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LOS CERRITOS 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE MODERN TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "HERMIA SUYDAM" AND "WHAT 
 DREAMS MAY COME." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 
 
 150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1890, 
 
 BY 
 JOHN W . LOVELL. 
 
4 at? 
 
 
 To 
 
 MY MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 SENORA DOMINGA GONI DE ATHERTON 
 
A PRELIMINARY WORD. 
 
 As I have introduced in this book a dialect new 
 to American literature, perhaps a word of explan 
 ation will not be amiss. It may be thought at 
 times that I am inconsistent in its use, but as a 
 matter of fact no American dialect is more incon 
 sistent in itself. Not only do no two people speak 
 it exactly alike, but no man speaks it with con 
 sistency to himself. He mixes his participles, 
 garnishes his verbs with wandering " a s," trans 
 poses his pronouns, and peppers his sentences with 
 irrelevant words in a wholly arbitrary manner. 
 He is guided by ear and association alone, and 
 the author in revealing him must trust to her 
 own ear, aided by memory and habit. The law of 
 phonetics is absolute in the dialect of the native 
 Calif ornian; there is no other. Were I not almost 
 as familiar with this dialect as with the English 
 language, I should never venture to handle it. 
 GEETEUDE FEANKLIN ATHEETON. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAKT I. 
 
 THE REDWOOD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Carmelita, 9 
 
 II. An Adobe Mansion, 26 
 
 III. A Broad Domain, 30 
 
 IV. The Priest and the Girl, 34 
 
 V. A Child of Nature, 46 
 
 VI. A Dangerous Suitor, 58 
 
 VII. The Death of a Titan, . . . . . .63 
 
 VIII. A Herald of Bad Tidings, 71 
 
 IX. The Cordovas of Lindavista, .... 79 
 
 X. A New Experience, ...... 83 
 
 XI. A Page from the Book of Life, .... 98 
 
 XII. A Weary Year, 107 
 
 INTEELUDE. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, . . . . . .121 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 THE MAN. 
 
 I. The Daughter of Joaquin Murietta, . . 143 
 II. Two Confessions, 151 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 III. Incarnate, 161 
 
 IV. Nature Awakens, 174 
 
 V. The Priest and the Woman, .... 191 
 VI. In the Shadow of the Mission, . . . .197 
 
 VII. Alexander Tremaine, 209 
 
 VIII. At the Foot of the Cross, 216 
 
 IX. Three Citizens of Cerritos, 219 
 
 X. A Broken Meditation, 230 
 
 XI. In Vasquez Canon, 234 
 
 XII. A Ghost, 246 
 
 XIII. The Respite, 256 
 
 XIV. Rich and Poor, 263 
 
 XV. Dividing Lines, 273 
 
 XVT. Peace, 278 
 
 XVII. Three Lamps Go Out, 282 
 
 THE LITANY OF THE REDWOODS, . . . 297 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE REDWOOD 
 
LOS CERRITOS; 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE MODERN TIME. 
 
 I. 
 
 CARMELITA. 
 
 "HuA of a thief! Carmelita Banditita! Go 
 finda your father and robba the stage ! Go taka 
 the gold and cutta the throat! Where your 
 mother? Who she was? Who marrying her? 
 Caramba! little black bandit, go steal for the 
 books. We no wanting you here." 
 
 " I no am bandit," panted the child. 
 
 The teacher, in fleeting respite, was down on the 
 river bank eating her luncheon, and the new 
 comer was at the mercy of her schoolmates. That 
 virtuous and relative indignation which will 
 struggle to flower in the thorniest human heart 
 under the wind-brought pollen of a poisonous 
 
10 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 weed, had opened and sent forth its somewhat 
 over-powering perfume in a half -civilized ranch in 
 central California. A band of bare-footed, grimy 
 youngsters, with the black eyes of Mexico and the 
 sturdy frames of a casual emigrant grandparent, 
 children whose fathers counted their stolen chick 
 ens with their beads, gathered, with loud cries and 
 angry menace, about a little girl who was branded 
 with the superior iniquity of an outlawed father. 
 The child stood with set teeth and stiffening fin 
 gers, but kept her small bare feet planted upon 
 one spot, as if determined to return insult with 
 disdain, until one of the little half-breeds, carried 
 away by the enthusiasm of the cause, picked up 
 a stone and threw it at her. Then with a cry of 
 pent up rage and shame, Carmelita sprang upon 
 her assailant, and flinging him to the ground, 
 dealt him a blow that drew forth the howl of a 
 lassooed coyote. The others, enraged anew at 
 their comrade s discomfiture, set up a shrill and 
 simultaneous yell and with one accord cast them 
 selves upon Carmelita. Kicking, hitting, and bit 
 ing, she managed to struggle through the vocifer 
 ating crowd just as the teacher reappeared and 
 
LOS CERRITOS. II 
 
 ordered them all into the school-house. The 
 school-mistress, who was a mild and dull young 
 woman, the graduate of a country town, and glad 
 to get a situation of any sort, but who inspired 
 awe upon the Cerritos Rancho from the fact that 
 she wore shoes, and a gown of unknown and won 
 derful cut, gave Carmelita as stern a glance as her 
 meagre features would assume and bade the di 
 shevelled little culprit go to her seat. But Carme 
 lita by this time was in a frame of mind to insult 
 the sun in his course. Without a word in answer 
 to her teacher s fiat, she turned her back and 
 stalked haughtily up the road to the house of the 
 padre, a mile away. 
 
 The padre never forgot that first interview with 
 Carmelita. He was sitting in his bare, comfort 
 less study, endeavoring to write a sermon which 
 should respond to something between the narrow 
 temples of these savages he had come to labor 
 among, when he heard a peremptory knock at his 
 outer door. Going at once to welcome his visi 
 tor he discovered a rigid little figure with blazing 
 eyes and hot cheeks. He had arrived at the Mis 
 sion only two weeks before, but he recognized the 
 
12 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 child as one of many lie had seen trooping at 
 Pedro Espinoza s heels a few days ago and whose 
 attendance at school he had then suggested. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked kindly. " Come to the 
 fire, and tell me. ; 
 
 Carmelita marched in behind him, and as the 
 padre resumed his seat he turned to face a small 
 virago, who clenching both small hands, gave 
 vent to a torrent of vituperation against which 
 his remonstrances were like planks before a flood. 
 She cursed the children and she cursed the teacher. 
 She cursed the school-house and she cursed the 
 books. But above all, with hissing, blistering 
 contumely, she cursed the padre who was the first 
 cause in this chain of her woes. Upon his bewil 
 dered head she called down every damnation to be 
 found in the store-house of her ten years experi 
 ence. She hoped that a pine tree would fall on 
 him and kill him, that the current in the river 
 would catch his horse and sweep him to his death. 
 She prayed that fire would roast him, and mus 
 tangs bite his head from his body. She would 
 have him sink in a bog like Juan Ferrara, with 
 only his hat to tell the tale. She would have a 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 13 
 
 Chinaman murder him and an earthquake bury 
 him. She would have him stuck with a thousand 
 pins, were there only as many in the world, and 
 she would have him stewed in the iron pot with 
 the beans. When breath and vocabulary were 
 alike exhausted, she fell in a heap on the floor. 
 
 The padre was startled but interested. Her fire 
 and audacity amused him, and instead of admin 
 istering a reproof to cement her hatred he poured 
 her a glass of water from a pitcher on the table 
 at his elbow. A quarter of an hour ago, Carmelita 
 would have disdained nectar from his hands, but 
 by this time she was limp, and anger had given 
 place to weariness. The padre made her drink 
 the water, then carried her into the next room and 
 laid her on his bed. She fell asleep as soon as 
 she had recovered from the surprise induced by a 
 white pillow case, and the sun was aiming drow 
 sily for the west when she awoke. When the 
 padre heard her slip to the floor he went at once 
 and led her back into his sitting room. Carme 
 lita, somewhat sheepishly took possession of his 
 forefinger and trotted beside him. When he 
 reached his chair by the fire he put her on his 
 
14 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 knee and remonstrated upon the injustice of hold 
 ing him to account for the ignorance and ill-nature 
 of a troop of malicious youngsters, and succeeded 
 in making her understand that his suggestion of 
 the school had been prompted by an interest in 
 her welfare alone. 
 
 " But I no going any more," sobbed Carmelita, 
 by this time quite overcome, "They calling me 
 Hija of a thief, and say my father is bad man. 
 He no is thief. He only taka tl;e moneys from 
 the rich in the stage, my aunt she say so. He 
 never been in the prison like Carlos Castro s 
 father, and he no stealing the chickens and pigs, 
 only the gold. He no been hang up like Yasquez, 
 and he weara the shoses like you. He no is low, 
 bad man. He is " 
 
 She broke off, unable to find the word which 
 should express her father s superior social status 
 as compared with the common pig and chicken- 
 thief. Doubtless she w r ould have distinguished 
 him with the comprehensive if unfashionable title 
 of gentleman, but that word was as yet un- 
 added to the Cerritos vocabulary. The padre 
 smiled as he listened to the social ethics of the 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 15 
 
 world from which he had come, the ethics which 
 are the outgrowth of that love of the picturesque 
 which is latent in every imaginative mind, yet 
 which so often expires in snobbery spring sponta 
 neously from the lips of a little barbarian of ten. 
 He wisely made no attempt to warp her admira 
 tion of her father, that famous Joaquin Murietta, 
 for whose head the government had been offering 
 a reward for twenty years. Disillusion would 
 come with moral development; let her keep the 
 one ideal of her barren little life, while she might. 
 But what he could do for this impulsive and pas 
 sionate, yet sweet and loyal nature, ke would ; his 
 banishment to this outpost of civilization should 
 not be wholly in vain. 
 
 " I will be your teacher," he said, pushing the 
 black clinging hair out of her wet eyes. " Come 
 to me every day and I will teach you all that 
 it is good for you to know. You shall learn 
 to read and write, and by-and-by I will get you 
 some books. They make life shorter. But you 
 must not know too much not too much. Just 
 enough not to gasp under the smothering, blind 
 ing shame of ignorance. But not too much. A 
 
16 LOS CERRITOS, 
 
 little knowledge is a strong and consoling friend ; 
 too much an enemy, who, mirage like, beckons us 
 on and on to conquer city after city, realm after 
 realm until we fall panting and dying among 
 the ruins that totter on the thin, iron, swaying, 
 scandent wall that divides the Finite from the 
 
 Infinite " 
 
 He had forgotten Carmelita. His chin dropped 
 on his chest and he gazed at the struggling wood 
 and flame in the deep fireplace, with the look of 
 one whose spirit has flown eagerly from the dull 
 monotone of its present back to the chaos of its 
 past. In that barren room, with the dark patches 
 on the peeling adobe walls distorted into weird, 
 grotesque figures by the wizard hand of the fire 
 on the hearth, he was a strikingly dissonant note. 
 The bent yet spirited head, the slender, muscular 
 figure, the aquiline profile with its delicate, dilat 
 ing nostrils, were those of a man whose family 
 leaves had bestrewed an old-world glade before 
 some plethoric "Mayflower" had transplanted 
 the roots to a younger soil. The head, large 
 above the ears, and the black, deep-set eyes, were 
 boldly indicative of intellectual power. The lines 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 1? 
 
 about the finely chiselled mouth, and the gray in 
 his hair were like outline sketches whose artist 
 has but indicated the suffering he could paint in 
 if he would. The mouth, too, had once been full ; 
 what had set and hardened it until passion had 
 petrified to dogged resolve? And those sensitive 
 nostrils, no muscular constriction could draw in 
 ward their quick responding curves; the man s 
 face was not a mask yet. About him, in spite of 
 his shabby garb and his purposely disarranged 
 hair, was an unmistakable air of high-breeding. 
 What had brought him to this God-forsaken place 
 to horde with barbarians and watch soul and mind 
 stagnate? Even the child on his knee, poor, 
 ignorant little savage that she was, felt vaguely 
 the influence of a superior personality. She put 
 out her hand and touched his. 
 
 " Who you are? " she asked softly. 
 
 His spirit flashed back from those archives of 
 the past and he smiled into the serious eyes up 
 raised to his own. Carmelita had beautiful eyes, 
 black as an unstarred sky, and the lashes that 
 fringed them were thick and soft as the sweeping 
 moss which a night s sharp frost has painted 
 
 2 
 
1 8 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 black. The padre pushed her heavy hair, silky as 
 spun glass, from her small ear, and laid her hand 
 on one of his. It was rough and brown, but the 
 shape was as perfect as his own, in spite of the 
 blunt little nails. 
 
 " Who are you? " he asked. 
 
 " I am the muchatita de Joaquin Murietta," she 
 answered proudly. 
 
 "I know; but who was your mother? How is 
 it you live with Espinoza?" 
 
 " He is my uncle, because he marry the sister of 
 my father you see? One night ten years ago, 
 Tia Mariana she sitting by the fire all alone in 
 the hacienda, making the closes for Juan, who no 
 coming yet. She hear a noise and she jump up, 
 because she is alone and she have be careful of the 
 robbas. Then she sitting down again and begin 
 to cry. It is my father who is there, right by the 
 fire. He no say one word, but he putting a bun 
 dle in her lap and then he go lika he come, with 
 no one word. My aunt opa the bundle, and she 
 finda me, a little black thing I no am so black 
 now and* kicking and squealing. That night 
 somebody he robba the stage. I no knowing who 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 19 
 
 it is " with an air of conscious pride " but the 
 next morning my aunt she find on the table a 
 bundle of gold, and on the paper my father have 
 write For the Carmelita. Three years ago 
 four years I no remember exactamente, my 
 father coming one night and picka me out of the 
 bed and kissing me one dossen times, I think. 
 But he no saying one word excep Monica! Mo 
 nica ! and he cry and cry. After that he go and 
 I no seeing him no more. Oh ! I wish I seeing 
 him, just one momente ! " 
 
 The padre put his arm about her and smiled as 
 he felt a solitary flame of human affection push 
 ing its way among the ice-points in his heart. 
 "And your mother, chiquita? Who was she? It 
 was from her you got those hands and ears and 
 the fine threads of your hair." 
 
 Carmelita s full red mouth trembled, and she 
 shook her head. " I no know," she said. " My 
 father no telling my aunt nothing. Those much- 
 achos " her eyes blazed again like young volcanos 
 " those muchachos they saying no one know who 
 is my mother. They say my father no marrying. 
 
20 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 But it no is so ! It no is so ! Oil ! I wish my aunt 
 she knowing." 
 
 "I will tell you a story I once heard about 
 Joaquin Murietta," said the padre. "Put your 
 head down on my shoulder and look at the fire. 
 Some people can see stories and pictures in the 
 coals. I fancy you can, and this is a story with 
 several pictures the flames would like to paint." 
 
 Carmelita, with all a child s delight at hearing 
 a story, adjusted herself comfortably in the padre s 
 embrace and fixed her eyes in dancing anticipa 
 tion on the blazing logs. 
 
 "Once, eleven or twelve years ago (yes, just 
 about twelve years ago), there lived in an ancient 
 adobe house in Santa Barbara an old man whose 
 grandfather, many years before, had been a Com- 
 mandante of the post in those days, chiquita, 
 when the Jesuit padres were building this Mis 
 sion and many like it. For some reason which no 
 one ever knew, the Senor don Rodriguez Alvarado 
 chose to live like a hermit, refusing to have aught 
 to do with his neighbors, and never seen abroad. 
 With him lived a beautiful daughter, so beautiful 
 that the young men of the town, in the hope of 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 21 
 
 having a glimpse of her, used to walk by day and 
 by night up and down the road before the high 
 wall which hid all but the chimneys and the hot 
 red tiles of her lonely home. Sometimes they did 
 see her \valking among the weeds and tangled 
 brush of the garden, or bending over her books at 
 the window ; but to gain that much they had to 
 climb the wall like thieves, and not a word or 
 smile did they ever win from her. They would 
 toast her in the town, and then, with the wine 
 steaming in their veins, they would run down the 
 road and throw flowers and ribbons and gold 
 chains over the wall ; but the next morning they 
 would return to find their gifts trampled in the 
 dust of the road. 
 
 "One day a whisper went through the town 
 that Joaquin Marietta was in the mountains. A 
 stage had been robbed and the driver swore that 
 he had recognized the famous bandit; there was 
 something about his erect, powerful form and in 
 his bearing that no one who had ever seen or 
 heard him described could fail to recognize. Two 
 days later, at early dawn, a strange spectacle was 
 seen in Santa Barbara. A poor old man, his white 
 
22 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 hair flying, his eyes wandering with the aimless 
 glance of one whose reason has crumbled under a 
 sudden shock, ran through the streets shaking his 
 nerveless hands and crying, My daughter! My 
 daughter! People came out of their houses and 
 three or four recognized the hermit. In an hour 
 the whole town was alarmed and the young men 
 went in a body to the old adobe house, half fear 
 ing, half hoping that at last they would speak 
 with the beautiful Monica. Why do you start, 
 my child? They searched the house unrebuked, 
 but no Monica was there. Then, indeed, conster 
 nation spread like fever in a tule marsh, and every 
 effort was made to make the old man tell what 
 had happened. But his mind had gone, and from 
 his mumbling they could only gather that the 
 night before, masked and armed men had broken 
 into his house and carried his daughter away. 
 
 "Two days later the mystery was explained. 
 The padre of a Mission high up in the mountains 
 came riding down into the town in a state of great 
 excitement and told every group he met that three 
 nights before, six men, armed to the teeth, the 
 chief carrying a woman, had forced open his door 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 23 
 
 and ordered him to get out his prayer-book and 
 read the marriage-service. He had expostulated 
 and demanded the usual delay and forms, but the 
 flash of a revolver in the dim room had put all 
 doubts to flight. He only begged leave to put on 
 his musty old robes, and when he returned he 
 found that a lantern had been lit. Against the 
 wall like statues stood the armed men. One held 
 the lantern aloft that its ray might fall on the 
 prayer book in the padre s hand. Before them 
 stood the chief, tall and strong as a forest tree, 
 his fierce eyes flashing as the wind moaned like a 
 warning voice in the cypresses without, softening 
 as they turned to the beautiful woman his arm 
 upheld. The woman, trembling and excited, gave 
 her vows willingly enough and clung tenderly to 
 her strange lover. The names these two gave at 
 that weird wedding, in that silent mountain forest, 
 were Joaquin Marietta and Monica Alvarado." 
 
 Long before the padre had finished, Carmelita 
 had raised herself from her nestling position and 
 was kneeling on his lap, her flushed face quiver 
 ing, her whole form vibrating. As he uttered the 
 last word she flung her arms about him and cov- 
 
24 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 ered his face with a rain of kisses. u Mi madre ! 
 Mi madre! " she sobbed wildly, " Mama! Mama! " 
 
 The priest felt the tears in his eyes. " Yes," he 
 said, " I believe that was your mother." 
 
