unyielding as sheet-iron. Still, he could endure the galling of the leather better, he knew, than venture on the road in his bare feet, for the wheel-tracks were strewn with crushed cacti which grew close by and obtruded into the road. There were many prickly weeds, and broken bits of branches from thorny shrubs, besides, strewing the highway.

The sailor trudged on beside the man whom he regarded as his benefactor and friend. If Don Abrahan could have known that this man from the sea even yielded him the concession of social equality, as a just due for his humane interference, it is a question whether he would have been moved to laugh or sneer.

"So you would go to Los Angeles, even without

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 a hat, and on foot," said Don Abrahan. "Only peones, servants of the so low class, go on foot in this part of California. They will think it strange to see an American brought to this level. In the pueblo the alcalde, I have no doubt, will put you in jail at once."

"I've been told there are some Americans in business at Los Angeles," the sailor said, plainly disturbed by the prospect Don Abrahan had revealed. He looked up almost appealingly as he trotted beside the horseman, who had quickened his gait as if impatient to be on his way.

"There are a few American-born men in business there, Mexican citizens now. The others are such as can drive eight mules to a freight wagon. Can you drive eight mules at one time?"

"No-o," doubtfully, "I don't believe I could."

"You cannot speak Spanish, you have little money, no hat to cover your head. Well, I tell you plainly, there will be no door open to you in the pueblo but the jail. You are an educated man; you have been to college, no doubt?"

"Not much to my credit in my present condition," the sailor said.

"But an educated man suffers more acutely than a peon, whose lot is suffering between the cradle and the tomb. I myself have been in one of your New England colleges. I know the pride of the Yankee heart. I would not go to the pueblo, young man. A wiser course would be to continue on with me to my ranch. There I can employ you, there

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 you can learn the idioma española, the speech of the country. After that"

Don Abrahan finished it with a flourish of the hand, a lifting of the brows. After that, it was to say, as Dios might fashion, or a man's own merit might place him. The sailor brightened with the offer; it seemed a hand stretched out again in the moment of his need.

"I'll be glad to go; thank you for the opportunity, sir."

The sailor stopped, as if to give weight to his expression of gratitude with all the physical as well as mental force of his glowing young body. His face was bright with his engaging smile. Don Abrahan halted beside him.

"There would be no liberty for you in any other place," Don Abrahan said. "The captain of your ship has offered a reward of fifty dollars for your return to him, here or at San Diego, where he intends to stop next. That would be a great temptation to the alcalde of the pueblo; it would be riches to many an Indian. It represents the price of ten beeves, almost riches to any man in these penurious days."

"It's lucky for me that I fell in with you, sir, before I got to town. I didn't suppose Welliver would consider any man on earth worth fifty dollars to him. It is the anticipation of the cruelties he'd subject me to, cruelties beyond your humane understanding, that leads to an offer like that."

"Captain Welliver is a hard-souled man, and a

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 dishonest one besides," Don Abrahan said, starting on his way again. "Shall we travel on?"

"I don't suppose you'll want to ride as slowly as I must tramp, but if you'll give me directions I'll follow you on to your ranch as fast as I can."

The sailor was plainly concerned by the information Don Abrahan had imparted. He looked back along the road as if in expectation of fleet Indians upon his track, the thought of what waited him on board the ship in the event of his capture drawing the blood out of his face.

"Take my stirrup," Don Abrahan instructed; "it will give you another pair of feet. You must travel with me. News passes quickly in this country; it may be known, I have no doubt that it is known, in the pueblo that you are on the way."

The young man accepted the offer. It was as Don Abrahan had said; holding by the stirrup gave him another pair of feet. In that fashion, like a feudal lord and bondman, they continued their way toward the distant ranch.

Don Abrahan looked down from time to time to see how the sailor bore the pace he set. It appeared to give him satisfaction to note that no indication of fatigue was apparent in the alert figure, no lagging in the long swing of the sea-toughened limbs. Perhaps it was the admiration of one good man for another that stood in the magistrate's eyes, or perhaps it was another thing. The pleasure in them was unmistakable, at any rate, honest or calculative as it may have been.

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 "What is the name you want to be called by in this country?" Don Abrahan inquired.

"There is no reason why I should change the only one I ever had for this or any other country," the sailor replied, trotting easily with hand on the big leather-covered stirrup. "I was Gabriel Henderson aboard the ship; I am Gabriel Henderson here."