 "And where she is? Where she is?" cried Car- 
 melita burying her face in his neck and bursting 
 into a storm of tears, hot and wild as a tropical 
 rain. " Oh ! taking me to her. Padre mio ! where 
 she is ? Where she is? " 
 
 " She is dead, I am afraid," said the priest 
 gently. " Else you would be with her." 
 
 " No ! no ! she no is dead," cried the child, all 
 the pent-up yearning of years bursting from the 
 starved little heart in a wild, bitter wail. " No, 
 no, padre. I want mama. She no is dead. She 
 no would leaving me. Oh! mamacita! mama- 
 cita! mamacita! 
 
 The grief of childhood is terrible while it lasts, 
 it is so abandoned and so all-possessing. The 
 red hot drops cut the spirit s tablets like acid, and 
 woman is often saddened by the memory of her 
 young soul s suffering. The padre was at a loss 
 what to do with the convulsed little thing he held 
 in his arms, so he wisely did nothing. After a 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 25 
 
 time the sobs ceased and Carmelita s head fell 
 once more on the padre s shoulder. 
 
 " I no crying any more," she said after a half- 
 hour s meditation, which the padre had foreborne 
 to interrupt. " Mama is dead. I only will say a 
 prayer to see papa." 
 
 "Poor child," said the padre, "life, young as 
 you are, has taught you philosophy. Yes, some 
 day perhaps you will see your papa. I am to be 
 your best friend, you know, and I will say a 
 prayer every day in the Mission that you may see 
 your father once more." 
 
 She raised her arms, and putting them about 
 his neck, laid her lips to his cheek. " I love 
 you," she said, " I so glad you coming here and I 
 do it all what you say." 
 
26 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 1L 
 
 AN ADOBE MANSION. 
 
 IT was evening when Carmelita returned to her 
 home, a long, low, adobe building about a mile 
 from the padre s house and standing on the banks 
 of the river. The house was a type of its kind ; 
 a line of rooms built directly on the ground and 
 opening one and all upon a porch that traversed 
 the structure s front from end to end; the sloping 
 roof covered with dark red tiles that looked like 
 long, round chimneys split in half; the white- 
 
 * 
 
 wash within and without peeling off in great 
 weather-stained patches ; the deep, low window- 
 seats its only comfort. From the clumsily -raftered 
 ceiling of the large living-room hung graceful 
 ropes of blood-red peppers, pearl-hued onions, and 
 hard, glittering, amber-like ears of corn. Through 
 the open windows shone the delicate green of the 
 willows of the river, and the blue-birds and long- 
 beaked scarlet and orange magpies pecked at their 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2/ 
 
 trunks. In the wide, open door- way and on the 
 hard clay floor, ragged, unkempt children of all 
 ages and sizes were tumbling; children with great 
 sombre eyes, like still pools of ink, and the clear- 
 cut features of a cameo, but dirty and hilarious as 
 month-old puppies. Over the stove at the end of 
 the room a woman of immense proportions, dark 
 like her children, but whose every claim to beauty 
 had been routed by the conquering rolls of fat, 
 was frying frijoles and baking tortillas. Near 
 her, with his chair tipped back against the wall, a 
 man with a heavy beard and dark, kindly face 
 sat smoking, and laughing at the children. 
 
 As Carmelita entered upon this scene of domes 
 tic if somewhat grimy bliss, her aunt swept the 
 hot spoon from the frijoles she was stirring and 
 waved it, dripping, in the air. 
 
 " Bueno ! Sefiorita Carmeiita," she cried, " where 
 you been since you leava the school? Nice girl 
 you are to blacka the eye of Geronimo Diaz, and 
 no pay attention when the teacher she spik. I no 
 giva you any supper to-night." 
 
 Mariana had lived in a small town during her 
 youth, and with that instinct of progression which 
 
28 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 is latent in every human breast, she always spoke 
 " English " to her children. 
 
 "I no care," said Carmelita proudly. "I am 
 with the padre all day and he go to teacha me 
 himself. I no going to the school any more." 
 
 At this announcement Mariana dropped her 
 spoon into the beans and Espinoza brought his 
 chair down with a thud upon its front feet. 
 
 " Whatte you say? " they demanded. 
 
 Carmelita rolled the baby back and forth with 
 her foot. " I go every day to the padre and he 
 teacha me out of the books. By-and-by I spik 
 English lika himself and I reada the story-books. 
 I no spika to those childrens never no more. The 
 padre he say they are villaines and he go to pun 
 ish them hard." 
 
 By this time Mariana s face had softened, it had 
 grown almost respectful. The padre is a great 
 man in these unlettered settlements, and that he 
 should deign to educate this wayward annex of 
 the Espinoza household placed her beyond the 
 pale of criticism at once. 
 
 u Bueno, bueno," she said. "The padre he is 
 right. They treating you orr<?6 j blee this morning. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 29 
 
 The teacher she coming here and say so. Pedro, 
 why you no whippa those boys? " 
 
 Espinoza gave a grunt and resumed his pipe. 
 
 Why maka more troubles?" he asked philo 
 sophically. "The padre he do it all whatte is 
 need ; he no like si I interfere." 
 
 But Carmelita had her supper. 
 
30 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 III. 
 
 A BEOAD DOMAIN. 
 
 THE Rancho de los Cerritos was a tract of land 
 covering some fifty thousand acres. A tradition 
 existed that it had once been owned by a Mexican 
 grandee, hence its possession of name and bound 
 ary line ; but it had long been known as govern 
 ment land and taken up by squatters. The ground 
 was fertile, but after the many mouths were fed 
 and the taxes paid there was little to lay by, and 
 the squatter was always poor. Meat and flour 
 were dear, for the nearest town \vas thirty miles 
 away, and he could not afford to farm more than 
 a few acres nor to raise cattle for killing. The 
 hog being prolific was not so infrequent a deli 
 cacy, and one or two of the colony had a band 
 of sheep. There is little to spur the energies of 
 the settler in these remote districts. Whatever 
 involuntary prompting of ambition may be felt in 
 youth is soon narrowed to the successful raising 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 31 
 
 of a crop or to compassing an occasional dinner of 
 beef. The Cerritos farmers one idea of society 
 was to meet occasionally at the Aguitas, a half 
 way house for the stages, and marking the eastern 
 boundary line of the Hancho. Here they would 
 drink and gossip and idle, with no desire for any 
 thing better in life ; and when unknown men came 
 to gamble their ill-gotten gains it meant to them 
 what a circus does to a country town. 
 
 The ranch itself was the very flower of a 
 territory that might have dropped straight from 
 celestial hunting-grounds. Those fairy -like hills, 
 golden in autumn, in spring so rich and so lavishly 
 colored that their dew drops surely held impris 
 oned the rainbow s jeweled hues, in winter palpi 
 tating with the very joy of life beneath the wild 
 driving rains and the shrieking of ocean-sent 
 storms, framed valley after valley of sweeping 
 plains, and miniature forests and wild tangled 
 woods of chaparral, fragrant with honey-dew and 
 pink with riotous sweet-briar. In winter the river 
 thundered between its high, willow-grown banks, 
 and in summer swept to the clouds and left a 
 hot, white floor sparkling with widely scattered 
 
32 LOS CEkRlTO. 
 
 gold, and red, sharp garnets. Far away towered 
 the mountains, like the ramparts about a sacred 
 park, but clothed in an eternal mist that shim 
 mered like pink gauze under the passing sun, or 
 quivered as if a dim blue veil in the hot morning 
 hours, and anon wrapped itself, a gown of olive, 
 about its peaks and slopes, to fade under leaden 
 skies to a winding sheet, gray and chill. 
 
 In a wide valley peopled with flowers and cool 
 with spreading oaks stood the Mission. The bel 
 fry was crumbling like the bones of a time-worn 
 skeleton, but the bell still hung, a defiant, 
 haunting spirit, and called the people to prayer. 
 The rain-beaten, wind-fought walls were covered 
 with great blotches of red and green and brown, 
 and the rude carving in the long echoing, owl- 
 inviting cloisters was changed and blunted by the 
 same inexorable hand that had laid those brave 
 old Jesuit artists beneath the earth they had 
 wrought. Many a young exile with hot heart be 
 neath his cassock had carved into those yielding 
 pillars the passionate poem of his buried man 
 hood ; many a stern-faced, gray -haired priest had 
 cut the unconscious hope of heavenly compensa- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 33 
 
 tion. But restless youth and stolid age are dead 
 alike, and about their sculptured stories the owls 
 hoot, and the bats sweep, like the lost souls the 
 fathers prayed for. 
 3 
 
34 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE PRIEST AKD THE GIEL. 
 
 CAKMELITA went every day to the padre and 
 her bright little mind unfolded very rapidly ; too 
 rapidly, the padre thought, and he soon limited 
 her lessons to an hour a day. This child, with 
 the latent instinct of caste, the germs of a high 
 intelligence, inherited from a lonely, studious 
 mother, yet forever the victim of a sordid, squalor- 
 ous environment, must not be educated into 
 knowledge of herself and taught to hate the lot 
 wherein the strange, unyielding law of circum 
 stance had led her. " I will teach her to read, that 
 she may amuse herself on the winter days when 
 the rains sweep and the ground is soft," said the 
 priest to himself. " I will teach her to count that 
 she may nt>t be cheated out of her little store 
 when she buys the rags she wears, and I will teach 
 her to write that she may not be more ignorant 
 than her cousins who go to the school. But more 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 35 
 
 she must never know, and her books shall be of 
 the simplest, and least imaginative." 
 
 The children of the settlement molested her no 
 further. Their awe of the padre was too great, to 
 say nothing of the fact that they respected the 
 skill with which she had used her fists. When 
 she was fifteen she began to show signs of beauty, 
 and when she had passed her seventeenth birth 
 day the question was beyond dispute. Her face 
 was more square than oval, but the eyes were no 
 longer too large for it, and the tints were brown 
 and warm ; her full red mouth had taken decided 
 but symmetrical curves, and her profile had the 
 fine, clear line of her Spanish ancestors. She was 
 above the height of most women, but she carried 
 herself with the lithe, untramelled poise of a sap 
 ling that is swayed by every breeze. Of her beauty 
 she was as unaware as of the distant but ardent 
 admiration of the young vaqueros and rancheros 
 who caught an occasional glimpse of her. And 
 their opportunities w r ere few, nor were they ever 
 honored by so much as a passing glance. Espino- 
 za s hacienda was at the foot of the ranch, miles 
 away from the other farmers, and when visitors 
 
3$ LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 did come they rarely saw Carmelita. She was 
 always with the padre, or in the woods lying in 
 dolently under the trees, or reading the few books 
 simple tales from the Bible or natural history, 
 or lives of sa\nts that the priest had given her. 
 
 One hot simmer s day when the earth was 
 parched and the sun shone like a polished brazen 
 ball through the stagnant air, the padre and Car 
 melita were sitting in the dark shadows of the 
 Mission s cloister. Between two of the pillars 
 hung a wet blanket and on the table were the re 
 mains of a magnificent watermelon. The padre 
 no longer taught Carmelita, but he was her only 
 friend and she demanded a daily hour of his 
 time. The little familiarities of her childhood 
 were hardly a memory now. With all her affec 
 tion for him, and longing for some object upon 
 which to expend her eager, unsatisfied nature, she 
 never could pass the iron wall of this man s re 
 serve. Whatever his experience of life had been, 
 before he turned his back upon the world, it had 
 made all demonstrations repugnant to him, and 
 dried his youth forever. Carmelita was probably 
 the one human b^ ng in whom he felt a personal 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 37 
 
 interest, and with what affection was left in him he 
 loved her; but he was ever the priest and she the 
 pupil ; he the man done with life and she the child 
 who would never know it. But he encouraged 
 her to confide in him, and every leaf of her devel 
 oping mind he had turned with his own hand, 
 every petal of her spirit s flower he had watched 
 unfold. The last seven years had changed him 
 little. A few more gray threads were in his hair, 
 his eyes were sterner and the line of his mouth 
 was nearly straight. He labored almost fanatically 
 in his ignorant, indifferent parish ; he had vespers 
 every evening and mass on Sundays, and twice a 
 month he preached a little sermon. He could not 
 flatter himself that he had made much progress, 
 but until civilization reached these stranded ones 
 it could hardly be otherwise. And at least they 
 respected him; his word was ]aw. 
 
 Carmelita, who had been standing at the edge 
 of the cloister, eating her last slice of watermelon, 
 threw the rind among the reeds of the patio, and 
 seated herself on a box opposite the priest. 
 
 " Padre mio," she said, with her usual direct 
 ness, " are there trees on the mountain tall as fifty 
 
38 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 men like Carlos Castro si each were stand on the 
 other s head?" 
 
 " You mean the redwoods. Yes, there are many 
 three hundred feet high." 
 
 "I no believe Juan, who got here the other 
 day; but si you say so, I do. The mountain is 
 fifteen miles away and I never have go so far. 
 But to-morrow morning I get up early and go. It 
 is so hard steal that mustang," she added with 
 a plaintive sigh. "Tio Pedro and Juan they use 
 all the time. But I have him to-morrow." 
 
 The padre smiled. Carmelita was the soul of 
 honesty, and tractable in most respects, but she 
 would steal the mustang, and many a ringing in 
 vective had her uncle and cousin sent after her, 
 when business called them to another part of the 
 ranch and they found their solitary steed had dis 
 appeared. But Carmelita was a privileged char 
 acter and the wrath was usually expended be 
 fore her return. The padre, however, always felt 
 it his duty to take her to task. 
 
 " That will be the third time you have stolen 
 the mustang this month," he said, " and it is only 
 the 8th. I shall lay a heavier penance on you, if 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 39 
 
 you do not obey better your commandments. 
 Why not ask your uncle for the mustang to-mor 
 row? I am sure he would let you have it." 
 
 " No; no, I no ask. He always say he need. I 
 have ask, and it do no good, so now I take, and 
 that save much trouble. Besides, I no like ask 
 the permission. I like better do the penance." 
 
 She rose and walked slowly up and down the 
 cloister. In spite of her litheness there was much 
 of the Spanish gravity and dignity in her car 
 riage, and in her eyes sombre clouds seemed to 
 hang protectingly above the slowly burning lires, 
 deeply buried. 
 
 "Padre mio," she said presently, " I have some 
 thing I like say to you to ask you." 
 
 "Yery well, my child. But remember I have 
 told you to guard yourself against curiosity. I 
 have told you that there are reasons why it is 
 better you should know little." 
 
 " I know, but that no take the curiosity away, 
 and si you no tell I think all the same, so much 
 better you tell no? padre mio." 
 
 The padre laughed. "Ask your questions, and 
 if it is well I will answer." 
 
4O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " I want know this," she said in the same even 
 tones, although a hotter red had come into her 
 face, "what ouside this ranch?" Is all like this 
 thousands acres, hundreds trees, one man here, 
 and another far? No are no mens in that world 
 you have on the map who do something but 
 ride and farm and sleep and eat? No are womens 
 somewhere who do something but cook and patch 
 and have the babies? No is there place where 
 peoples have something else but to work and feel 
 tire out? Padre mio, all my life I see no more, 
 but something tell me and many, many times it 
 tell me that far off, but on tills earth, there is 
 somethings better. What it is, / want it. It is 
 si I had something in me that no one want. You 
 no want it; Tia Mariana no want it, but it never 
 go away, and many times I no am happy at all." 
 
 There was a proud dignity in her tones which 
 took the pathos from her words. Nevertheless 
 the padre turned his head uneasily from her and 
 pressed his lips together. 
 
 " You will never find it," he said ; " put that idea 
 from you." 
 
 She stood before him, compelling him to look 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 41 
 
 at her. "What it is I want?" she demanded 
 abruptly. " Tell me." 
 
 The padre drew a quick breath. For the first 
 time he felt that the girl was slipping by him into 
 a realm where the influence of priest or friend 
 would be of small avail. He had known many 
 women, before he donned the cassock, but they 
 had required no help in discovering their own 
 natures and the needs thereof. 
 
 " Give it no thought," he said sternly. " How 
 can I tell what you want? Think not of what you 
 cannot have. It is sin." 
 
 " It no is sin to feel what we no can help," re 
 plied the girl in the same calm tones; but the 
 priest knew the pride of her nature and her pow r er 
 of self-control. " We no make ourselfs. I no can 
 help this in me. It never sleep by day or night. 
 I no know what it is, but I know it no is wrong, 
 or else God is wrong for make me have. And I 
 draw my breath quick quick and want to fly ! 
 fly ! fly ! What I want, is high, far above. And 
 heaven is above and hell below, my father. It no 
 is heaven I want, but something on this earth 
 while I am like I am now, but it must be near to 
 
42 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 there; I stretch my arms always up. But I stay 
 below and it is hell." 
 
 The padre regarded her with momentary enthu 
 siasm. "Yes; you would always fly upward; but 
 you will never find your wings." 
 
 " Why will I no find them," a hoarse note came 
 into her voice, and a flame of angry protest sprang 
 from the depths of her eyes. "No one in the 
 world beyond the mountains find them? You 
 say millions of people there are in those lands on 
 the map. They all go on, on forever, living in 
 adobe huts, lonely, half -make, like myself; no 
 any," she opened her arms wide, "who who 
 have for one moment something in here? " and 
 she crossed her arms and drew them slowly to her 
 breast, pressing her palms against her shoulders 
 with the passion she had kept from her voice. 
 
 The priest stood up, and the man whose fair in 
 heritance had withered and parched looked into 
 the eyes of the woman who was stumbling through 
 the riotous forests of unslaked youth. 
 
 " Yes," he said, u sometimes for a single 
 he paused abruptly. Of what use to talk the 
 platitudes of the world and of philosophy to this 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 43 
 
 primitive girl? She would laugh in his face. "I 
 cannot make a map of human nature for you," he 
 said after a moment. " If the chance ever comes, 
 you will draw it for yourself; if not, mine would 
 be so many unknown figures to you. But I will 
 tell you one thing that has often occurred to me, 
 Carmelita. Some day you may learn that the 
 curse of human nature is imagination. When a 
 long anticipated moment comes, we always find it 
 pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagina 
 tion are crushed into its withering sides under the 
 crowding hordes of petty realities. But it is this 
 alien and tyrannical force which gives me my 
 firmest belief in another life. From whence im 
 agination came, God alone can tell ; but back to 
 its jewel-pillared city it must go at last. It battles 
 against its bars down here, ever straining upward 
 to higher conditions, and somewhere, some time, it 
 must rind them. Until the body stiffens it cannot 
 but then it must wing its way upward and give 
 to that spirit it now torments all that has been 
 flashed before his gaze on earth. I have given 
 you but a hint of my meaning, but some day you 
 
44 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 may understand more clearly although the pos 
 sibility is remote enough, heaven knows." 
 
 He turned from her and walked slowly up and 
 down the cloister. Carmelita stood where he had 
 left her, her eyes fixed on the sunken stones of 
 the floor. His words had given her no comfort. 
 With youth beating in every ardent pulse, the 
 compensation of the hereafter was no requital to 
 her. She shivered as if the sun had suddenly 
 fallen to ashes. Sixty years of nothingness, per 
 haps, between! 
 
 The padre stood before her once more. "A verse 
 comes to me which was written by a blind poet 
 on the death of a friend, who, possessed of great 
 genius, died in his early youth. Take it to heart, 
 Carmelita, for he might have written it for you : 
 
 " Oh, men and women, listen and be wise, 
 
 Refrain from love and friendship, dwell alone, 
 Having for friends and loves, the seas, the skies, 
 
 And the fair land, for these are still your own. 
 The sun is yours, the moon and stars are yours, 
 
 For you the great sea changes and endures, 
 And every year the spring returns and lures : 
 
 I pray you only love what never dies. 
 
 " You are nature s best-beloved child ; she will 
 always take you to her heart. Go to your flowers 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 45 
 
 and birds and trees. They may not satisfy you, 
 but at least they will bring you no unhappiness. 
 Forget yourself. There is no hope for you here, 
 Carmelita, and beyond this ranch you will never 
 go. Stifle the desire and save yourself misery. 
 Stifle your own nature if you can, or rich, grand, 
 complete as it is, it will be your scourge." 
 
46 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 V. 
 
 A CHILD OF NATURE. 
 
 THE padre liad known whereof lie spoke when 
 he had said that Carmelita was Nature s own 
 child. She would lie on the ground for hours 
 among the wild flowers, fancying she could see 
 them grow, and, although she had never heard of 
 a fairy, transforming them into tiny beings who 
 murmured to her of the wondrous lands beneath 
 the earth from whence they came. The ball gar 
 ments they wore were stored away in chests of 
 garnet, lidded with gold, during the winter, they 
 told her; and if she would put on a squirrel s 
 coat and scamper down the long, ever-descending 
 galleries of the earth, by-and-by she would come 
 to a vast room with a dome like the arching sky, 
 and on a great glittering, flower -tinted throne she 
 would see a woman whom the world called Nature. 
 About the woman s cloud-white body flowed a 
 shimmering gown, green as the grasses on her 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 47 
 
 hills; her hair glistened with the greenish gold 
 of corn silk, and her eyes were stars steeped in 
 the blue waters of the sky. Above her throne 
 was a choir room cut deep into the blue of the 
 arch, wherein sang eternally the souls of earth s 
 dead birds. About her, when the ground above 
 was parched or wet, thronged the flowers in gowns 
 the sun had never seen; but in spring she sat 
 alone, her body languid and restful, her soul 
 stilled by the music of that joyous choir and the 
 deep chanting of the fiery ocean that beat against 
 her cool, granite walls. 
 
 That the living birds had a language of their 
 own, Carmelita never doubted, and she knew it as 
 well as her own. When the voices were shrill, 
 the lord of the nest was scolding, and to the alter 
 cation which followed she would listen breath 
 lessly, her hands on her hips, her head thrown 
 back, her eyes darkening and softening in swift 
 sympathy and indignation. In the spring time, 
 when the voices were wooing and soft, she would 
 lie all night on the ground, her face pressed to 
 some many-nested tree, her loneliness for the mo 
 ment forgot. She waited eagerly for the autumn, 
 
48 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 when the birds grew reminiscent in idle hours; 
 and lying in the parched grasses she listened to 
 their tales of far-off lands where flowers were as 
 tall as trees, and birds dressed in robes torn 
 from summer roses, where tawny beasts crouched 
 by moon-lit, reeded shores, and men and women 
 made the very stars sing anthems to their beauty. 
 But above all things speaking and silent, Car- 
 melita loved the trees and longed for those forests 
 
 of which the books told and the birds sang. The 
 
 ** 
 
 woods on the rancho were small, and although the 
 willows by the river were beautiful in their droop 
 ing grace and rhythmic response to the passing 
 wind, there were no mysterious depths in their 
 twining groves, no solemnity nor uncounted num 
 bers. Carmelita was too ignorant to formulate 
 this want, but her nature dumbly demanded 
 responding grandeur. Now she had heard of a 
 magnificent forest on the mountain! Why had 
 she never heard of it before? But she had no 
 companions to bring tales of discovery, and Juan 
 had found it but a few days ago. 
 
 She awoke before dawn the next morning, and 
 slipped out with no pang for neglected duties. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 49 
 
 In those adobe mansions the occasional chair and 
 the mutual bed are quickly dusted and smoothed, 
 the clay floor demands little of the infrequent 
 broom, and the open doors of summer give the 
 window panes a long and stifled sleep. Mariana 
 cooked for the family, and her two eldest daugh 
 ters kept the house in order. Until three years ago 
 a mysterious packet of money had arrived at reg 
 ular intervals for Carmelita. This she had unhesi 
 tatingly turned into the common fund, and been 
 treated as something of a guest in consequence. 
 Then had come the report that one Harry Love 
 had carried the head of Joaquin Murietta to the 
 government, obtaining the long-promised reward. 
 After that no more money came for Carmelita, 
 but the habit of her independence was fixed, and 
 no one in that good-natured Espinoza household 
 ever thought of altering her position. Perhaps it 
 would have been better for her had the long hours 
 been filled with regularly recurring duties. One 
 care she invariably assumed. There was always 
 a baby, and until it was a year old it slept with 
 her in the little porch room she had always in 
 sisted upon having to herself. So long as its 
 4 
 
50 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 small tongue could shape no words slie might im 
 agine that the child was her own; and although 
 it might lacerate the very ears of night, it gave 
 her a sense of warmth and human nearness, and 
 she never grudged her broken rest. The present 
 baby was now old enough to address its parents 
 with something like discrimination, and as the 
 next had not yet arrived, Carmelita was lonely. 
 
 She walked softly across the porch and break 
 ing a bunch of grapes from its vine made a rapid 
 breakfast. Far away lay the mountains, cold and 
 stern as unhewn rock in the sunless light. But 
 Carmelita looked at them with a smile. There at 
 last lay a new world! 
 
 Unable to control her impatience longer she 
 flung away the bunch of grapes, half eaten, and 
 ran to the corral. The mustang raised his head 
 in surprise when she entered, but was docile at 
 her touch. He had the lawless spirit of his coun 
 try and loved better the hand that took him into 
 devious ways than the one which drove him 
 along the stern path of duty. Carmelita had no 
 saddle, but she was above such petty considera 
 tions, and springing upon the spirited little ani- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 51 
 
 mal s back, clasped his flanks with her strong 
 young legs and fle\v out of the corral and over the 
 fields toward the mountain. 
 
 The ride was a long one, and led over many a 
 hill ; but with that deep blue curtain ever before 
 her, quivering in the rising sun, the miles ran 
 backward from the mustang s feet. Carmelita 
 half expected to raise that curtain with her hand, 
 and, slipping beneath it, find herself in a waveless 
 sea of blue ; but as she neared the mountain the 
 mist faded and vanished like the scent of a flower 
 too long inhaled. She flung not a sigh in its 
 wake, for where the mist had been, giant trees 
 loomed ; cold, stern, glorious, majestic, like a vast 
 army awaiting the word of command. Carmelita 
 had been taught to cross herself when she passed 
 the Mission, or an inclosure for the dead, and 
 now with a quick involuntary motion, born of no 
 teaching*, she made a rapid sign on her forehead 
 as she stood in the presence of Nature s supremest 
 achievement. Breathless, awestruck, she ascended 
 the mountain trail through a long, dusky, wind 
 ing avenue of stately redwoods and fragrant pines. 
 The great unbending branches of trees that might 
 
52 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 have withstood all convulsions of Nature and 
 come down from a mammoth age, stretched out 
 like mighty arms, so high above that the tall 
 oaks crests scarce touched them, so thick that 
 they threw the road -beneath into the cold gloom 
 of a winter s twilight. Above the crowding sap 
 lings, which grew between the parent trees, Car- 
 melita could see the towering masses of moun 
 tains catching green patches of light from the un 
 seen sun. She rode past sudden chasms with 
 long shadows on their slopes, and by serpentine 
 ravines with their ever-dwelling dusk. The day 
 was hot beyond the forest, but so deep was the 
 shade beneath the interlacing branches that in 
 these depths spring waited for winter and summer 
 never came. It was wonderfully still, not a bird 
 sang. Once a deer rustled through the thicket, 
 but that was all. The sound died as quickly as 
 it had come, and it seemed as if nothing could 
 ever break that calm again. They are so tall, those 
 redwoods, so straight, so still, they suggest an ab 
 solute dominion over man and beast, awing them 
 into their own eternal repose. When storms howl 
 about them their trunks never bend, only their 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 53 
 
 topmost, slenderest branches creak one upon the 
 other in rhythmic protest against the element s 
 discontent. When fire rages through them it 
 eats out their hearts, but the charred trunks stand 
 forever, haughtily defiant. Sometimes there is a 
 wash-out on the mountain side and then the earth 
 gives way, the great, sturdy, deeply-striking roots 
 are left without a pebble to cling to, and the 
 mighty tree moves, groans, sways, and slides down 
 the mountain. But not far. Soon he overtakes 
 a brother whose roots are beyond the first force 
 of the moving earth, and, resting against him, he 
 thrusts his feet into the soil once more and re 
 mains in his oblique position for centuries to come. 
 Carmelita slid from her mustang and tethered 
 him to a sapling, then stood for a few moments 
 with her hands at her temples, her glance roving 
 about and above. Between the trees the earth 
 was thick with green and golden moss, yellow 
 violets, and clusters of lapis-lazuli-like beads the 
 seeds of some wild mountain lily close carpets of 
 sorrel, springing beneath the riotous brush and the 
 moveless tree-roof above. On one side of the trail, 
 sloping down into darkness, was a gorge of many 
 
54 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 platforms. Young redwoods flourished rankly in 
 it, fed by the rotting trunks of fallen pines. Be 
 low their bright green leaves, and amidst the fox 
 tails waving tufts, were beds of scarlet lilies sway 
 ing on slender stalks. Beyond, the creek murmured 
 an accompaniment to the vibrating calm. 
 
 Carmelita turned, almost mechanically, and 
 looked behind her. The forest spread down 
 down. The Rancho de los Cerritos was as if it 
 had never been. She sank on one knee and gazed 
 long at the grave, noble, colossal trees, with their 
 strange, insistent personality. Were they a race 
 of mighty, forgotten men, who once had ruled the 
 world and for great deeds been indured to trees 
 that they might stand forever? Carmelita, her 
 hand pressed against the earth, moved slowly 
 until her face was near the gray bark of one who 
 might have been the Emperor in this forest of 
 Kings. She raised her hands and slid them gen 
 tly up the trunk. For a moment she experienced 
 a sense of profound peace and content; the won 
 derful calm and strength of the tree seemed to 
 promise her everlasting protection and help. 
 Then, suddenly, a rapturous cry broke from her 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 55 
 
 and she flung herself headlong on the ground her 
 hand pressing itself convulsively against the tree. 
 
 " It lives ! it lives ! " she cried. " It lives and it 
 loves me! I no more am alone. No more! No 
 more ! no more ! " She sprang to her feet and 
 placing her two palms against the trunk pressed 
 her lips to the bark. " Some day thou wilt 
 speak to me, my lover! " she murmured in 
 her soft mother tongue. " Some day thy heart 
 will beat and I will hear it. Some day thy great 
 strong arms will bend down and clasp me to thee." 
 She pressed her face close to the tree. u I Jcnow 
 it lives," she whispered. "Almost, almost I feel 
 that what I wept for I have. Something has come 
 to my heart and my soul. The padre said I should 
 never find it, but he knew not of this forest where 
 trees are more real than the men of the farms 
 below. He knew not of the lover who has waited 
 for me here since the world began." She looked 
 up to the firm straight arms that spread above her. 
 " Some day I shall find my wings," she whispered. 
 
 And the redwood moved not, but towered 
 above her in grand, invincible strength and Car- 
 melita was content. 
 
56 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 The sun swept slowly to zenith and onward. 
 It reached the mountain, quivered for a brief 
 while in a bath of amber, then plunged to its rest. 
 But still Carmelita sat with her cheek pressed to 
 her redwood lover, murmuring to him of her 
 lonely life, of her mother s fate, of her loved and 
 murdered father, of her longings and desires. 
 Once, she left him for a moment to catch the sun s 
 farewell where the creek parted the forest. She 
 pushed her way through the fragrant under 
 growth and stood on the edge of a precipitous 
 bluff, overhanging the creek. On the low, oppo 
 site bank was a tangle of strange grasses, feathery 
 and slender, brilliant and dim, redwoods young 
 and delicate, massive and immeasurable, their 
 gray bark changed to silver in the sun s level rays. 
 Now the groves were dark and sombrous, noAv 
 light and quivering as the sunlight fell in patches 
 on the fallen trees. The polished, dusky green of 
 the elderberry trailed its broad shadows over the 
 waters, and the red lilies reared their flaunting 
 heads above the swarming ferns. In the tree tops 
 was a flood of golden ether; then the sun fled to 
 the ocean and twilight had come. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 57 
 
 "It is all mine," cried Carmelita exultingly. 
 Then she turned to her tree with arms out 
 stretched. "Thine and mine," she cried again, 
 " and no man can take them away." 
 
 That night she made no confidence to the priest. 
 If she had found a lover whose arms were com 
 pelling, her secret could not have been sweeter. 
 
58 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A DANGEKOUS SUITOE. 
 
 CARMELITA descended the ladder and running 
 up the path a few yards surveyed her work. It 
 was her uncle s birthday and she had decorated 
 the house in his honor. Secured by invisible 
 cords on the corners of the projecting roof were 
 huge yellow squashes, bright green gourds, 
 bunches of white corn in pale green sheaths and 
 waving silk. Festooned everywhere, were long 
 ropes of scarlet peppers. The willows behind the 
 house trailed over the dull red tiles of the roof, 
 the storm-painted walls made a rich background 
 for bunches of ferns and young limbs of oak, 
 which Carmelita had nailed here and there with 
 the hand of an unconscious artist. She loved 
 color with all the sensuous ardor of a nature, 
 steeped from birth in the riotous hues of the most 
 gloriously colored country two hemispheres can 
 show. She put her hands on her hips and turned 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 59 
 
 her head from side to side, a smile -on her mouth. 
 She was satisfied with her work and beckoned 
 to her uncle to come forth from the living room, 
 whence he had been relegated with orders to re 
 main until the picture was complete. 
 
 He came out with his pipe in his mouth and 
 looked at his transformed and glowing mansion 
 for a few moments, then turned and patted Car- 
 melita on the head. 
 
 " Muy bonita, muy bonita," he said approvingly, 
 although for the life of him he could not see why 
 it had not looked as well before. "Thou art a 
 good child to take so much troubles. Give to 
 me a kiss, chiquita." 
 
 Carmelita gave him a hearty kiss on his bearded 
 cheek. Her uncle was not very companionable, 
 but he was a kind and straight-forward soul and 
 she loved him. Suddenly she frowned and dropped 
 her arms. The willows on the bank had parted 
 and a man was coming toward them. Her first 
 impulse was to run into the house, but she changed 
 her mind and awaited his approach with a haughty 
 disdain calculated to crush boor or prince. 
 
 Carlos Castro was the one man on the Cerritos 
 
60 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Rancho for whom Carmelita had an active hatred. 
 An immense, hairy, muscular brute, he was the 
 greatest villain in three counties. Every year he 
 was arrested for horse stealing, but so popular 
 was he that his neighbors invariably swore him 
 out. His domineering temper and brute force, 
 added to a certain rude magnetism, born of his 
 enormous vitality, won from his comrades an 
 adoration little short of idolatry. Adjoining the 
 Cerritos Rancho were large tracts of land owned 
 by wealthy men for the purpose of cattle raising, 
 and on the largest of these Castro was vaquero in 
 chief. No one could fling the lasso with such a 
 wrist of flexile steel ; no one sweep the cattle more 
 quickly into bands. Every animal knew his 
 harsh, imperious shout and ran from him. Every 
 under- vaquero obeyed his lightest word as if he 
 were an arbiter of life and death. In consequence, 
 and in spite of his propensity for thieving, he 
 commanded high wages, and he spent his money 
 with a lavish hand. Another secret of his power 
 lay in his ability tv r f nploy his own vaqueros, and 
 he only chose the young men who were willing to 
 blindly follow his lead. Few of his associates 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 6l 
 
 preferred farming their father s small acres to gal 
 loping over level miles after wayward cattle, and 
 Castro s sceptre was rarely questioned. 
 
 Ever since Carmelita s childhood this man had 
 annoyed her with an open and persistent admira 
 tion. He began by following her home from her 
 daily lessons, and when the padre the only liv 
 ing man whom he respected had peremptorily 
 ordered him to desist, he had adopted Juan Espi- 
 noza as his boon companion. After that he was at 
 the house nearly every evening, but it is doubt 
 ful if he had ever exchanged two consecutive 
 sentences with Carmelita. She openly refused to 
 have anything to do with him, and her frank 
 abhorrence polished the point of his ardor. 
 
 He strode toward her, his small eyes glowing 
 with a dull fire like deeply seated lava that 
 awaits the moment of upheaval, his square, bony 
 face slowly reddening beneath the hair that grew 
 from eyes to throat, his great jaws working after 
 his habit when excited. As he reached the girl, 
 who now stood alone her uncle having returned 
 to the house, thankful that his duty was over 
 and received no response to his "How you?" his 
 
62 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 eyes involuntarily followed her own and rested 
 upon the fantastic result of her morning s work. 
 
 The blood, thick and hot, swelled to his face 
 and thundered in his ears. 
 
 " Whatte is that? " he cried in his hoarse, fierce 
 voice. " Why you maka that? You going to be 
 marry? now? to-day?" 
 
 Carmelita curled her lip, but made no reply. 
 She seemed absorbed in observing the irregular 
 festoons of her peppers. 
 
 " Why you no answerum? " demanded the man 
 in a tone which all the registers of his voice 
 seemed struggling to possess. " Why you no an 
 swerum? Telia me! Telia me! You going to be 
 marry? Whoheis t" 
 
 Carmelita glanced at him and for the first time 
 he moved her to a faint pity. Repulsive and 
 hideous as he was, it was evident that in his sav 
 age, furious way he was suffering. 
 
 " No," she said briefly, "I no go to marry. I 
 never marry " (emphatically), " and I wish you no 
 speak to me again. I hate you." And she walked 
 into her room at the end of the porch and shut 
 the door, bolting it loudly. 
 