"Gabriel; that is a good name for a Spanish-speaking country; they will have no trouble with it here. And mine is Don Abrahan Cruz y Garvanza. It is a name not unknown to California, perhaps other places as well."

"I am certain it stands for honor and humanity wherever it is known," Gabriel Henderson generously declared.

This part of the highway was more frequented than that portion lying between the pueblo and the harbor. The travelers met numerous people, from caballeros of Don Abrahan's class, who saluted him gravely, and managed their curiosity so well as to seem to overlook the sailor completely, to Mexican citizens of a somewhat lower order, farmers and drovers, who were not so respectful in their bearing to the magistrate. Some of them, indeed, passed stiff-necked and silent, not even turning their eyes. It seemed there must be some difference abroad in the land among men, the sailor thought, marking all that he met upon the road with shrewder insight, perhaps, than his conductor gave him credit for having.

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 been habitable for many years. I enquired the reason of it."

"At present," replied the host, "I dare not give you an account of it, to-morrow you shall know every thing: But, very likely, this night will make you guess the reason."

"The Baron and I entreated him to satisfy our curiosity, but he shook his head and left the room."

"Pinched by hunger we took up with our scanty supper, and then asked the landlord to shew us to our beds, but, alas! there was not one bed unoccupied in the whole house, and we were obliged to rest our weary limbs upon a bed of clean straw in the middle of the room."

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 There were still others lower in the social order than the independent small drovers, servile people, who almost cringed to Don Abrahan, who rode on with eyes fixed ahead of him, ignoring them quite. Yet not one of these people passed who did not roll wondering eyes at the man who ran in the road beside the magistrate's horse like a captive, marking his foreign appearance, his incongruous strangeness in that land.

Indian and Mexican, the mongrel and mixed of both races, searched the sailor with swift, keen eyes. Now and again in a glance of these sharp, inquiring eyes, Henderson felt something that seemed to speak to him, something more than curiosity, more than wonder. More than once he seemed almost to grasp the meaning of this strange scrutiny, yet it was so fleeting, so elusive, as to escape like water in the hand. Once, in the eyes of a young Mexican woman who rode behind her husband on a sweat-drenched horse, he felt that the look was pitying.

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NE approached the seat of Don Abrahan's vast estate through a lane of olive trees when arriving from the south, as the master of the place and his strange companion came. These olives had been set by Don Abrahan's father, who had in mind the ancient Spanish saying when he made straight the two long rows of little trees:

"A man plants a vine for his son, an olive for his grandson."

Even so, with this slow maturing to the stage of fruitfulness of the olive, the trees which the patriarch had planted were now great and tall. Perhaps they had increased, in that beneficent clime and strong soil, out of a man's knowledge and calculation, compared with the trees of the Iberian slopes; or perhaps the allotment of their years of building had been fulfilled, indicating that Don Abrahan was approaching the bourne of a man's numbered days. Fruit swayed their branches heavily, promise of a profitable gathering; their laden branches sometimes touched the peak of Don Abrahan's tall sombrero as he rode under them.

Don Abrahan's homestead seemed a village set against the foot of the hill that rose high before it. Many corrals and sheds flanked the outlying build-

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 ings, many small adobe huts, straw-covered, squat, unlovely, clustered on the slope below the master's house. Great encinas, or live-oak trees, stretched knotted branches over these poor cottages, lending a certain air of protection and security, even peace.

Children playing about the doors of these mud huts stood in respectful attention as Don Abrahan rode by. If they were curious of the strange man who walked beside his stirrup, they submerged their feelings under a show of respectful deference, a trait of those gentle brown people, old and young, which seems to invest them with a dignity and superiority sadly wanting in so many of our own.

Don Abrahan's dwelling stood on the first bench of the hill, elevated perhaps fifty feet above the vast plain through which the travelers had passed. It was a low, simple house, large in its ground plan, built, like the more humble dwellings which lay in the shadow of its comparative grandeur, of sunbaked bricks bound by chopped straw. It was roofed with dull-red tile, for the tile-makers had brought their art early to California and pursued it with success.