 But after that she wore a knife at her belt. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 63 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF A TITAN. 
 
 A NEW life had: opened before Carmelita in 
 that midsummer day on the mountain. She no 
 longer rebelled against her narrow conditions or 
 dreamed of impossible futures. She could not 
 go to her forest every day, because her uncle s 
 right to the mustang had its weight, but once 
 a week she went, and resting her head against 
 her redwood lover talked to him until the length 
 ening shadows warned her that frijoles were sput 
 tering in the pan. She always sat with her ear 
 pressed close to the tree, and by-and-by she felt 
 whispered replies. There was nothing wooing or 
 tender in these messages ; they shaped themselves 
 to words of strength and courage only, but Car 
 melita asked no more. 
 
 Passionate as was the girl s nature, this love 
 satisfied her. In spite of her imperious woman 
 hood, her triumphant fancy, borne in loneliness, 
 
64 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 nurtured in ignorance, and the ideal witbin her, car 
 ried her disdainfully above the material plane of 
 the people with whom she lived. This imagination 
 heaped scorn upon the boors of her daily life; 
 Castro with his rude, primitive passion, made her 
 shrink unconsciously from what she had never 
 tried to understand, and the padre she did not 
 look upon as a man at all. Consequently the in 
 stinct of sex had never vibrated to a responding 
 chord. Her nature, restless as it was, rivalled the 
 mystery of the eternal redwoods, and it was easy 
 to persuade herself that beneath imagination no 
 life existed worth the having, that the love she 
 had found completed her being. Strangely enough 
 this love, perfect as it was in its way, never stung 
 the instinct of coquetry into life. She never 
 pinned on a flower that she might be> fairer in her 
 lover s sight, never gave a thought to the color 
 of her gown, nor to her developing beauty. 
 
 One day she was sitting with her head against 
 her tree delivering a long monologue to the army 
 of subjects who loomed respectfully above her. 
 She had named each of them. 
 
 "Antonio," she said, addressing in Spanish a 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 65 
 
 tree whose bark was peeling, " thy robe is getting 
 ragged; it is time thy Guadalupe wrought a ne\v 
 one for thee." She filing a pebble -at a tree of 
 lesser girth who stood beside her lord. "Why 
 dost thon not weave a new garment for thy hus 
 band, thou lazy one? If thou takest no more care 
 of his clothes than that, mi amante and I will 
 punish thee. Thou shalt have no more children ; 
 for soon even they Pepita, Roberto, Gloria and 
 Luis " indicating with as weep of her hand, the 
 modest saplings who stood betAveen the parent 
 trees, " will be naked and shivering when the cold 
 fog falls from the white fields above. Then! 
 Sefiora Guadalupe Ay! yi! yi! Dios de mi alma ! 
 What what is that? " 
 
 She sprang to her feet, shaking from head to 
 foot. A deep human groan, yet too mighty for 
 mortal throat, sounded through the forest. There 
 was one moment s awful silence, then came another 
 groan, deeper, louder, more anguished, more hope 
 less. It was as if the earth were parting in twain. 
 Then a tremendous crash awoke the echoes. For 
 a moment Carmelita stood, faint and sick, expect 
 ing to feel the mountain roc k beneath her feet. 
 5 
 
66 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Soon she realized that the earth was still, and 
 when neither groan nor crash again broke the 
 stillness, she knew that a tree had fallen. She 
 sprang rip the trail, following the invisible wave 
 which had brought her the sound. To her keen 
 ears the fainting note still spoke, and even in this 
 great, pathless, echoing forest she knew that she 
 would find the tree. She had a confused idea of 
 covering it with flowers and chanting a burial 
 service, for she felt as if a kindred life had gone 
 out. She almost sobbed aloud as she thought of 
 the mortal agony which had forced that iron heart 
 to give voice to despair and pain. 
 
 For a half -hour she pushed her way through 
 clinging lilacs and sharp-leaved elder, and once 
 she climbed a slender, red-barked madrono. But 
 no new-fallen tree met her gaze, and she sat on a 
 log to rest. In the stillness that followed the 
 crackling of parting branches she distinctly heard 
 men s voices. She was on her feet again at once, 
 shaking with anger. This forest was sacred to 
 her, and the voice of man was profanation. She 
 made her way as quickly as the brush would per 
 mit, and in a moment c-ame upon a small clearing. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 67 
 
 Three men sat about a redwood, just felled 
 Where the saw had cut through the tree s brave 
 body the close, red fibre looked like a great splash 
 of blood. The tree s head had fallen in the creek, 
 which, disturbed for a moment, now r gushed in 
 differently on its way. His rigid, mighty arms 
 seemed to have clutched the earth in his fall. 
 Stark, conquered, his a3ons of splendid calm 
 ended, he lay in his fall grander, more majestic 
 and supremer, than the broad-chested moun 
 taineers who had dared to drive their steel to 
 his heart. For a moment Carmelita stood, white 
 to the lips. Then, with a hoarse cry of rage, she 
 sprang forward and confronted the men. 
 
 "You no are shem! " she gasped, "you no are 
 shem to kill that tree? Oh! I wish somebody kill 
 you ! You think God make that tree for you to 
 kill? Oh Dios! I wish He opa the earth and 
 swallow you up." 
 
 The girl with her tangled, leaf -sown hair, her 
 blazing eyes, and raised, menacing arm, looked 
 like a Fury whom indignant Nature had tossed 
 from her caverns to avenge her wrongs. For a 
 moment the men stood dumfounded at the ap- 
 
68 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 parition ; then one of tliem shrugged his shoulders 
 and gave a short laugh. 
 
 " Huh ! it s that girl of Espinoza s. I seen her 
 once when I went to the Cerritos after my cow 
 that damned Castro had stolen. You mustn t feel 
 so bad," he added kindly to the girl. "We ve 
 only cut down a tree." 
 
 " Only cut down a tree ! " half sobbed, half 
 shrieked Carmelita. " Oh Dios." She turned sud 
 denly to the speaker. " They cut these trees, this 
 forest, all the times? " she demanded breathlessly. 
 
 " Oh no ! We ve only cut down this ere one to 
 make a bridge across the creek. There is a good 
 many quicksands along here, you see, and it s dan 
 gerous. It 11 be many a day before this forest falls, 
 miss. There be too many others nigh to Frisco." 
 
 "I hope I be dead before I ever see another 
 fc tree fall! " exclaimed Carmelita passionately. u I 
 know, I know these trees no were put here to be 
 cut down. They are like mens, and like mens no 
 should fall excep when their roots wither and 
 their sap dry." And folding her arms she turned 
 her back upon the puzzled mountaineers and 
 walked away. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 69 
 
 The path was steep, and when she reached the 
 top she sat down on the edge of the bluff and 
 sinking exhausted among the ferns cried herself 
 to sleep. An hour later she awakened with a 
 shiver; the ocean beyond the mountains was 
 sending forth its chilly fogs. 
 
 Carmelita moved to the edge of the bluff and 
 looked over. Two hundred feet below her, sheer 
 down a rocky precipice, was a garden of green, a 
 peninsula higher by several feet than the creek 
 that swept its base, and covered with a dense, 
 luxuriant growth of shrubs and trees. From its 
 nave rose a redwood. About his feet clung a 
 myriad saplings as if they would hold him fast 
 to earth ; but calm and inexorable the great tree 
 canopied them from his height, a hundred feet 
 and more above the ledge on which knelt Car 
 melita. Around the peninsula s base sang the 
 creek, tumbling over its rocks in tiny cascades, 
 and behind, towered the mountain, a solid wall 
 of redwoods. Over the mountain drifted the fog, 
 but, so thickly thronged the redwoods, their 
 aisles scarce were wide enough to welcome even 
 so shrinking a guest as an ocean mist. 
 
/O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Carmelita forgot pain and anger for the moment ; 
 then she lifted her clenched hand and shook it at 
 an imagined city s pigmy swarms. "Madre de 
 Dios," she prayed, " let the houses fall on the men 
 who build with the redwoods. When the earth 
 quake comes let it open and take down the boards 
 to look for their roots. And let the men go with 
 them and clutching at those roots, old as the 
 world, useless now forever, hang until judgment 
 day above the ball of fire the padre says is the 
 heart of the earth. May they roast there like 
 martyrs at the stake, and may their fingers grow 
 into the roots of the trees they cut, that they shall 
 fly through hell holding them always above their 
 heads." And having uttered her malediction 
 Carmelita remembered that she was hungry and 
 started for home. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 VTII. 
 
 A HERALD OF BAD TIDINGS. 
 
 SHE was riding slowly up one of the hills near 
 her uncle s farm when a horseman suddenly ap 
 peared on the brow. As Castro s rough head and 
 huge form stood outlined against the fading sky 
 Carmelita gave an exclamation of disgust and 
 half turned her horse s head. Then pride gave its 
 usual peremptory knock and she rode on, her 
 head turned haughtily aside. Castro rode directly 
 up to her, but no ardor was in his face to-day. 
 His coarse black brows pushed each other into a 
 level frown, and his face was purple with anger. 
 
 u I have the good newses for you," he shouted. 
 " You so good to me it is good I am the one to 
 tella you. A great 
 
 " Let me go by," said Carmelita, " I no want 
 hear your news." 
 
 But Castro caught her horse by its bridle, un 
 mindful that her hand went to her belt. " You 
 
72 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 go to hear me," lie said. "A great sefior buying 
 this rancho and we all have to going." 
 
 Carmelita s hand fell from her belt. "Como 
 dice? she faltered. "But no! That no can be. 
 The ranch is the government s before we take it, 
 and the government no sell." 
 
 "So we have think. Oh yes! But it no was 
 so ; some one he have a Spanish grant like with 
 the other ranches and a rich senor he buy from 
 him. But he no shall have," he yelled, lashing 
 his whip at the air. " He can say he have the 
 grant but he lie. He forging the grant, and si 
 he no did, the man who give to him have done it. 
 The ranchitas are ours ! ours ! and we keep si we 
 killing the man who take." 
 
 Forgetting Carmelita s presence for once, he 
 dropped her bridle and galloped down the hill to 
 his own hacienda, one of the largest and most pro 
 ductive on the ranch. Carmelita, her head whirl 
 ing, yet refusing to believe, rode rapidly over the 
 hill and across the dry bed of the river to her 
 home. Excitement reigned between those stolid 
 walls. Espinoza had returned from the Aguitas 
 but an hour before with the news. " But we go 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 73 
 
 to fighting," he cried to Carmelita as he recapitu 
 lated, the tale. " We putting our moneys together 
 that we maka this year and fighting si we no have 
 bread to eat. Hunter " (one of the " white squat" 
 ters ") " he going to San Francisco and finding the 
 lawyer ; and Clark he say he have more moneys 
 this year that he make on two hosses he sell to 
 the stage; and Castro, he give all whatte he have. 
 Oh! they no can take our ranchitas. They no 
 can take! " And Espinoza, the mildest and most 
 good-natured of men, stalked up and down the 
 room in a state of indignation which was a refine 
 ment of Castro s fury. 
 
 Little supper was eaten that night, and when it 
 was over Carmelita walked slowly down the road 
 to the padre s house. He had given her every 
 thing she had asked for; she did not doubt he 
 would solve the present difficulty. It was a chill 
 autumn night; a gray mist, like a wind-stirred 
 veil, covered Nature s every feature, and as Car 
 melita came suddenly upon the dark walls of the 
 Mission they loomed out of the fog, gigantic and 
 distorted. The mist clung to the padre s windows, 
 and she found him sitting by the fire in his study 
 
74 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 the same bare, cheerless room wherein she had 
 beshrewed and capitulated eight years ago. He 
 had not lighted the lamp, but the logs cast a ruddy 
 glow on the whiter patches of the walls. As Car- 
 melita entered he looked up with a grave smile. 
 
 She sat down beside him and took his hand. 
 " Tell me, padre mio, it no is true," she said. 
 
 " It is true, Carmelita, that this man, whoever 
 he may be, will try to take your homes. But it 
 remains to be seen if there is any justice in the 
 law. I cannot believe that this Alexander Tre- 
 maine has a grant; it is more than doubtful if one 
 ever was given ; but even so, the land reverted to 
 the government long ago, and it now belongs by 
 divine right to the men who get their bread out of 
 it. But this man, having gone so far as to claim 
 it, will fight to the death, and he has money to 
 help him to his end. But I believe that we shall 
 win. Not that right always triumphs in this 
 world, by any means, but because the case is so 
 palpably ours. The men have a little more money 
 than usual this year. I left a small property be 
 hind me and I shall sell it and use the money in 
 your cause. I will keep a little, for the children 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 75 
 
 may want bread, but you can have the rest; I 
 have no use for it." 
 
 " Padre mio ! Padre mio ! " said Carmelita, " you 
 are good like the saints." 
 
 "I shall never be a saint, Carmelita; " said the 
 priest with a sigh, "but occasionally a chance 
 comes wherewith to buy absolution for the regret 
 that still still lives, for the old life." 
 
 As was his habit, he had suddenly forgotten 
 Carmelita and was muttering to himself. The girl 
 put out her hand again and touched his. 
 
 "Padre mio," she said softly, curiosity again 
 awake, now that her fears were half allayed, 
 " Tell me what is life." 
 
 The padre gave a low, harsh laugh, his eyes still 
 fixed on the burning logs. 
 
 " Life, my dear, is a gray plain, whereon are mi 
 rages nothing more. The sky is gray with legions 
 of escaping souls; the ground is gray with the 
 ashes of their hopes, their ambitions, their desires. 
 Life is a panting and stumbling pursuit of what 
 on earth is not. It is a blind and volitionless 
 obedience to a prompting that bids us grasp and 
 hold to our hearts life s most dominant desire 
 
76 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 happiness. We spend our first years clutching 
 the air with eager fingers, our last, gazing at our 
 hollow palms. We dream our youth away; we 
 suddenly awaken and say, Behold what matters 
 whether our dreams harden to substance, or 
 whether, shapeless and ghostlike, they flit forever 
 in the realms of the ideal, since the end of all 
 things is Death. We kiss the lips that quiver 
 forever in our spirit s waves like imprisoned 
 sound, and picture them rolled back from glitter 
 ing teeth with six feet of earth above. And before 
 death comes, what have we found? A rotting 
 flower where we had sought an exquisite perfume ; 
 a torch-lit cavern where hope had whispered of 
 the sun s broad light. We tramp in a treadmill, 
 we are the blind servants of mighty Circumstance, 
 we cannot walk save as he listeth. All lives are 
 failures, and yet within each are the seeds of per 
 fect bliss. But the stones have been planted thicker 
 than the seeds, and no man is given a chance for 
 equal fight." He left his chair and strode rapidly 
 up and down the room. Carmelita followed with 
 horrified eyes the vibrating figure over which the 
 fire cast weird, dancing blades of light. "It is 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 77 
 
 only a fool who hugs his personal interest in life, 
 after life has taught him wisdom. It is only a 
 madman who prays that his wishes shall be 
 given him, his hopes fulfilled. We are com 
 pounded for some object, what, but One can tell. 
 With the ingredients which predominate in each 
 particular compound we work out our destinies 
 as verily as had each most pigmy act been writ in 
 some ponderous Book of Destiny. Every whis 
 per, every smile, every murderer s thrust, or 
 nation s downfall are but links in a chain, forg 
 ing and unalterably forged." His white face 
 thrown back against the room s thick shadows 
 looked, for the moment, bodiless as a virgin moon ; 
 then he raised his hand with a gesture almost of 
 imprecation.- " Of what use to pray that the chain 
 may be rent, * he cried wildly, "the sequence 
 broken, the world hurled to chaos in the halt of 
 inexorable law? What else do we mean when we 
 pray, pray for that which Circumstance, God s 
 chief steward, sees not n t to give us? The Al 
 mighty must laugh in our faces when we put up 
 our puny petitions for a grain of happiness out of 
 the bounty of his universe! " 
 
78 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " Padre mio ! Padre mio ! " gasped Carmelita, 
 as the priest s voice rang against the narrow walls. 
 
 Her tone and words recalled him to his senses, 
 and he went to her side and raised her to her 
 feet. " Forgive me, Carmelita," he said, and his 
 voice had become suddenly thin and lifeless. 
 " Sometimes I forget myself. The terrible mys 
 tery of life, the helpless, endless waiting for that 
 compensation we are all promised, they press too 
 heavily at times. Go now, and I will spend the 
 night in prayer and penance. We may not de 
 mand of God that he shall revolutionize our earthly 
 conditions, but at least we may cry for purification 
 and patience." 
 
 And Carmelita left the priest to a night whose 
 awful mysteries, her clear soul never imaged. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 79 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE COKDOVAS OF LINDAVISTA. 
 
 ALL night Carmelita lay awake thinking of the 
 huge cloud which had suddenly swung above the 
 horizon and now hung low over this peaceful 
 hamlet, ready to burst. It was her first actual 
 contact with the sterner ills of life. Occasionally 
 she had shuddered and crossed herself while lis 
 tening to a tale of murder done by some desperate, 
 passionate Mexican; and a few years before one 
 of the babies had died in her arms. But the 
 tragedies were tales at second hand, and there 
 were so many babies ! But this ! this ! Suppose, in 
 spite of the padre s hopeful words, it should be 
 true. Carmelita turned suddenly on her face and 
 pulled the blanket over her head. She dared 
 not formulate the consequences, but^ their very 
 flashing phantoms touched her veins with icy 
 fingers. And if they should not have money 
 enough to pay the law! She knew but little of 
 
80 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 tlie great legal skeleton \vliicli encases restive hu 
 manity, but slie had heard that its large maw had 
 a greedy expansion for gold. She sat up in bed 
 and put her hands to her head. If her father 
 were but alive ! For the moment, yearningly loved 
 as that dreamlike father had been, she thought 
 but of the gold that had gone with his life. If 
 she only had it now to help defeat this demon 
 who would steal their homes. But she was use 
 less as all women, save to cook and sweep; and 
 poorer than the birds without. She rocked to 
 and fro, dragging her hair about her face, biting 
 the strands in her perplexity. And suddenly a 
 thought was born in her brain. Adjoining the 
 Gerritos Kancho was the remnant of a great ranch 
 which had once belonged to a Mexican grandee in 
 those days when Spain ruled and the country s 
 gold was undisturbed. All that was left of Linda- 
 vista now was a solitary hill and the old adobe 
 house on its summit. Once that rambling old 
 mansion h^d been the scene of princely extrava 
 gance; beautiful almond-eyed women with man 
 tilla-draped heads and slender fans, swayed like 
 music by curving wrists, had danced the son in 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 8 1 
 
 the great sala, while gay caballeros rode, clanking, 
 into the court without. But to-day the house 
 was bare as that of the humblest squatter. Gone 
 were the laughing women and eager, hot-blooded 
 men, gone the rich stuffs of Spain, the golden 
 plate, the joy of life. A proud old woman and 
 her withered daughters lived alone, thankful for 
 beans on earthen plates. 
 
 Why, then, had Carmelita thought of these 
 people? What good could they do her? None, 
 a few weeks ago. But Carmelita remembered that 
 within the month, a strange woman, heavily veiled, 
 richly dressed, had come to the Aguitas by the 
 night stage and been driven directly to Lindavista. 
 A day later a large wagon-load of furniture had 
 followed her. Soon it was known that proud old 
 Senora Cordova had a boarder who would remain 
 for an indefinite time ; but what her name w r as no 
 one could discover, and as she was never seen, her 
 advent was quickly forgotten. 
 
 But Carmelita remembered her in this night of 
 her extremity. This woman, she felt sure, was 
 wealthy and must have sewing for poorer hands. 
 
 Carmelita could sew, that was her one accomplish- 
 6 
 
82 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 merit; many a dress had her deft fingers made for 
 the little ones. Once embarked on the sea of con 
 jecture it did not take her long to reach the shore. 
 She would go the next day and ask the stranger 
 to give her work. The lady would not refuse 
 when she heard her story. And comforted by her 
 unquestioning faith in human charity, she fell 
 asleep as dawn awoke the redwoods. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 83 
 
 X. 
 
 A NEW EXPERIENCE. 
 
 THE Cordovas house stood unsheltered on a 
 bare, brown hill. Every tree and stone had been 
 sold to keep the wretched family above the earth 
 which seemed to have so much more welcome for 
 them below. The large, one-storied adobe house 
 covered three sides of a patio wherein a fountain 
 lay buried beneath the nettles that had choked it 
 to death, and thistles flourished where palms had 
 been. A dingy, occasional patch of paler tint 
 than the rough earth walls was all that was left 
 of the gala-day whitewash, while behind was 
 not a superfluous article of furniture. And yet 
 the stern old dame who lived there never forgot 
 the splendor of her youth, never acknowledged 
 the poverty of the present. Each day, although 
 biting her lips perchance, to keep back a hungry 
 cry, she had her daughters array her in the decay 
 ing satins her husband had given her when his 
 
84 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 acres rolled to the mountain s feet. Each day she 
 left her bedroom and sat on a throne-like chair in 
 her cold, bare sala and forced her daughters to 
 serve her coarse bread and potato with the same 
 state as liveried servants had once set dishes of 
 gold before her. The youngest daughter, Lucia, 
 sometimes rebelled against this vain simulacrum 
 of state which had not even gilded her babyhood, 
 but the three elder women yielded their mother a 
 haughty, silent, hopeless servitude. 
 
 Carmelita had often heard of this singular 
 family but never seen them. It was therefore 
 with mingled trepidation and curiosity that she 
 knocked loudly upon the heavy door of the Cor 
 dova mansion. After she had pounded for ten 
 minutes the door was slowly unbolted and opened 
 the width of an inch. A tangled head and one 
 supercilious eye appeared at the aperture. For a 
 moment there was a steady interchange of glances, 
 and then the Senorita Lucia hospitably demanded, 
 " Who are you? What do you want? " 
 " I am Carmelita Murietta," replied our heroine, 
 who had it not in her nature to be daunted by 
 scorn; "the niece de Pedro Espinoza." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 85 
 
 The door receded a trifle and two eyes became 
 visible. Espinoza s name inspired confidence. 
 
 "And what do you want?" asked Lucia. 
 
 " I want see the senora who stay with you." 
 
 "But you cannot see her. She sees no one. 
 And why should she want to see you?" 
 
 " I must have sewing," said Carmelita bluntly. 
 "0 senorita, let me see her. They say we mus 
 leave our haciendas. A wicked man he buy the 
 rancho, and I mus make some of the moneys to 
 pay the lawyers." 
 
 Lucia had a kind heart beneath her rough and 
 soiled exterior, and her curiosity was also excited. 
 She now opened the door wide and revealed her 
 entire limp and bedraggled form. " Come in and 
 see madre," she said, " and if she says you can see 
 the senora I will take you to her." 
 
 She led the way through barren rooms, dark 
 and musty behind their thick wooden shutters, 
 and turning the angle of the house, threw open 
 the door of a large sala overlooking one side of 
 the court. The coarse cotton curtains were drawn 
 across the deep windows, but Carmelita s eyes 
 quickly accustomed themselves to the shadows, 
 
86 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 and she saw that a woman sat on a large chair at 
 the end of the desert-like room. 
 
 " Make a bow and kiss her hand," said Lucia, 
 nudging her guest, " or else she won t do anything 
 for you. And talk loud, for she is deaf." 
 
 Carmelita made a graceful if somewhat uncon 
 ventional bow when she stood before the august 
 presence and obediently kissed the large-veined, 
 stringy hand extended to her. The woman before 
 her was not less diverting than startling. Not 
 more than five feet, she must have weighed two 
 hundred pounds, and the crimson satin gown 
 which had been made in the days of her slim, 
 young matronhood, was pieced out here and there 
 with turkey-red calico, vainly ambushed by coarse 
 black net. Her grizzled hair was piled high, two 
 flat curls were plastered between ear and cheek 
 bone, and over all were draped the remnants of a 
 black mantilla. On the minutely wrinkled upper 
 lip and chin of her fat yet shrivelled face was a 
 silken and jetty growth which many a youth 
 might have envied. Her black eyes glittered in 
 yellow caves, and her back was straight from the 
 pressure of flesh in front. Her heavy, pleasure 
 
LOS CERRITOS. S/ 
 
 loving mouth was drawn in a taut bow that never 
 quivered, but the cheeks hung over the corners. 
 
 u Who is this girl? " she asked in Spanish of her 
 daughter; "and why do you admit strangers?" 
 
 "I could not help it; I felt so sorry for her," 
 called Lucia. " She will tell you herself." 
 
 Carmelita raised her voice, and its sweet yet 
 piercing tones carried straight to the old woman s 
 brain. When she had finished her story the 
 Sefiora Cordova bent her head several times in 
 slow succession, contempt on her mouth. 
 
 " That is the way of the world," she said. " The 
 rich take from the poor always. Else would they 
 not be rich. I, however, shall help you. You 
 shall have my silver plate and my pearls the 
 black set, Lucia and my Spanish point as well, 
 if need there be." This was said with an air so 
 majestic and so gracious that, involuntarily, Car- 
 melita s heart beat high with hope. "But the 
 things are locked in the great chests that stand in 
 the cellar, and I have mislaid the keys. Lucia 
 will look for them, and until they are found it 
 may be as well for you to speak with our guest. 
 She is kind and will give you something to make. 
 
88 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Doubtless she will be glad to hear of you, for my 
 daughters know naught of menial work." 
 
 "Madre de Dios," murmured her daughter, 
 " who does she think cooks her dinner and mends 
 her rags ? But come, Carmelita, and I will take 
 you to the senora. Kiss her hand again." 
 
 Carmelita bent over the withered hand, for 
 whose brown loveliness a doting man would once 
 have bartered all else that made life dear to him, 
 then followed Lucia out of the room. 
 
 " You are not to ask her name," said the young 
 est of the Cordovas, as they walked down the 
 verandah which separated the court from the 
 house, and paused at a door in the wing opposite 
 the sala. " We do not know it ourselves. She 
 wished to remain several months and would pay 
 well. We were only too glad to have her. Madre 
 calls her our guest, but she knows well why there 
 is meat on the table. The seliora has nothing to 
 say, but she is no trouble and looks as if she had 
 a kind heart, I am sure she will give you 
 work mending at least." 
 
 She knocked lightly, but there was no answer. 
 " Perhaps she is praying," said Lucia, " She never 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 89 
 
 goes to the Mission, but she prays a great deal 
 and has a beautiful prie-dien, carved all over." 
 
 She pushed the door open noiselessly, and as 
 Carmelita followed her into the room she drew a 
 quick breath of pleasure. Darkened as the large 
 apartment was, its luxury was unmistakable. A 
 thick rug covered the stone floor, and soft, heavy 
 stuffs hung from brass rods against the walls. 
 The deep window seats were soft Avith silken 
 cushions and shaded with delicate lace. Beneath 
 them was a broad divan, and in the middle of the 
 room a carved table was covered with books and 
 magazines. Great brass andirons upheld the logs 
 in the cavernous fireplace and the flames whirled 
 about their heads like lightning around fusing 
 stars. The tints of the room were subdued, almost 
 sad, but Carmelita felt for the first time in her 
 life a delicious sense of coziness and comfort. 
 Through parting curtains she saw a carved oaken 
 bed, covered and hung with a material that looked 
 like the moss which clung to the stout oak s trunk. 
 
 But where was the woman whose magic had 
 transformed an ugly old adobe room into a nest 
 rich as, the wild lily beds of the forest in summer 
 
90 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 time? Lucia nudged with her active elbow and 
 laid her finger on her lips. Carmelita followed 
 her jerking eyebrows, then crossed her hands. 
 
 In a corner of the room, beneath a heavy ivory 
 crucifix was a prie-dieu, and on its cushion knelt 
 a woman, her head bowed low on her folded arms. 
 Carmelita could distinguish the slender outline of 
 a black-robed figure, a mass of golden hair which, 
 swept the floor, and a little hand that hung, white 
 and slender, over the dark edge of the prie-dieu. 
 She felt an ardent desire to see the face of this 
 mysterious woman; she was sure that it would be 
 unlike anything which had ever entered her life s 
 narrow circle. 
 
 Whether the woman had finished her prayers 
 or whether she felt the presence of others in the 
 room, she rose in a moment and confronted her 
 visitors. And verily she might have dropped from 
 another planet, so unlike was she to any one who 
 had ever crossed this valley of San Ysidro. The 
 face, white as an ocean s mist, was crossed at the 
 mouth with a line of red, but no blood pulsed in 
 the thin cheeks. She had the green eyes of Cali 
 fornia the limpid, translucent green of cryso- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 9! 
 
 prase, and the Telling laslies were brown and 
 soft. She might move amidst the graves of thirty- 
 five buried years ; unf aded and unlined as was her 
 face it was fixed with the seal of life exhausted. 
 But -with those carven features, and that graceful, 
 haughty poise of head she would be beautiful long 
 after her white skin had yellowed and her red 
 mouth bleached. 
 
 Her brow, calmed by prayer, was drawn with 
 a slight frown as she saw the intruders. 
 
 " What is it? " she asked coldly. 
 
 Lucia took her companion s hand and drew her 
 forward. " This is Carmelita Marietta," she said. 
 "Her father was the famous bandit Joaquin 
 Marietta, you know. She lives Avith her uncle, 
 Pedro Espinoza, the most honest man in the val 
 ley. She has come here to see you, sehora. Car 
 melita, you will tell the seiiora what you want, 
 yourself, no? I must go now and cook the dinner 
 for the queen and the guest. It is my turn. 
 Adios." And she went out and left Carmelita to 
 explain her errand. 
 
 The lady s face softened as she watched the 
 beautiful appealing eyes of her unceremonious 
 
92 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 visitor. The girl interested her at once and she 
 was disposed to be generous before her sympathies 
 were demanded. She took Carmelita s hand and 
 led her to the divan. 
 
 " Sit down," she said. " I am glad you came 
 to me. Tell me what I can do for you." 
 
 " Let me touch your hair ! " exclaimed Carmelita. 
 
 The lady smiled and bent her head while Car 
 melita knelt beside her and plunged her hands 
 into the soft masses. " Is it real gold? " she whis 
 pered ecstatically. 
 
 "Do you like it? It is not half so beautiful as 
 those great black braids of your own." 
 
 The girl shook her dusky head disdainfully. 
 
 " Everybody have black hair; but this is like the 
 ice-grass in October, like the maiden-hair when 
 the sun have burnt it, like the ripe corn silk, and 
 like the yellow violets in the forest! " She stood 
 up and shook the glittering waves all over the 
 black -gowned figure, then twisted them into a 
 hard, shining rope. The woman almost laughed 
 aloud ; the girl was so unconscious of taking any 
 liberty; of the word caste she had never heard. 
 
 "It is the hair of California," she said indul- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 93 
 
 gently. " The sun married her one night and we 
 are the result. But do you mean to say that you 
 have never seen light hair before? " 
 
 " I see white hair," said Carmelita, dropping her 
 rope with a sigh and watching it spring vibrantly 
 to its separate threads. "The childrens of the 
 white squatters they have stuff like wool, but we 
 no see hair like this by the San Ysidro River 
 before never never. 
 
 She sank down at the woman s feet and looked 
 up into the strange, green eyes, bending over her. 
 They looked as if the lires of earth were frozen in 
 their calm, cold depths. 
 
 "I forget that I come to see you for another 
 thing," she said hesitatingly. 
 
 "What is it?" asked the lady absently. She 
 was looking at her with the pleasure derived from 
 a keen artistic sense. Carmelita, as usual, had on a 
 red cotton blouse, open at the throat, and a brown 
 cotton skirt that did not reach her bare, little 
 ankles. Her feet, which had never known a shoe, 
 were dusty and rough, but slender and well-shaped. 
 The thick, blue-black braids lying on the floor, 
 grew from her forehead in a waving line, and there 
 
94 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 was a delightful harmony about the backward 
 sweep of her hair and eyebrow and upper lip. 
 
 " You must have wanted something very much 
 to come all this distance to see me," the woman 
 continued after a moment. "You may be sure 
 that I will do anything for you that I can." 
 
 "O senora," exclaimed Carmelita, now fully 
 recalled to a sense of her wrongs. " They go to 
 put us out of our housses." 
 
 " Who? What do you mean? " 
 
 "A man who say he buy the Rancho de los 
 Cerritos. He say it was a Spanish grant. It no 
 was, senora. We take from the government and 
 it is ours. That is the law." 
 
 " But are you sure, my dear? It may be only a 
 rumor a mistake, you know." 
 
 " I only know what everybody they say, and 
 the padre he hear it too. But we go to fight, 
 senora. Hunter he go to San Francisco and pay 
 a lawyer. We all give all our moneys, and it is 
 for that, seuora, I come. I must make some 
 moneys, too, tp help. I no know how till I think 
 of you, and then I think, perhaps you give me 
 some work. I sewing very well, senora." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 95 
 
 " I will give you sewing, certainly. Sometimes 
 I sew, myself, and I brought some fine linen with, 
 me to make into underclothes. But I am in no 
 mood for sewing ; reading distracts me more ; and 
 you shall make the things. No, do not thank me 
 I am very glad to have some one to do the work. 
 But I want them made like one I have." She 
 went into the next room and returned with a deli 
 cate chemise, tucked by hand, its pattern almost 
 lost in a bewildering maze of lace and ribbon. " I 
 like this better than any I have, I think." 
 
 Poor Carmelita ! Her hopes had suddenly van 
 ished, like a mirage too closely approached. Her 
 rough fingers could never fashion that tender, in 
 tricate thing ; no needle had ever been made which 
 would not tear it with every puncture ! 
 
 " I no can do it ! " she almost sobbed. 
 
 "So I thought," said the lady; "but you can 
 easily learn. Instead of taking the stuff home 
 you can come here every day and I will soon 
 teach you how to cut and sew them. They are 
 the simplest things in the world when you know 
 how. And I shall enjoy teaching you." 
 
 "You think I can?" said Carmelita, drying her 
 
96 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 eyes. u Perhaps. The padre he say I can do it 
 all what I want." 
 
 The woman folded the garment and laid it on 
 the divan beside her. " Have you a good padre 
 here?" she asked. 
 
 Carmelita s eyes flashed with enthusiastic fire. 
 Her hostess had touched a responsive chord. 
 " There no is another padre in the world so good," 
 she cried, " I love him and he love me. He teach 
 me all I know." 
 
 Was it imagination, or did those cool, green 
 eyes suddenly unlock their prisoned fires? Car- 
 melita winked her own rapidly ; she felt as if they 
 were being scorched. Then a curtain dipped in 
 ice-water seemed to wave suddenly between her 
 and this woman. The voice that answered was 
 colder still. "Yes? You love the padre and the 
 padre loves you?" 
 
 " Dio mio! " thought the girl. " I do something 
 no right. What it can be?" But she answered 
 out of the straightforwardness of her nature. 
 
 " Yes, we love each other very much, senora. Si 
 he was my own father I no could love him more; 
 and he love me because he no have other in the 
 
LOS CERR1TOS. 97 
 
 world to love. And lie no is happy, sefiora. 
 I know that. He come from the worjd, the great 
 cities far off, and something terreeblay happen to 
 him there. I know! But I wish I know what. 
 But he treat me always like the child. He love 
 me, but I am only the little girl he teach and pro- 
 tec. When I try to go near, it is like a great 
 adobe wall jump up before him." 
 
 The woman s eyes had recalled their fires, and 
 were soft and dreamy. She bent over Carmelita, 
 her firm mouth trembling. " But you must have 
 given him much comfort," she whispered. " I shall 
 love you for that I love those who help others; 
 they are so few ; and I feel sure that you can give 
 me comfort also." 
 
 The icy curtain had lifted and vanished in 
 vapor. Carmelita put up her hand impulsively 
 and took that of the woman. " I love you," she 
 said. "Will you let me kiss you sometimes? 
 The padre never will." 
 
 The woman swept her lithe body downward and 
 taking the girl s warm eager face between her 
 little, strong hands, kissed her on cheek and brow. 
 
98 LOS CERRITOS, 
 
 XL 
 
 A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE. 
 
 THE next morning Carmelita went again to 
 Linda vista and took her first lesson in fine sewing. 
 The lesson was the hardest of her life, but she 
 was sustained by the glory of her cause, and she 
 liked her teacher. Hunter started the same day 
 for San Francisco, and the seiiora told Carmelita 
 that if he returned with the word that a fight was 
 inevitable, she should have the price of her work 
 on a dozen garments at once. 
 
 " There is only one thing I exact in return," she 
 said. " You must not describe me or my rooms 
 to any one. I have come here to get away from 
 the world and I do not wish to be annoyed by 
 curiosity and visitors." 
 
 "Can I no tell the padre?" asked Carmelita 
 coaxingly. " I like tell him." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But he no would noy you, senora mia." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 99 
 
 u It is my wish, Carmelita. Will you respect it? " 
 " Si, si," said the girl, ready to promise any 
 thing. " I no tell any one." She pricked her fin 
 ger at this juncture, and for a few moments her 
 mind did not rise above linen cambric. Suddenly 
 she looked up with a flash of anticipation leaping 
 from the depths of her eyes. 
 
 " Senora," she said eagerly, " you come from the 
 world, no? Tell me of it. The padre he no will 
 tell me nothing. What is a city? What are like 
 the people who are there? Oh, tell me, senora. 
 I no know nothing at all." 
 