Don Abrahan's father built the house, after the Spanish fashion, a patio between its protecting wing-walls. It was a house with few windows and many doors, the Spaniard being the sort of man who does not desire either to look from his own privacy into the doings of others, or to have others peer through many casements upon his own. But a house with many doors, there again a trait of the

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 Spaniard appearing. There are exigencies in every gentleman's life when a door in every room becomes an expedient and convenient thing. This is doubly true when one's house stands all upon the ground, and the mere flinging open of a door introduces the world spread ready to his feet.

Pepper trees lifted their taller, greener branches among the somber encinas which sequestered the house so completely as to show but glimpses of brown wall and red roof to the eyes of those who passed upon the highway that wound on from that point through a pass in the hills, to Buena Ventura and the north. A pepper tree of immense girth, one of the first slips, it was said, brought by the Franciscans from Peru, grew in the patio of Don Abrahan's house, a beautiful and notable tree. But there were no shrubs, no flowers, to fill and brighten the open spaces between the trees of the spacious grounds. Beneath them the brown earth was as bare and smooth as if painstaking hands swept away every fallen leaf.

"So we arrive home," said Don Abrahan.

He looked down at the sailor, who had let go his supporting hold of the stirrup and was surveying with pleasurable surprise the scene of peaceful security. That wakening of something in his eyes which seemed the reflection of an inner smile animated for a moment the magistrate's thin and narrow face.

"You travel well; there is great endurance in your body," he said.

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 "The sea hardens a man's body, but I can't say as much for his feet," Henderson returned, looking ruefully at his worn shoes.

"Tomorrow will see you restored," Don Abrahan assured him, kindly enough for a man on a horse to a man in the road, it seemed to Henderson at that time. "I will take you to Felipe Guieterrez, my mayordomo, that is to say my steward, who will relieve your present needs and provide for your future, at least such of it as lies just beyond our shadows."

This Felipe Guieterrez, called Don Felipe by those immediately under his hand, came hurrying forward across the courtyard as his patron rode in, the sailor going somewhat lamely by his side. Don Felipe emerged from a long adobe shed-like building, which appeared to be a warehouse for storing the products of the ranch, judging by such of its contents as were discovered to the eye. Hay was there, and sacks of grain; hides of sheep and cattle; wood piled in high ranks. The mayordomo's office was in one end of this building. He came out of it bareheaded, leaving the door open, showing its smoky interior like the secret of a man's life surprised out of his keeping.

Don Felipe was a slight, short man, pale of face as if he kept himself hidden from the sun. His hair was almost blue in its intense blackness; small raised blotches, black with extraordinary growth of close-shaved beard, roughened his countenance, giving his face the appearance of carrying barna-

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 cles which needed scraping to clear him for more comfortable sailing among men. He held his patron's stirrup with servile diminution of his own importance, an office quite ignored by the lofty Don Abrahan, who spoke to him in slow, precise English, as if for the ears of one to whom the tongue was strange.

"This is Gabriel Henderson, deserter from the Yankee ship at San Pedro. There is a reward of fifty dollars, gold, offered for his return. I have given him sanctuary; he is under my protection. Feed him, give him a place to sleep."

"It shall be done, Don Abrahan," the mayordomo replied.

With that assurance, for which he seemed to be waiting, Don Abrahan dismounted, turned his back on them without more words, and walked off to his own refreshment.

Don Felipe clapped his hands as if applauding his patron's exit from the scene, a proceeding seen and heard by Henderson with astonishment. This feeling quickly passed to a better one of amusement when a Mexican youth appeared from among the piles of hides in the warehouse, all eagerness to relieve Don Felipe of the horse.

Don Felipe was master of more English than his patron's manner toward him would lead one to believe. It was rather abrupt, somewhat fragmentary, with misplaced tenses and a strong seasoning of profanity, yet it served very well. It was plainly that sort of English a foreigner would ac-

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 quire by contact with traders and "such as drive eight mules."

There seemed to be magic in the clapping of the mayordomo's hands which produced surprising results. He clapped a second Mexican youth out of somewhere, who departed on the run, to return in incredibly short time and deliver a panted, quick-spoken communication at the mayordomo's door.

Don Felipe turned Henderson over to this boy, who conducted him to the kitchen of the mansion, where an Indian woman who came and went as silently as a shadow served him a satisfying meal of cold meat and vegetables, bread, claret, and cheese.

The sun had set; the dusk, which settles almost immediately thereafter in southern California winter days, was softening the scars and canyons of the hills when Henderson rose from this cheering repast and thanked the slim, dark woman who had served his needs. She smiled, understanding the spirit of it if not the words. The youth, who had waited outside the door meanwhile, rose now and guided Henderson to the adventure that closed that day.

This was nothing more thrilling than the disclosure of the sleeping quarters the mayordomo had ordered prepared for the stranger while he refreshed himself in the kitchen. A bed had been spread for him on a generous heap of hay in a little room behind the mayordomo's office. This appeared to be a room given over to the carriage

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 harness of Don Abrahan's coach horses. The walls were hung with the expensive gear; the smell of neat's-foot oil was heavy. Yet, compared to the forecastle smell when the wet boots and clothing of twenty sailors hung there, this was balsam in Henderson's nostrils. Footsore and fatigued, thankful for this haven that had opened to him out of the uncertainty of the morning, the sailor threw himself upon his pallet of hay and slept.

Henderson woke suddenly, according to his sea habit, after he had slept the period of what would have been his watch below. He sat up in palpitating bewilderment, not able for a moment to adjust his senses to his situation, expecting the hail down the forecastle hatch summoning his watch on deck.

There was the soft whisper of rain on the thatch, a movement of men in the courtyard. By the light of lanterns Henderson saw the muddy freight wagon, just arrived from its long journey from the harbor. It was covered over by a tarpaulin; they left it there, the mules jangling off to their stables with weary heads drooping in the rain.

The sailor sighed, stretching himself in the relaxation of confidence and security on a bed that seemed softer than any that ever had blessed his tired bones. He was comfortable in the sanctuary that Don Abrahan had given him, thankful that no summons sounded on the deck overhead, hailing him out into the stormy night.

Early as Henderson left his bed next morning, Don Felipe was ahead of him in the business of

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 the day. The pale little man was in his office, although it was scarcely dawn, a candle at his hand, a paper under his eye. Henderson saw that this appeared to be a list, such as a manifest or bill of lading. He concluded, rightly, as events proved, that it was the account of articles in the freight wagon. He wondered where he was to fit in the strange and foreign scene into which adventure had transported him as he stood in the door waiting to catch Don Felipe's eye and give him good morning.

As if in answer to this speculation, Don Felipe beckoned him in, without word, without glance, his attention still fixed on the list. He produced a small book from the shadows behind the wavering candle, which he laid on the edge of his desk, turning then to Henderson with cold and distant mien.

"This book you will take and put in your pocket," he directed, in slow, studied correctness of speech that seemed a reflection of Don Abrahan's own to the mayordomo on the day before.

Henderson took up the little volume, on the cover of which he read:

Diccionario Español-Ingles, Ingles-Español.

"You will assist in the store. There will be many to tell you what such and such a thing is called in Spanish. This little book will show you how the word is spelled. In that way you will learn fast the idioma española, of the great value and elevation to any man."

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 The mayordomo then directed Henderson to hasten to the kitchen where he had received his supper the evening before, get his breakfast and report back for duty.

It was a dun, melancholy morning. The lissom branches of the pepper trees drooped under the weight of clinging rain like weeping willow, the pleasant scent of their red berries strong in the moist air. The oaks showered sudden shakings of accumulated rain upon him as he passed under their far-spread, age-gray limbs.

The hills, which had stood forth with shrub and crumbling ledge, tawny brown blotch of barrenness, soft green of fresh leaf, bright quickening of winter flowers, in the sunlight of yesterday evening, were now hidden almost entirely in low-dragging clouds. Only the base of them could be seen, dark, drenched, forbidding, where the cloud-line reached, purled and dipped into canyon, swathed headland, changing the cheerful hacienda of yesterday into a sad and gloomy place. It seemed a lonely and unfriendly land.

Several men were at breakfast in the kitchen, among them Simon, the teamster, all of whom, with the exception of Simon alone, seemed to Henderson borne down by some trouble or tragedy that had left a cloud upon their spirits. They greeted the stranger kindly, Simon himself making room for him at his side with an air of protectorship that had a bit of haughty condescension about it. Henderson soon found that the teamster's design, and

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 apparently sole design, in this was to air his knowledge of the English tongue.