 " Hajrpy you are that you do not. I wish my 
 story were as short as yours." 
 
 " But tell me, senora. Tell me ! Tell me ! " 
 The lady, diverted by the girl s impetuosity, 
 and willing to amuse and astonish her, filled the 
 morning hours with a vivid and detailed account 
 of a great city s many phases. Of its vice and its 
 crimes she barely hinted; there was no need to 
 spoil the picture ; but she told of the gay round 
 of fashionable society, of the splendid palaces rich 
 men built, and the lavish entertainments held 
 therein ; of the theatre, the opera, the wonders of 
 
IOO LOS CERRITOS, 
 
 the human voice, and of the marvellous sounds 
 that men had learned to draw from brass and wood. 
 She described the busy streets with their gay 
 shops, their varied carriages, their richly dressed 
 throngs of strong men and handsome women. She 
 pictured the great markets stacked with delica 
 cies whose names carried no meaning through 
 Carmelita s thrilling ears ; the hotels where whole 
 families lived suspended in air; the libraries, the 
 art galleries, and the luxurious restaurants. Her 
 audience made no pretence to go on with her 
 work. She sat with rigid fingers locked and eyes 
 expanding. She was bewildered, fascinated, half 
 disposed to doubt, yet responding with the instinct 
 of civilization her mother had given her. The 
 lecturer was made to recapitulate her descriptions 
 again and again. Suddenly an angry gleam shot 
 through Carmelita s eyes. 
 
 "And the Sefior Tremaine," she interrupted; 
 " what kind of a house he have? " 
 
 The senora looked at her in surprise. " What 
 do you know of him? " she asked. 
 
 " He is the man who go to take our haciendas 
 who buy the rancho," exclaimed Carmelita fiercely. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. IOI 
 
 "Alexander Tremaine! I know him slightly, 
 but I don t like his wife. So he is the man to 
 whom I am indebted for my little seamstress. It 
 is amusing to watch the links of a chain." 
 
 " Tell me what kind of a house he have," said 
 Carmelita, who was a philosopher in her own way, 
 but not given to abstract reasoning. 
 
 u One of the finest in San Francisco. In fact I 
 know of nothing that surpasses it. With the 
 grounds it covers nearly a block and he has proba 
 bly spent two million dollars on it. The picture 
 gallery is one of the finest in America; .certainly 
 there is nothing on this coast to compare with it. 
 He is one of the richest men in California must 
 be worth $15,000,000 at least. His wife has great 
 taste and has been abroad many times. I do not 
 like her, but I must admit that she has furnished 
 one of the most exquisite houses I have seen 
 in America." 
 
 " How he make all that money ? " demanded 
 Carmelita. "He work on the farms? or he pan 
 the gold out the creek like the Chinamens ? " 
 
 " Oh, he did not make it at all. His father left 
 it to him." 
 
102 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " And how his father make ? " 
 
 "Really, my dear oh yes I believe he 
 bought large varas of land in San Francisco in 
 early days, and they increased wonderfully in 
 value. Tremaine also owns a whole country town 
 somewhere. His rents are enormous." 
 
 "And this man," gasped Carmelita, her face 
 blazing with rage " this man who have cities and 
 towns and have a house big like an acre, and a 
 mountain of gold, this man go to take from us 
 our little farms? Oh! he no can do it! The law 
 no letting him. He is thief, murderer for the 
 children they starve. senora! It no can be! 
 How he is so cruelle." 
 
 The lady was puzzled how to reply. Her sym 
 pathies were with poverty and suffering always; 
 but a man surely had a right to buy what land he 
 chose if he found the title clear. 
 
 " My dear girl, I hope you will win your suit," 
 she said; "but if you lose, Tremaine will not be a 
 villain if he takes what the law gives him. You 
 see he will not get this ranch for nothing ; he will 
 pay one or two hundred thousand dollars for it, 
 at the very least. And if he pays, he surely has a 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 103 
 
 right to the land. Cannot you move to some place 
 near here some other ranch? " 
 
 " There no is more Government land for forty 
 miles, cept the redwood mountains, and we no 
 can farm in them," said Carmelita sullenly. " All 
 all the ranchos are own by three or four rich 
 mens who raise wheat or cattle to sell, for they no 
 can use. You say we all are make alike, senora. 
 You who are white and beautiful are make like 
 me with my broxvn skin and my rough feet. Si 
 we all are make alike, God intend we all have 
 alike. We no pay Him, for the land is His. 
 Why then we pay the mens, or the mens pay and 
 take from us? You no pay for your hair and 
 skin, senora. Why you pay for the land that 
 make the food to keep you alive ? " 
 
 " My dear child," cried the lady with a laugh, 
 " I cannot reason with you. I do not think I 
 should be pleased if all men were alike. Where 
 would be the excitement of life, the power, the 
 pride of birth? Caste fascinates its favorites, my 
 child. I have no desire to do my own washing or 
 live in a hut exactly like my neighbor s. But let 
 us talk of something else. Tell me about your- 
 
104 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 self your history, your life. I want to know 
 all about you. Lucia said that you were the 
 daughter of Joaquin Murietta. Tell me the whole 
 story. I long to hear a real romance." 
 
 "I hate the Sefior don Alejandro Tremaine!" 
 said Carmelita through her teeth. 
 
 " Come, come, think no more about him. I am 
 sure you will win the day." And by degrees she 
 succeeded in diverting Carmelita s mind, and drew 
 from her all there was to tell. She was deeply 
 interested and gratified to learn that the girl had 
 gentle blood in her veins. That accounted for the 
 indulgence and sympathy she had felt from the 
 first. Carmelita, after much hesitation, confided her 
 own romance, with its unique but steadfast hero. 
 The subtle pleasure of woman s friendship, known 
 for the first time, thawed her natural reserve ; she 
 succumbed to its potent and historic influence 
 and told the tale of that mountain betrothal. 
 
 The woman listened with an amazement which 
 had in it the pungent flavor of a new sensation. 
 " Carmelita ! " she exclaimed when the girl had 
 concluded, "do you mean to tell me that such a 
 love as that satisfies you? " 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 105 
 
 " Yes," said Carmelita calmly. " Is lie no strong 
 and beautiful and grand? and will he no love me 
 when all mens are rotted in their graves? I stand 
 under his arms when the rain pour down and it no 
 touch me. I get behind him when the cold wind 
 fly through the forest and I no feel it at all. He 
 take care me alway. I tell him all my troubles and 
 he whisper to me and I no mind. I kissing him 
 and I feel sad and lonely no more." 
 
 The woman, whose very memory of love still 
 shook her in the night s ]ong hours, made no 
 further attempt to analyze this girl s simple yet 
 unaccountable nature. There was nothing to do 
 but take her as she was, and enjoy the novelty of 
 the experience. When Carmelita rose to go she 
 held her hand for a moment. 
 
 "I wish you to call me by my name Geral- 
 dine," she said. " Who knows? my mother may 
 have known your own; she lived in Santa Bar 
 bara at one time." 
 
 This was drawing the line of imagination pretty 
 tight, but it pleased Carmelita. She threw both 
 arms around her new friend, and kissed her on 
 either cheek. " Geraldina Geraldinita," she said. 
 
106 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 "Iliketho name. I like much better call you 
 that than SeTiora. And next to my tree and the 
 padre, I like you better than any one in the 
 woild I have ever know." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. IO/ 
 
 XII 
 
 A WEARY YEAK. 
 
 HUNTER returned at the end of two weeks with 
 confirmation of every fear. Alexander Tremaine 
 claimed to possess a deed and grant without flaws 
 and would fight the squatters straight over the 
 boundary line of the Cerritos Rancho. Hunter 
 had placed the squatters case in the hands of as 
 able a lawyer as they could afford to pay. When, 
 therefore, a few days later the notice came to quit 
 they paid no attention; and the lawsuit which 
 lasted throughout the following year became one 
 of the most celebrated in the annals of the State. 
 The San Franciscans who read its details over 
 their morning coffee had that vague, picturesque 
 idea of the belligerent squatters natural to the 
 city-bred man who regards the country as having 
 been made for shooting and fishing purposes alone. 
 For one who has passed the greater part of his 
 life in San Francisco it is particularly hard to 
 
108 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 grasp the meaning of the word poverty in its most 
 significent sense. There is so little there. One 
 never sees a barefooted newsboy, and rarely hears 
 of death from want of bread. The city is too 
 young for tenement houses and swarming alleys. 
 That actual starvation should menace any band 
 of people so wise as to have pitched their tents on 
 California s rich abundant soil was a deduction 
 which never presented itself to the average mind ; 
 the squatters would have to move on and camp 
 elsewhere, that was all. 
 
 But that was a bitter year on the Cerritos. 
 Hope leaped or flickered, only to die again and 
 again. The farmers saw their little hoards slowly 
 diminishing, the padre gave all his store, even 
 Geraldine contributed much of her small income ; 
 but she could not touch her principal and the de 
 mands upon her were many. She had been rich 
 once, she told Carmelita, but trustees had mis 
 managed and she had little now. The year was 
 not a profitable one and it began to look as if the 
 scale must soon balance between lawyers fees and 
 bread for the children. At the Aguitas, good- 
 natured faces no longer gathered about the bar or 
 
LOS CERRITOS. IOQ 
 
 fire to discuss the affairs of neighboring ranches. 
 Occasionally the men met, but their faces were 
 sullen or sad, according to their natures, and the 
 black hopelessness of the future turned their in 
 frequent dram to wormwood. The faculty of 
 representativeness may not burn brightly in the 
 brain of the goundling, but there are few so men 
 tally clipped that they cannot while grappling 
 with ruin anticipate the hungry wails of their 
 children and the despair of their wives. 
 
 During the months when the incessant rain kept 
 her from the mountain, Carmelita divided her 
 time between Geraldine and the padre. She was 
 too restless to remain alone, and at home they did 
 not need her. Above her terror of the future 
 towered the sense of wrong, dwarfing it as might 
 an oak a shrub. She hated the man who had be 
 come the arbiter of this settlement s destiny as she 
 would have hated some strange, poisonous weed 
 which had suddenly appeared in the forest to 
 strife her redwoods to death. She brooded over 
 the picture Geraldine had painted of his wealth 
 and magnificence until it stood as vividly within 
 her mental camera as if her actual vision had 
 
110 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 aclied before it. For the first time she began to 
 feel some regard for Castro. Had it been possible, 
 the ferocious young giant s hatred for the usurper 
 was deeper and more deadly than hers. As he 
 strode up and down the Espinozas living-room 
 working and crunching his enormous jaws as if 
 his arch-enemy were between them and fighting 
 the air with his hairy iron fists Carmelita re 
 spected and almost liked him, despite the repug 
 nance which made her very flesh shrink when, 
 encouraged by a sympathetic flash in her eyes, he 
 approached too near. But those few approving 
 glances annihilated all memory of disdain, and 
 side by side with Castro s hatred the fierce love 
 grew and flourished. Castro being the acknowl 
 edged leader of the squatters it was understood 
 that if the law went against them his judgment 
 should shape their course. The case was decided 
 for Tremame during the winter, but the squatters 
 were prepared for this and appealed immediately 
 to the Supreme Court. The result was awaited 
 with a torturing anxiety which paralyzed their 
 energies, and Carmelita grew to believe that every 
 misery of life had drifted to her corner of the 
 
LOS CERRITOS. lit 
 
 world and dwelt in the heavy clouds which hung 
 all winter above the Cerritos Eanch. The sullen 
 boom of the river seemed ever muttering the tid 
 ings of woe, and the lamenting wind that flew 
 past the adobe walls came straight from the heart 
 of Nature, breaking for her children. Never had 
 the rain fallen so ceaselessly. The crops were 
 almost swamped, and the river s boom rose to 
 thunder, threatening to leap above its banks and 
 snatch this people s fate from the hands -of Alex 
 ander Tremaine. 
 
 For three months Carmelita had not been to her 
 forest; she dared not trust the roads with their 
 treacherous bogs. An innocent puddle might be 
 as hungry as a quicksand, and more than one cow 
 wandered forth that winter never to return. 
 Geraldine thought it best not to lend her novels, 
 but she diverted her mind through long hours 
 with the romantic episodes of history and Car 
 melita promptly renamed all her redwoods after 
 the heroes of antiquity. Geraldine could talk with 
 a certain picturesque swiftness when she chose, 
 and her ardent young admirer often forgot the 
 future and fled at her bidding into the past. 
 
112 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 When spring came the sun marshalled the 
 clouds into battalions and routed them from the 
 field, the river sank, and slowly the earth dried. 
 But the wind was sharp and the squatters shiv 
 ered around their wet logs. Within their bodies 
 the fires were feebler yet, for food was becoming 
 scarce and more scarce and the rags on the backs 
 of the women and children were scanty and thin. 
 
 "Even si we win," thought Carmelita, as she 
 crouched by the hearth one day, " we no will have 
 nothing left but a roof to our heads. The chil- 
 drens go to die now and we no will have one cents 
 left to buy good food and make them like they 
 are a year ago. Ah! los pobrecitos, they are so 
 pretty and so gay before." 
 
 She went suddenly out of the door; it was 
 misery, in her helplessness, to watch them. The 
 snow on the mountains filled the air with unseen 
 icicles ; but she was unusually robust and as she 
 ran down the road the blood warmed in her veins. 
 The sparkling atmosphere seemed vibrant with 
 life. It touched her nerves with electric thrill. 
 She threw back her head and inhaled deep 
 draughts and for the moment reeled as if a golden 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 113 
 
 pungent liquor had fired her throat. Nature was 
 awake and dominant once more. Already she 
 was standing before a great mirror below smiling 
 at her radiant face while handmaidens girded 
 her loins with the flowered robe and laid the man 
 tle of green on her shoulders. In the radiating 
 galleries the flowers yawned in their cells and 
 awoke, then sprang eagerly to the golden chests 
 and danced into their gala gowns. The soul-birds 
 choired memoirs of amorous springs, and Nature 
 sighed in her fair triumphant isolation. 
 
 When Carmelita reached the Mission, she went 
 within and said a prayer, then sought the padre. 
 He was not in his house, and she wandered back 
 to the Mission and strayed through the cells and 
 cloisters. In one room was* a chest of battered 
 saints, the nearest approach to dolls she had ever 
 known. Many an hour she had spent with them 
 in her childhood, and she had a fancy to look at 
 them once more. She took out the poor old saints 
 and stood them on end and told them the legends 
 of their nativity. But the cloisters had cast their 
 shadows over her, the farce was a hollow one, and 
 she soon re-buried the saints decent! v in their 
 
114 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 sepulchre and dropped the lid above them. Then 
 she rummaged through another chest. She re 
 membered that she had once found some curious 
 old picture books whose glaring colors had in 
 spired her with a firm and lasting contempt for the 
 simulator of Nature. Among the mass of rub 
 bish a bit of blue paper suddenly caught her eye, 
 and she took it to the window, the better to de 
 cipher the faded words, written in Spanish. 
 
 " This is to certify that Juan Arguello, son of 
 Jose Maria and Carlotta Arguello, was this day 
 baptized in the Mission of San Ysidro, in the 
 coasts of California. June the 8th, 1780. 
 
 "FRANCIS JUNIPERO SERRA." 
 
 Unbooked as Carmelita was in the minor results 
 of civilization, instinct told her that this bit of old 
 paper, signed by a famous name, had its value 
 and her heart throbbed with hope. She might be 
 able to sell it and buy clothes for the children. 
 At all events she would consult the padre. 
 
 She thrust it into her blouse and rambling 
 through the church once more passed out on to the 
 wide porch with its sunken Hoor and tumbling pil- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. II 5 
 
 lars. She stood for a moment shading her eyes 
 with her hand. Not a house could be seen. The 
 broad expanse of land, green with the recent com 
 ing of spring and sparkling with bright, awakening 
 eyes, undulated away like an arrested sea to the 
 distant snow-touched blue-veiled mountains. Car- 
 melita locked her hands above her eyes with a 
 quick angry sob. It was all so beautiful and 
 peaceful. How could Nature open her chests and 
 don her jewels and flaunting robes and smile 
 and smirk at her reflection in the stars above 
 when she had denied her children food? For a 
 moment Carmelita almost hated that capricious 
 incomprehensible empress of all men s destiny. 
 
 She dropped her hands with an impatient move 
 ment of her head and took the certificate from 
 her bosom. Did gold lie behind that bit of paper? 
 If the padre thought so she would have her uncle 
 give it to the stage driver to sell in the nearest 
 town. An inarticulate murmuring caught her ear 
 and she lifted her head, recognizing the so and. 
 On the edge of the porch in the shadow of one of 
 the pillars couched an object which tradition said 
 was once a man. A shrunken form shaking with 
 
Il6 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 the hideous palsy of senile age; bleached well- 
 nigh sightless eye-balls wandering vacantly in their 
 reddened caverns ; scattered strands of lank white 
 hair falling grimily over parchment-like skin, 
 scorched arid furrowed and beaten with the suns 
 and storms of more than a century. And yet he 
 had his fame ! He had helped lay the corner stone 
 of the decaying Mission which forged his one con 
 necting link with a forgotten past and he had 
 never been off the Cerritos Rancho ! As the evening 
 wind fluttered the blue paper between Carmelita s 
 fingers he made a feeble lunge at it, his toothless 
 gums working voraciously, a faint leer overspread 
 ing his ghostly features. All other senses mouldy 
 with the decay of generations, appetite reigned 
 alone, and the one impulse left in the pulp of what 
 had been his brain was to eat whatever fell within 
 the range of the pale night lamps of his vision. 
 
 Carmelita put the paper in her dress again. 
 " No, no, you no can have," she said to the old In 
 dian. "But come to the house of the padre. 
 Perhaps I find some frijoles in the pot." 
 
 The words were given to the wdnd, for he had 
 forgotten the sounds of the world before her 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 1 1/ 
 
 tongue had learned its use, but they were accom 
 panied by a gesture he understood, and he dragged 
 himself up by the pillar and tottered after her. 
 
 As she turned the corner of the Mission, she 
 came suddenly upon the padre. He had oldened 
 more during the past year than in all the preced 
 ing nine, but Carmelita had never seen him look 
 as he looked to-day. She threw out her hands as 
 if warding off a blow, then covering her eyes 
 cowered before him. 
 
 " It is all over," he said. " The Supreme Court 
 has decided for Tremaine. The rich man has con 
 quered and you must go." 
 