He began to exercise this accomplishment upon the American with a volubility that was rather embarrassing, considering that expletives such as a mule-driver generally addresses to his animals formed the greater part of Simon's vocabulary. These he delivered with force and due regard for expression, coupling them up with words here and there that made a slender chain of sense which Henderson could, with great difficulty and nimble mental leaping, follow along its lurid course.

Henderson hurried through breakfast, uncomfortable under the fire of Simon's learning, anxious to get out of its range. He excused himself on the plea that the mayordomo was expecting him. He managed to gather from Simon's remarks that this was a bad precedent to establish, this concern for duty, this precipitate haste to rush away and work. It was a thing that would make a great amount of sadness in a man's lot. One fast mule in a team of slow ones, said the sage, was no end of distress, for its master, its mates, and itself. Simon was saying more as Henderson left the room, the gentle, silent Indian woman turning her head in slow gracefulness to watch him out of the door.

The nimbleness of the sea was in the sailor's legs, for the sea will purge young joints of their slothfulness as it will purify old ones of their ills. The pace that he set for those dreamy, sun-nur-

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 tured Indians and Mexicans in unloading the freight wagon was a thing that overturned the traditions of their lives.

Man was born but to traverse his way to the tomb. The dullest of them understood that fact as well as the most learned philosopher or theologian that ever wrote a book. Why should he hasten on his way, bringing the end quicker in the bitterness of unnecessary toil? Dark were the glances that followed the American in his bounding haste; deep the scowls that fixed upon their brows. If Don Abrahan should come, and see that foolish, hastening man, what exactions might he lay upon their shoulders in this revelation of the human capacity for work? Terrible thought! sorrowful, miserable thought!

Don Abrahan came. He stood under the eaves of the thatch smoking his cigar, watching this monkey of a Yankee, whose employment in the past had been clambering up high masts under the lash of the brutal task-master whose tyranny he had fled. Don Abrahan was seen to smile.

They remembered that day on Don Abrahan's ranch long after the American sailor had remedied his fortunes and mounted to his place; they judged him in the light of subsequent events by the bitterness he planted in them those first fevered hours of his service there. Not alone that day, but many days that came after, when the sailor was the quickening force of their sluggish endeavors.

When they worked at piling hides in the store

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 house, the sailor set the pace which Don Felipe and Don Abrahan expected the slowest, the oldest, of them to match. Instead of one hide, which was burden enough for any man, God stand as the judge, this sailor carried two, hoisting them to his head, which he covered by a cap of sheepskin to protect the small brain within it, and went off blithely as a man at a ball.

So it was in other labors; in bringing wood from the plain, where Don Abrahan was clearing a great field, in all the fetching and taking about the place. Simon was disturbed by the haste this Yankee made among their hitherto untroubled ways; he complained that a man could no more than smoke one cigarette between the arrival and the unloading of the wagon. Almost at once he would have to turn around and go after more. It was a molesta, it was a trouble, it was a thing to damn by all the Yankee gods, which were not true, Catholic gods, to be certain, and useful only for damning worthless men and obstinate mules.

Six weeks of this activity passed; winter rains gave way, blending out almost imperceptibly into the blue of untroubled summer days. Henderson knew that the ship had gone its way homeward long since; the danger that had kept him close within Don Abrahan's sanctuary was past. He felt that he might now look around a little, and see what this strange, this white-green, this beautiful, somnolent, lazy land contained.

All this time Henderson had seen nothing of

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 the life or members of Don Abrahan's family. His duties had confined him to the back of the house; who inhabited the front of it, he did not know. His command of the Spanish language was limited to a few hundred words, most of which stood alone with no connecting web. If any of those among whom he lived and spent his active days had been disposed to tell him of the greatness of Don Abrahan's house, he could not have understood. Only that there was a son, coming home on a ship from Mexico, expected in the harbor almost any day. Simon had told him this. Simon was going with Don Abrahan in a day or two, with horses, to bring the young man home.

Henderson had not been beyond Don Abrahan's possessions since his arrival at the ranch. The magistrate had warned him, Don Felipe had stressed the warning, that it meant either delivery to the captain of the ship or jail if he stepped out of their protection.

Now the ship was gone; Simon had been at the harbor twice since its sailing, the danger, the incentive for his capture, was past. Surely the alcalde of the pueblo would not arrest and lodge in his jail a man with money to pay his way, and a willingness in him to work. Money he would have when Don Abrahan settled with him for his six weeks' work; a good reputation he would carry away with him, he felt assured. Don Abrahan always spoke kindly to him, calling him son. So

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 thinking, he went to Don Felipe and requested an accounting.

Don Felipe received him coldly. That was something he knew nothing about; whatever arrangement stood between Henderson and Don Abrahan was their arrangement; Don Felipe had not been a party to its making. But no; he must not seek Don Abrahan in the mansion. Peones were not permitted to enter the mansion, save only the kitchen door.

Henderson started at the word, flushing with indignation.

"I'm not any man's peon," he denied.

"We speak of laborers so," said Don Felipe, with stern correction. "It is not the same in this country as where you came from. Men are not equals here. If you want to speak to Don Abrahan, he is there. Take off your hat when you approach him."

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ON ABRAHAN had entered the courtyard as Don Felipe spoke. He was smoking his evening cigar, walking meditatively, yet with an eye to what had been put into the storehouse in the way of hides that day. Henderson approached him without formality, servility being the farthest thing from his bearing. Without preliminaries he placed his request for a settlement before Don Abrahan, respectfully, yet boldly, as a man confident in his rights.

"So you would leave me?" said Don Abrahan, after a little silence, looking slowly from his meditative pose. "Is gratitude so short in your memory?"

Henderson protested that ingratitude was a stranger to him; that he had labored to prove, by every hour of his employment there, that he was glad to bear the hardest burdens, labor the longest hours, out of no other consideration than gratitude for a favor past.

"I couldn't be more grateful to you than I am this moment, Don Abrahan. It isn't that I'm not appreciative of your help, only that I don't want to remain a laborer all my life. I want to take a look around this country and see if it holds any

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 chance. If not, then I'll manage to return to my own."

"It is very well, I have no objection," Don Abrahan said, but coldly, with a distant withdrawing. "If you are prepared to make settlement with me in full, you are free to go your way."

"Settlement? in full?" Henderson repeated the words in uncomprehending amazement.

"Surely. There was fifty dollars that you owed me from the beginning," Don Abrahan calmly claimed.

"Fifty dollars that I owed you? Is that the way you make a joke in this country, Don Abrahan?"

"There was fifty dollars offered for your return to the ship. When I protected you I lost that sum. I had only to deliver you—is it not so?"

"It is a strange stand for a man of your consequence to take, Don Abrahan," Henderson said, profoundly disappointed, saddened not a little by this revelation of the patron's crafty narrowness. "But let that go; grant that I did owe you fifty dollars on that account. I have paid it, and more."

Henderson's anger was slow to rise. That fact alone had saved him many a blow under Captain Welliver's calloused mate, spared him the responsibility for Captain Welliver's life that day he laid him low with the broken oar. He had not struck so much in anger as in defense. If he had allowed his just wrath to expend itself on the captain that day, he would have been branded this

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 hour with a name more detestable, more terrible, than that of debtor servant whose situation was that of a slave.

"To be added to that, twenty-five dollars for clothing furnished in your naked state when you arrived," Don Abrahan continued, over-looking Henderson's protest as if he had not heard.

"I've had two shirts, a pair of jeans trousers and a pair of Boston brogans. The whole outfit wasn't worth more than five dollars."

"You must consider the transportation, the freight," said Don Abrahan mildly, advancing the excuse for extortion which became general among the commercial pirates of California of a later day.

Henderson had believed the ship's slop-chest incomparable for high prices anywhere on the globe. Captain Welliver had been willing to trade on a profit of two hundred per cent.; Don Abrahan, benevolent gentleman, must have five hundred. Henderson saw that the longer he remained on that plantation the deeper he would be in debt. It seemed a marvel to him that Don Abrahan had not taken the thirty dollars which he carried with him when he deserted ship, and charged that up against him also.

"How much do you figure I'm in debt to you as we stand?" he inquired.

"It amounted to seventy-five dollars at the beginning. You have been here two months?"

"A little more than a month and a half."

"You can see then how the account will stand.

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 Seventy-five dollars, at five dollars a month, will require fifteen months to pay."

"Five dollars a month! I'll not work for any man for five dollars a month, Don Abrahan!"

"That is the highest wages I pay to any peon on my ranch," Don Abrahan said loftily. "You can see how the matter stands."