 He passed her and went into the Mission, and 
 Carmelita, obeying a blind instinct, flew down the 
 road to her home. But not to the house. She 
 ran to the corral and bridling the mustang sprang 
 on its back and sped to the mountain. On and 
 on she dashed, over hill and field, forgetful of bogs, 
 regardless of angry cattle, iintil the mountain rose 
 above her. Up the soft trail she toiled, until, 
 taking pity on the panting protesting mustang, 
 she sprang to the ground and finished the journey 
 on foot, pulling herself upward by the chaparral 
 
Il8 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 and young trees until at last she stood beneath 
 her Redwood. With a cry that rang through 
 those winter-hushed aisles she sprang forward 
 and flung her arms against him, then slipped to 
 the ground, her embrace unrelaxed. 
 
 " Oh, speak to me ! speak to me ! " she cried 
 with imperious despair. " I go where I can see 
 you no more. For we going! we going! Oh, thou 
 art so strong and so calm lift me up in thine 
 arms above this awful world. O mi amigo! mi 
 amigo! the children they no have roofs to their 
 heads ! They go to die in the mud ! " 
 
 And the wind sighed through the Redwood s 
 branches and shook down the raindrops like a 
 shower of tears on Carmelita s head. 
 
INTERLUDE. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 121 
 
 ESTTEKLUDE. 
 
 FEANCISCO. 
 
 LIGHT streamed from the windows of a great 
 house high on one of San Francisco s hills. The 
 fog lay thick in the city s valleys but only touched 
 its crests. Those brave enough to sit on the mist- 
 wreathed dummies glided up the steep hill-sides 
 through white calm seas into a curve of starry 
 dark-blue night. On the lower city rested the 
 luminous ocean pierced by the white swords of 
 the electric lights; a flashing glimpse of a weird 
 night world, and again they plunged into waveless 
 deeps. Again they rose and again w^ent down. 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine gave four balls during the season, 
 and one directly after Lent as if to waft that 
 period of fashionable penance down the archives of 
 memory as quickly as possible. ~No one received 
 so few regrets, and her claim to the leadership of 
 San Francisco s society was seldom disputed. And 
 in truth she merited her success, for no woman in 
 
122 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 California was more clever than she, and Nature 
 had equipped her with a dainty beauty as if in 
 tending her to be a miniature queen in a miniature 
 world. Fortune had been as lavish with her gifts. 
 Mrs. Tremaine s wealth and position both cor 
 relative with the 50 s, and placing her, conse 
 quently, among the old families of California- 
 gave her a subtle and unassailable power which 
 none knew better how to wield. She was too 
 bright not to be exclusive in this land of sudden 
 fortunes and her visiting list was as menacing and 
 responsible as the Decalogue. Moreover she knew 
 how to entertain, and received from Paris two 
 trousseaux a year for other women to copy. 
 
 A great English journalist was one of the distin 
 guished guests of the post-lenten entertainment 
 and Mrs. Tremaine was giving him a generous 
 share of her mathematical yet charming smiles. 
 As he watched her standing at the head of her 
 great ball-room with its thousand globes of light, 
 and its mirrored walls reflecting the scene into 
 dazzling infinity he wondered if all California 
 women were as beautiful and as chilling as she. 
 The rich warm tints of her russet gold hair made 
 
. LOS CERRITOS. 123 
 
 the skin of her cheek and throat most white and 
 cool. The pouting narrow bow of her mouth de 
 fied yet subtly harmonized with the cold gray 
 eyes whose steady steelly gleams again warred 
 with the soft pattering voice and babyish lisp. 
 
 " She is as wooing as a bird in spring time, and 
 as tender as a domestic kitten," thought the 
 journalist, "but she is as cold as a March dawn, 
 and money and power are her only passions." 
 
 " This ball is really a celebration," she was lisp 
 ing meanwhile. " We have just won a law-suit 
 which has annoyed us for over a year." 
 
 " Yes ? I am glad to be here to congratulate you. 
 Is it about a mine?" he asked with the true 
 Anglo-Saxon idea that concrete gold must figure 
 in every transaction of the Californian. 
 
 " No, not a mine," she said folding and opening 
 her fan with a little graceful curve of the wrist 
 the journalist noticed that she kept her thumb 
 outward as Spanish women do " Mr. Tremaine 
 bought a large tract of land about fifty thou 
 sand acres in Central California, over thirteen 
 months ago, and there were a lot of squatters 
 on it who refused to leave. You see, the Mexican 
 
124 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 who had obtained a grant for it in the days of the 
 Spanish dominion had gone back to his own 
 country and forgotten all about it. But his 
 grandson found the grant one day in an old desk, 
 and sent it to a San Francisco lawyer, asking him 
 to sell the land. The lawyer happened to be ours, 
 and knowing that my husband wished to invest 
 some money he mentioned the subject to him. 
 As it chanced Mr. Tremaine had once driven 
 through the ranch on his way to Southern Cali 
 fornia and been much impressed with its beauty. 
 So he bought it at once, intending to turn it into 
 a sort of English park, stock it with game, and 
 build a big house, wherein we could entertain dur 
 ing the spring and fall. (At least those were my 
 suggestions. Do not you think they were orig 
 inal?) It would be so interesting to take one s 
 friends down in a special train and to entertain 
 them in old Spanish style so far from town. But 
 it seems that a lot of native Californians and half 
 breeds and emigrants had squatted I suppose 
 you understand our uncouth Americanisms on 
 the ranch, thinking it was Government land. 
 They refused to go, insisting that the grant was 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 125 
 
 a forgery, and you have no idea of the trouble 
 they have given us. Tremaine has spent a small 
 fortune fighting them, but now both courts have 
 decided in our favor and they must go. It is 
 annoying that they did not go at once, however; 
 we might have the house built by this time." 
 
 The journalist looked down at the gold brocade 
 which seemed cruelly stiff for the soft dainty 
 figure, and at the diamonds that covered her 
 neck from throat to the delicate rise of her bust. 
 
 " And what will the miserable wretches do? " he 
 asked, for he came from the land where poverty 
 sits supreme on her rag-draped throne. 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine opened her softly valenced eyes, 
 " Do? Why they will have to go somewhere else; 
 that is all." 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you that these people may 
 be suddenly left without bread to eat or the 
 wherewith to build another roof above their 
 heads?" he asked, not from a desire to rebuke 
 her, but out of curiosity to sound her nature. 
 Moreover he had the slow indulgent English voice, 
 which blunted every sting. 
 
 She gave a little pout. " What nonsense! There 
 
126 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 are plenty of trees or mud rather, for that is 
 what they make their houses of adobe, you 
 know. And they always eat beans, and beans are 
 cheap. I never eat them, but I am sure they are. 
 Tremaine will probably take them down a barrel 
 or two of flour and some woollen shirts. He is 
 very good-natured." 
 
 The journalist was aghast. He saw that she 
 had not an approximate idea of poverty or suffer 
 ing. Did he give his imagination wings and draw 
 with letters of fire the fate of those homeless 
 outcasts, she would stifle a yawn and vote him a 
 bore. He regarded her with much curiosity. 
 
 " And the warm weather is coming now," she 
 babbled on, " so they won t mind sleeping out of 
 doors for the matter of that there are always 
 sheds in the country." 
 
 " But I thought middle and southern California 
 were very hot during the summer? " 
 
 " Yes ; I believe so ; but those sort of people 
 Mexicans, you know never mind hot weather. 
 They muffle themselves up in woollen comforters 
 in summer on the principle that what will keep 
 out the cold must also exclude the heat." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. I2/ 
 
 Then several late comers claimed her attention, 
 and the journalist strolled through the beautiful 
 rooms in search of his host. 
 
 X X X X X * 
 
 Alexander Tremame was walking up and down 
 his library, his hands thrust almost savagely in 
 his pockets, his heavy eyes dwelling on many 
 things besides his luxurious surroundings. The 
 music crept like a sigh through the thick por 
 tieres and the light brilliance of his wife s enter 
 tainment seemed to turn ever and recede before it 
 reached the doors of this dark book-lined room. 
 He was a young man, thirty-six at most, but en 
 thusiasm had left his eyes and the expression of 
 his mouth was generally listless or cynical. His 
 heavy lids gave him an appearance of extreme 
 physical and mental languor until a close observer 
 looked beneath and was startled by the latent 
 power in those light cold blue eyes or surprised 
 to meet a humorous twinkle. His black heavy 
 brows, whose occasional long hair defied the 
 brush, added to the sullen repose of his face but 
 seemed to curve to a thread when he smiled. A 
 prominent nose and square chin gave great dignity 
 
128 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 to his expression, and his tall figure was erect and 
 stalwart. His closely cut black hair had a cer 
 tain vitality in keeping with the free play of his 
 muscles as he walked. To-night there was some 
 thing unusually restless in his movements, as he 
 strode up and down, forgetting his wife s guests, 
 
 conjuring possible futures, and trying to scratch 
 
 
 
 characters on the blank sheets. He was young, 
 he had a colossal fortune, he acknowledged no 
 man s superiority, most paths were strewn with 
 thorn-stripped roses at his approach, and yet, 
 shortly after his thirty-sixth birthday, he walked 
 solitary in a merry throng, wondering what he 
 was to do with the rest of his life, lonely as any 
 exile who passed his scintillating mansion with a 
 rebellious oath. 
 
 He had started in life with many ideals. He 
 wished to be a reformer, a wise and self -abnegat 
 ing statesman, a friend of the people, a swayer of 
 the thoughts of men. He knew no more of poverty 
 in those days than any other Californian, but he 
 was a student of political economy and a wor 
 shipper of Shelley. When at the age of twenty- 
 two he found himself in unconditioned posses- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 129 
 
 sion of Ms father s vast fortune he determined to 
 realize his ideals and that he might begin at the 
 root of politics ran at once for the Legislature of 
 his State. To his amazement and disgust he found 
 that he must buy his election as he bought his 
 horses and servants. If he finally consented to 
 " interview a boss " and negotiate for his victory 
 it was because he had come to the conclusion that 
 to accomplish a great deed some means must be 
 overlooked. It is needless to give the details of 
 his political career. It lasted five years and three 
 were passed in Washington. Then he withdrew, 
 disheartened, worn out with futile anger, his faith 
 in disinterested, single-purposed human nature 
 gone forever. He went to New York to stand 
 aghast before the raging sleepless epidemic for 
 wealth. Those everlasting monotonous rows of 
 brown-stone houses, eloquent of imagination 
 burned dry under the scorching breath of that 
 fever s sirocco, not a hand s width of grass before 
 them lest so many precious shekels should be lost ! 
 "Money!" shrieked the flying trains as they 
 plunged into the crowded reeking districts of 
 
 squalor. " Money ! " absently muttered the f ur- 
 9 
 
130 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 wrapped man on the hotel steps as he waited for 
 the bare-footed news-boy to give him change. 
 " Money ! " sang the very air in endless echo. 
 Tremaine wrote a half dozen pamphlets and spent 
 a respectable fortune among the tenement wretches. 
 At the end of six months he questioned whether 
 he had done any good. No other rich man had 
 responded to his call, the funny-paragraphers had 
 paid their debts with his enthusiasms, and the poor 
 were as poor as ever. Once more determined to go 
 to the root of things, he crossed to England and 
 plunged into the thick of Socialism. He stayed 
 there two years. He attended every meeting of 
 importance and many whose doings were never 
 chronicled; he talked with every great reformer, 
 and allowed himself to be buttonholed by every 
 long-haired, illogical enthusiast who chose to spoil 
 the shape of his coat. He read all the literature 
 of the movement, calm, maniacal, practical, and 
 visionary. Then he left London as suddenly as 
 he had come. No man could tell him what was 
 wanted, for no man knew; nothing could be done 
 beyond talking and writing, for man s brain was 
 not yet hard enough and wide enough to solve the 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 131 
 
 problem. In tlie slow evolution of intelligence and 
 of events the question would be settled, but not 
 in his time. Sick at heart, surfeited to his finger 
 tips with the unrelieved and aimlessly serious side 
 of life, he travelled madly for three years. He 
 walked every highway and rambled along many 
 a by-way; he lived books, and bit deep into the 
 apple of adventure. Then, weary of pleasure as 
 of significance, he returned to California and with 
 a flicker of expiring enthusiasm married the beau 
 tiful daughter of his father s partner. He dreamed 
 that he had found a phantasm he had pursued 
 even amid his zeal for universal welfare, and when 
 he awakened his rebellion for a short time was 
 deeper and more bitter than for all other shattered 
 ideals. But Life, harshly as she had used him, 
 had in compensation permitted him to drink 
 deeply at her fountain of Philosophy, and one day 
 he made up his mind to accept his fate without 
 further repining, took a vow that he would stand 
 by this last mad act as he had stood by all others 
 until they had turned from him and wear to the 
 end the consequences .he alone had contrived. 
 The world and his wife regarded him as a model 
 
132 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 husband and lie never crossed a whim of the 
 woman who chilled his blood and heart. Some 
 times his loneliness and hunger for human happi 
 ness leaped beyond bounds. Then he would shut 
 himself among his books or throw himself on his 
 organ stool, and in time a transient peace would 
 come. As he grew older he turned from the future 
 in a kind of terror. What was he to do with forty 
 years of loveless life? Ambition was dead and he 
 had no desire to revive and direct it to other tot 
 tering goals. He had known the walking embodi 
 ments of all talents, and the weary, selfish, disap 
 pointed, unsatisfactory races they ran, bred in 
 him no desire to emulate. No, life and philosophy 
 had taught him one great lesson that personal 
 happiness was the only good here below worth 
 striving for. In all his contact with men he had 
 never found one who was not pursuing it", how 
 ever blindly, grandly, or contemptibly. The 
 socialist strove for it in his attempt to adjust the 
 world to that end, the minister of God clutched 
 ever at it as he toiled to satisfy conscience and 
 ideals, the politician intrigued for it as he sacri 
 ficed his fellow for place or power. And in this 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 133 
 
 little span why should a man Avaste his time seek 
 ing for aught beside? If he let his neighbors 
 alone, harmed none, and gave when duty com 
 manded, surely his list of responsibilities was 
 completed and he might paint the atmosphere of 
 this poor little life pink if he could. He would 
 but follow an instinct strong as that which makes 
 man man and woman woman, and with it tower 
 ing above all others in the human organism. 
 
 His walk grew quicker and more restless. He 
 had solved the problem too late. There is small 
 comfort in unembodied philosophy; and never 
 had his future looked so blank and tasteless as it 
 looked to-night. It was as if he had come face to 
 face with it for the first time, as if a match had 
 been suddenly struck in some hitherto cobweb- 
 hung corridor in his brain. And those cobwebs 
 would never be spun again nor the lights go out. 
 He stopped with an angrj gasp, and at the same 
 moment came an uncontrollable desire to get away 
 from his wife and all present conditions and go 
 straight to nature. His rare moments of happi 
 ness had been known in her solitudes. Should he 
 reserve that corner of the world he had just con- 
 
134 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 quered, to fly to when spiritual suffocation was 
 threatening? His wife had other plans regarding 
 the Cerritos, but for once her will should yield to 
 his. If necessary he would buy her another 
 ranch in a different part of California. 
 
 He turned impatiently as the rings of the por 
 tiere clanked together, but smiled as he saw the 
 keen good-natured face of the great journalist. 
 
 " Come in," he said hastily; " I am glad to see 
 you. I wondered if you were here." 
 
 " I have had a hunt for you," said the other, 
 " but I sympathize with your taste. With your 
 leave I will spend the rest of the evening in 
 here. This is the sort of room I like." 
 
 u Sit down, sit down," said Tremaine. He threw 
 himself into a deep chair, offered his guest a 
 cigar and they drifted into a discussion of cur 
 rent affairs. The journalist had known the 
 young man off and on for many years and had a 
 great liking for him. He admired his abilities 
 and in a measure understood his disappointments. 
 He had often wondered what he would make of 
 himself, and after the conversation with his wife 
 he felt that speculation must begin afresh. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 135 
 
 " I hear that I am to congratulate you," he said 
 at length. " Mrs. Tremaine tells me you have just 
 won a most expensive and fatiguing law-suit." 
 
 " Yes ; an abominably expensive and fatiguing 
 one. They are an obstinate lot." 
 
 " What will you do now ? " 
 
 "AY ell," said Tremaine, sliding downward in 
 his chair until he was almost horizontal, and cross 
 ing his legs. " I hear that these people haven t 
 much besides their huts, so if they want to buy 
 or rent their farms on easy terms they can do so. 
 I have written to my agent to that effect. I have 
 some idea of building a big adobe house after old 
 models and living in it occasionally. That por 
 tion of California which is comparatively untrod 
 den is about as picturesque and satisfying as any 
 thing on this small globe. God ! how small it is. 
 And it has a personality (I can give it no other 
 word) which makes it unique even in America. 
 You feel as if some great incomprehensible yet 
 most companionable force had singled out Califor 
 nia and made it his home. Moreover, to be practi 
 cal, the hunting and fishing ought to be very good 
 on this ranch, and I think that with the addition 
 
136 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 of a library and an organ the Cerritos would be a 
 highly livable place." 
 
 The journalist smiled, but sympathetically. 
 " You do not appear to have discussed your plans 
 with you wife." 
 
 " Oh, yes, she has talked of fitting it up on a 
 grand scale and doing a lot of entertaining; but 
 in reality the place would not suit her at all. She 
 hates the country unless she can come to town in 
 an hour, and she would find few people anxious 
 for that trip. She has a house of her own at Menlo 
 Park, and a lot of other houses to leave cards at, 
 and one or two good roads where she can puss the 
 same people every afternoon. In that fashionable 
 suburb s placid monotony and soporific physiol 
 ogy she yawns back her roses and corresponds 
 with her dressmaker. How I hate the place ! It 
 is the Sleepy Hollow of California. The Cerritos 
 though ! I wish you could see it. I ll take you 
 down when my house is ready." 
 
 "I will devote a summer to its admiration; but 
 you don t mean to tell me that you are going to 
 divide the rest of your life betAveen fashionable 
 society and a ranch? Get up and stir yourself. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 137 
 
 You were born to some career. Go out and look 
 for it. Dig for it, if necessary." 
 
 "Damn careers," muttered his host; but he bit 
 through his cigar. 
 
 "Write a book and make yourself famous. 
 Fame compensates for a column of wants." 
 
 " Fame ! " said Tremaine impatiently. " Fame 
 that rescues a Jane Austen and passes an Emily 
 Bronte by ! Fame that is of tener spelt with nine 
 letters than with four! Fame that is as kind to 
 cleverness as to genius! And in this era of all 
 eras it is the less worth while, for the world is 
 mad with its own sensationalism and knows not 
 the difference between the man who is striving to 
 be an artist, whether he succeed or not, and the 
 herd of cheap notorieties. I want none of it, if I 
 had the ability which I have not. I have no tal 
 ents; all I ask for is a life of action. I would 
 rather have one year of hard lighting than sit cross- 
 legged like a damned Turk in the Temple of 
 Fame for ten ; but my lines have fallen in times 
 of peace He threw his cigar into the fire and 
 began striding up and down the room. His rest 
 lessness was growing beyond control and the mus- 
 
138 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 cles of liis erect powerful frame seemed to cast 
 off vitality as lie walked. 
 