"You didn't say what wages you paid, what you were going to pay me," Henderson protested, knowing as he spoke that his position was weak; that he had been foolish to go into the service of this man without a definite agreement from the beginning.

"You did not ask me, Gabriel, my son."

"I guess I'll have to owe you for a while, then," Henderson said, determination in his manner. "According to the value I put on my services, I've paid you the fifty dollars you charged me for helping me get away from the ship. That's all right; it was worth that to me, and a great deal more. I'll find something to do at better pay and send you the rest of it as soon as I can."

"It is impossible to permit you to desert me in this way," Don Abrahan said, gently enough, even a tinge of sorrowful regret in his soft tone for being under the necessity of taking this apparently unfriendly stand. Yet he was coldly firm beneath his suavity; merciless, inflexible. The threat that lay behind his manner caused Henderson's heart to grow cold in a foreboding of trouble.

"I give you my word that you'll be paid, even

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 though I consider your claim unjust and exorbitant," Henderson declared.

"What security have you to leave behind?" Don Abrahan inquired, with cynical humor. A smile glimmered in his slow dark eyes, twitched in his beard, died away slowly, leaving his thin face harsh and severe.

"Nothing but my word," Henderson returned, meeting him eye to eye.

Don Abrahan lifted his shoulders, tilted his chin, raising his well-groomed beard. It was a slight movement, yet expressive in its discount of the proffered security.

"The body and services of the debtor are a man's security in this country, my son," he said.

"You mean you'll not let me go—that you'll hold me here, a slave, till this contrived, preposterous debt to you is paid?"

"It is the law."

Don Abrahan seemed to disclaim all responsibility in the manner of his reply, laying it all upon the law. What was a creditor, he seemed to ask, in the invincible machinery of the law, but a creature to do its bidding?

"You may be able to make slaves of these poor Indians and Mexicans under that law, but I'm no man's slave, I'm free to come and go. Your law cannot be applied to an American citizen, Don Abrahan."

Don Abrahan beamed on the defiant young man kindly. Benevolence seemed to sit in his soft

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 dark eyes, to lurk in his fine gray beard. A little while he stood thus regarding the rebellious servant, his cigar held in his fingers daintily on a level with his mouth.

"You have much to learn," he said at last.

So speaking, he turned and sauntered away, following, it seemed, his train of meditation with serene and unruffled mind.

Henderson felt the hot blood of resentment in his face as he stood looking after the benevolent tyrant, hotter words checked on his tongue. He realized that this was not a time for further words; that for Don Abrahan the question was settled, not to be opened again. The man's carriage said as much as he walked on his slow, meditative way.

Henderson's contempt for this law that made a man's body the security for his debts was mounting with his determination to defy Don Abrahan, the country and its institutions of slavery, by deserting the ranch that night. He was not ready to accept Don Abrahan's word for it that the law would bind a citizen of another country in slavery. There would be some American at Monterey, where he had heard there was even a United States consul, who could inform him of his rights in this feudal land.

The mayordomo stood outside his office door as Henderson turned back in that direction. It was as if he waited for Henderson to be passed on to him from his patron's hands, like a tennis ball.

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 He stood so, his small hands on his hips, a despicable sycophant, Henderson believed, in his place of authority over men and women who were little better than slaves. Henderson would have passed without speaking, but Don Felipe raised a hand to halt him.

"You have had your accounting, you understand Don Abrahan?" he asked.

"I understand him perfectly," Henderson replied, his indignation over the imposition that had been put upon him still outweighing all other concern.

"You think you will run away from this debt and cheat Don Abrahan," the mayordomo said, squaring himself around to stand directly in front of Henderson, as if to block this treasonable intention with his own body. "That is a thought of foolishness. Look!"

Don Felipe laid hold of Henderson's arm, turning him to face the hills at the foot of which the ranch buildings stood. Mangy, shaggy, harsh and forbidding as these hills, almost mountainous in height, appeared in the glare of day, they now seemed softened and subdued, friendly and secure, in the chastening twilight. There was a dying flush upon the sky, repeated faintly in the canyons where the mists were gathering; the gray of crumbling ledge, the brown blotches of barren soil, soothed out and blended in harmonious beauty with sage and greasewood, the dark green of chaparral and holly. Sharply the line of the hills stood against

title: Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/63