 " Just now I am determined to have a change of 
 some sort. I am as mad for a new experience as 
 an unfledged college boy. And what is more it is 
 coming- My experience of life has been that 
 when one gets into that highly charged condition 
 the experience is drawn as to a magnet. There is 
 a long sight more of the unusual and romantic in 
 life than is ever chronicled by the timid novelist. 
 In fact the unexpected is about the one thing it 
 is safe to bet on. What is this a telegram ? " 
 
 A Chinese servant in clinging silken robes was 
 moving solemnly across the room, bearing a yel 
 low envelope on a golden salver the gift of a 
 bonanza king. 
 
 " Pardon me," said Tremaihe. He cast his eye 
 over the telegram, then flung it on the table with 
 an eager flash in the heavy blue of his eyes. 
 
 "It s from Hawkins my Cerritos agent. He 
 wires that the people refuse to rent, buy, or move. 
 That not content with fighting the law they will 
 now light me. They have held mass-meetings, 
 threatened to kill Hawkins poor devil, how he 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 139 
 
 must be shaking in his boots ; he is able but not 
 courageous and swear they will never move a 
 yard from their mud hovels. Hawkins says that 
 he has wired to the nearest town for the sheriff 
 and deputies, but I shall go down myself. Here 
 is the experience, you see. How I should enjoy 
 one or two hand-to-hand fights with some brawny 
 Mexican! The very thought stimulates me. 
 Come; let us go and have a glass of champagne. 
 You can come back here after, if you like." 
 
 " By Jove, you have got the restlessness of 
 California in you," said the journalist as he rose, 
 nothing loath, to follow his host. " You ll burn 
 out in about ten years." 
 
 ****** 
 
 The dining-room was the pride of Mrs. Tre- 
 maine s artistic brain. The walls were hung with 
 tapestries whose every rotting thread was price 
 less. The old oaken sideboards and mantel had 
 been brought from Venice, and built into walls of 
 a wood whose parent tree had not been felled 
 when the knife had carved these alien grafts. 
 Heavy beams barred the ceiling, gold and crystal 
 glittered on the old banquetting table, the sweet- 
 
140 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 meats were triumphs of national art. Banks of 
 flowers rounded the corners of the room, arid the 
 fanciful china between the Venetian columns 
 gleamed through yellow roses and purple violets. 
 The massive chairs were worthier of biographies 
 than most men, and the floor was a mosaic repre 
 senting a redwood. Somebody was once startled 
 into an unhappy exclamation at this last daring 
 incongruity, but Mrs. Treinaine snubbed him into 
 silence by suavely remarking that the redwoods 
 where older than either the tapestries or the chairs. 
 
 The room was crowded, and champagne lay like 
 amber pools in little crystal basins. As Tremaine 
 entered each guest raised his sparkling glass. 
 
 " Here s to your continued good luck," cried the 
 lawyer who had won the famous suit. " We all 
 congratulate you." 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE MAN. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 143 
 
 I. 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF JOAQUIN MURIETTA. 
 
 Iisr Castro s field an immense bonfire blazed, red 
 dening the sky like an angry volcano, and throw 
 ing into fitful black-shadowed relief the hills on 
 the other side of the river. The watch fire had not 
 beckoned in vain and a small army of men were 
 gathered about a table whereon stood the master 
 spirit of the Cerritos Ranclio. 
 
 Castro was shouting rebellion with clashing 
 teeth and savage gestures. His great hairy chest 
 was bare, and his purple, scowling face and thun 
 dering voice were enough in themselves to frighten 
 his subjects into submission. The men interrupted 
 him with frequent cheers of approval, and as they 
 surged excitedly about in the red dancing light 
 they looked like a horde of rioting demons. 
 
 " Oh we no going," he roared. " We are three 
 hundred mens and boys, and we have knives and 
 bullets yet. The sheriffs coming to-morrow? 
 
144 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Letting them! " (With a terrible volley of oaths.) 
 " We washing them in their own blood and throw 
 them in the river to fat the fish. Who farming 
 this land? Who builda the houses? The Senor 
 Alejandro Tremaine? black diablo how he is! 
 No ! we doing it and it is ours. I maka this field 
 grow wheat where are nettles before. I cutta the 
 treeses and maka that fence. I digga the earth 
 and maka my house. I giva my muscles, my 
 times, my sense. The Senor Tremaine can he taka 
 that ? Can he taka the years of my life I put 
 ting here? Then si he no can taka those, he no 
 can taka whatte they make, for the two maka one. 
 Si the Senor Tremaine need, that make another 
 thing. But he no need; he have so much he no 
 knowing whatte to do with all. Si we keeping our 
 homes he no starve; he no knowing the differ- 
 encia. No! fighting! fighting! fighting! Throw 
 ing him on the ground ! Spit on him ! Hang him 
 to a tree and filling him with b tick-shot! Stay in 
 your housses with your guns at your windows; 
 he no can take si you no give. He and all the 
 damned white-liver agents and sheriffs go to run 
 like the rabbits when they seeing us come." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 145 
 
 He leaped from the table amidst loud-voiced 
 excitement ; but it was evident that some difference 
 of opinion existed in the audience. In a moment 
 Espinoza was hoisted upon the table and a respect 
 ful silence fell at once. 
 
 " There no mus be blood," he said. " The Senor 
 Tremaine he no knowing, perhaps, whatte lie do ; 
 the rich man, he lova the money and the land; he 
 no meaning be cruelle. For that we mus have be 
 careful and no losta our souls to send his to hell ; 
 for si he live and be old he may bimeby feel 
 sorry. But for the other Castro, he is right. The 
 housses are ours and we no going, si we can help. 
 We are three hundred and we can maka the 
 sheriffs run, and bimeby the Sefior feel tire out 
 and letting us stay. And si he come himself and 
 see the childrens, he no turning them out. But 
 no fire the gun and no usa the knife." 
 
 The speech was received with mingled murmurs 
 of disapproval and assenting cheers, and the mo 
 ment was a critical one. Castro, trembling for 
 his supremacy, was about to raise his voice again 
 when a new figure suddenly appeared on the table. 
 
 It was a woman this time and as startling in her 
 10 
 
146 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 way as Castro had been in his. Her loose black 
 hair, caught by the wind, swept to and fro behind 
 her head like an ominous cloud, her eyes seemed 
 to reflect the intense, angry brilliancy of the red 
 dened stars, and in the scarlet glare of the ever- 
 leaping fire she looked as if about to disappear 
 above the tree-tops in a chariot of flame. 
 
 "Camielita! Carmelita!" cried Castro ecstatic 
 ally. " Letting her spik. Listen to her arid no say 
 one word. ISTo one word ! " 
 
 Before the astonished silence had time to fall 
 Carmelita s far-carrying voice was sounding 
 through the field, rising high above the roar of 
 the river and the crackling of the flames. 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! Kill him ! " she cried, carried out of 
 her womanhood by the weirdness of the scene and 
 the terrible wrongs which had dragged the fierce 
 nature of her father from the depths where it ever 
 lightly slept. " Si he go to take our housses, kill 
 him, for it is right. Think of the childrens they 
 have no one dress, some of them, and the weather 
 so cold. Where they sleep ? In the wet field, 
 where they die in a week? Think of your wives 
 who go to have the babies, and of those who nurse 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 147 
 
 the others! And think how they work for you, 
 and how they cry and scream when they see the 
 babies die and they no can help! And the old 
 womens who sit in the sun and shake with the 
 age. Mus they sleep with the pigs and the sheep, 
 and hug them to keep warm on the wet ground 
 when the wind moan? " She paused for a moment 
 and then leaned forward with her arms out 
 stretched. "And you know," she went on, her 
 voice growing hoarse with rage " you know how 
 the man who take our homes, he live? He have 
 a house big like Castro s field. The carpets thick 
 on the floors like the violet beds in the forest, and 
 all your crops for ten years no could buy one. 
 The glass in the windows one big thick shining 
 sheet like the springs under the rocks, and the 
 curtains like spring clouds that have catch in 
 them the maiden-hair that grow on the cliffs. He 
 have pianos that sing like birds, but were make 
 from trees that now can be the homes of the birds 
 no more; and chairs so soft that si you sit in one, 
 you no work any more. And the beds you think 
 they are like yours, make of boards and straw 
 that scratch? No! they are make from the feath- 
 
148 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 ers of chickens and geese thousands and millions 
 when we no can get one to lay the egg! And 
 you think they eat in the one room? Xo they 
 have one sala big like your whole house, and they 
 eat little birds off plates of gold, and drink yellow 
 whiskey out of cups o glass that shine like the 
 stars. And the wife de that man what put us out? 
 You think she wear rags like your wives, and no 
 have shawl in the winter ? Oh, no ! when it is 
 cold she wear the dress like the thick green moss 
 on the trees, and what they call furs that are like 
 the \vool on the bear. And when it is warm she 
 dress like the flowers, and drive in a wagon, big 
 like the stage, with gold harness, and pillows make 
 from the skin of the cow who no give us milk. 
 And he " she threw back her body, and raised her 
 arm, looking like a prophetess inspired by heaven 
 to foretell the doom of nations. " And lie he sit 
 on a throne of gold like God in the picture in the 
 Mission, and say to the lawyer, c My cellars are 
 full de gold. Go helpa yourself and turn the mens 
 from their housses and take their farms that the 
 childrens can starve. I no want the land for more 
 bread; I have whole towns and many ranchos 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 149 
 
 now, but I no know what to do with my moneys, 
 so the poor man mus die. And I love to think 
 that bimeby I have more moneys still from those 
 farms and those trees so I can buy another rancho 
 and turn out more childrens to sleep in the fields 
 and scream with the rheumatismo in their little 
 joints. Oh ! Lopez, Diaz, Jamova, Verela, and you 
 Clarke and H nter and Miller with your little 
 cotton-haired children, tear this man in pieces 
 si he no give you your housses. He no is fit to 
 ]ive, and Hell no can wait for him longer." 
 
 Exhausted as much by the bound her imagina 
 tion had taken as by the strain on her throat, 
 Carmelita dropped suddenly from the table into 
 Castro s arms. Her strength returned at his touch, 
 and she wrenched herself free, spurning him from 
 her. But he flung himself on his knees at her 
 feet, biting her hands in the savageness of his 
 caress, and tearing her skirt from its gathers. 
 
 " Carmelita ! Carmelita ! " he gasped, his hoarse 
 voice almost inaudible, " I roasta the world in hell 
 si you give me one kiss. Thro wa me down, stamp 
 on me like the wild cows tramp the sheeps, I 
 scream with joy, for you toucha me. I go to San 
 
I5O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Francisco and killing this man, si you say. Yon 
 no can say do it one thing I no do. O Carmella, 
 Carmella mia! I tear God from his throne and 
 putting you there, si you only say, Castro, I 
 marrying you ! I loving you ! 
 
 Carmelita, panting and horrified at the terrible 
 ardor of the brute and at the touch of his thick 
 hot lips, tore herself from his clutching fingers and 
 flew over the field, unheeding the shouts of ad 
 miration that followed her. Castro made no at 
 tempt at pursuit; he knew that every man in the 
 field would fly to her protection if he did; but 
 taking advantage of the impression her Avords had 
 made, he sprang upon the table and poured forth 
 a wild and blasphemous speech which wrought 
 the squatters up to the pitch of madness and routed 
 the pacific council of Espinoza into oblivion. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 II. 
 
 TWO CONFESSIONS. 
 
 WIIEX Carmelita readied home she fell on her 
 bed. Faint and cold-veined through reaction, she 
 lay and thought with horror on what she had done. 
 Suppose those men should kill Tremaine and go 
 to the gallows with murder on their souls? Who 
 would have sent them there? What devil had 
 prompted her to spring upon the table and excite 
 the passions of the men at a time when they most 
 needed calm? But the hot flood of rage and de- 
 spair and hatred that had been rising in her heart 
 during all these bitter months had suddenly boiled 
 over its crater like lava when Nature is in her 
 angry moods. And Castro ! That beast to have 
 touched her! She had a hot sense of having been 
 defiled, and she got up suddenly and thrust her 
 hands above their wrists into a gourd of water, 
 then went back to bed and sobbed herself to sleep, 
 only to wake again and again. 
 
152 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 The next morning she had a headache for the 
 first time in her life and was inclined to think that 
 retribution had come and she was going to die. 
 But after strolling about in the open air for a time 
 she felt better and concluded to confess her sins of 
 the night before to the padre and consult him in 
 regard to the certificate. 
 
 When she arrived at his house he was not there, 
 and she amused herself cooking his dinner. He 
 came in shortly after noon and his tired face 
 lightened when he saw her. 
 
 ; I am glad to see you, mi Carmella," he said 
 patting her head. " You are so inextricably a part 
 of my life on this ranch that I cannot believe 
 in your going, and your presence cheers me." 
 
 "Oh, padre mio," faltered the girl. "I have 
 done so terreeblay a thing." 
 
 He smiled. " Have you forgotten your rosary 
 again? or stolen the mustang? " 
 
 " Mi padre, it is worse, more worse than that," 
 and without giving her courage time to ebb she 
 gave a repentant account of her maiden speech. 
 
 He looked grave as he listened. "But she is 
 right," he muttered to himself, "she is right." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 153 
 
 " It is impossible to tell what the consequences 
 will be," he said aloud, when she had finished, 
 "but I don t believe they will be as bad as you 
 think. With the exception of Castro and one or 
 two others, the squatters are not inclined to be 
 murderous. The Mexicans are sullen and the 
 Americans desperate and indignant, but in the 
 main, sensible. They will hold their farms until 
 the last minute, and perhaps attempt to cow the 
 sheriffs, but I don t think they will shed blood. 
 In the average brain is planted a wholesome re 
 gard for the law, and the sheriffs will win the 
 fight and keep their blood in the bargain." 
 
 " And we going? " cried Carmelita. 
 
 The priest shook his head sadly. " My dear girl, 
 I am afraid you must. Even if you fought to the 
 death, the sheriff at any moment could summon 
 the militia and sweep you all down like grass be 
 fore the mower." 
 
 "And what we do? There no is one acre de 
 Government land for forty miles. The wagons are 
 in pieces, and we no have enough si they were 
 good. How the childrens walk forty miles, and 
 the poor womens? " 
 
154 L S CERRITOS. 
 
 " Lightfoot lias said that you can camp on liis 
 ranch for the present, and the women and children 
 can stay there while the men go ahead and pre 
 pare homes for them. I will see that they do not 
 starve, and when the men return for them I will 
 go to all the neighboring ranchos and take up a 
 collection for their transportation by stage." 
 
 Carmelita sat down by the hearth and buried her 
 face in her lap. Never before had she felt that the 
 case was so utterly hopeless. She lifted her head 
 in a few moments. " Bueno," she said sullenly. 
 " Si we go, we go. But," and the demon awoke 
 once more, "the Senor Tremaine I hope he die 
 with no one crust to eat, and si he have childrens 
 I hope he see their bones come through the skins." 
 
 "Carmelita!" exclaimed the padre, mindful of 
 his calling. 
 
 She took the certificate from her dress. " I find 
 this in the Mission. What I can do with it to 
 make the money?" 
 
 The padre lifted his brows as he read the bit of 
 paper. " This thing certainly has its value," he 
 said, " it is very old and is signed with a famous 
 name. But who on this place would buy it ? " 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 155 
 
 " I think I ask Tio Pedro to give to the stage 
 driver. He can sell in the town." 
 
 He shook his head. u No one in the small towns 
 would know its value. You would not get a dime 
 for it and the driver would probably lose 
 
 " I know," exclaimed Carmelita, with a sudden 
 inspiration. "I give to Geraldine and she- 
 Padre mio ! what is the matter ? " 
 
 The priest had thrown himself forward and 
 grasped her arm, his dark face almost black. 
 
 " What name did you say ? " he demanded 
 hoarsely, his grip tightening on her arm. 
 
 Carmelita sank back in consternation. " Oh, I 
 forget ! I forget ! " she cried. " I promise never 
 to say her name." 
 
 " Whose name?" he shook her arm roughly. 
 " Tell me at once." 
 
 She looked at him ; obedience to the padre had 
 been a pleasant duty, but it was a fixed habit, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 " The seiiora at Lindavista." 
 
 "Ah! that woman who is never seen. Tell me 
 what she is like." His lips were quivering now, 
 his eyes dilating. 
 
156 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 But at this point Carmelita rebelled. "No," 
 she said, " I no do that. I say to her I never will, 
 and I no will, even to you, padre." 
 
 " Tell me," he cried harshly as if he had not 
 heard, "are her eyes green and is her hair yellow? 
 Is her skin white and her lips red He saw 
 
 the answer in the girl s startled eyes, and spring 
 ing to his feet he paced up and down the narrow 
 room. Suddenly striding over to Carmelita he 
 caught her by the shoulder and raising her to her 
 feet pushed her to the door. "Go! Go!" he 
 muttered. " Leave me. I must be alone." 
 
 And terrified by what she saw in his face Car 
 melita fled from the house. 
 
 She went directly to Geraldine, partly to con 
 fess her breach of trust, partly to ask her to dis 
 pose of the certificate. When she reached Linda- 
 vista she found her friend lying on the divan with 
 a cologne-soaked handkerchief on her head. Ger 
 aldine had grown older during the last year. 
 There were violet shadows under her eyes and the 
 mouth was drawn. She held out her hand with a 
 smile almost of gratitude. 
 
 " I am so glad you have come. J have heard of 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 157 
 
 your speech last night. You are a wonderful 
 girl; but happy you will be if you never see 
 that life of the world. How flat you would find 
 it! But there is no fresh trouble? " 
 
 Carmelita sat down on the floor and leaned her 
 head against the divan. She found her second 
 confession much harder than her first. Would 
 she be forgiven? 
 
 " O Geraldina," she began, " I have something 
 terreeblay to say." 
 
 The woman s face turned a shade paler. " What 
 is the matter? " she asked faintly. 
 
 "Oh, how I can say it? Geraldina, what you 
 think I do? I say your name to the padre! " 
 
 Geraldine sat upright, as if some one had sud 
 denly lifted her. "And what did he say? What 
 did he do?" she demanded, the words tumbling 
 one over the other. 
 
 Carmelita gave a graphic account of what the 
 priest had said and done. She felt as if she were 
 being torn in twain that day, but her sympathies 
 were too keenly with the woman to deny her re 
 quest. Geraldine listened, the blood rising to her 
 hair, then sweeping back to her heart until she 
 
158 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 gasped for breath. When the girl had finished 
 she dropped back on the pillows and turning on 
 her side hid her face. But feminine curiosity had 
 by this time taken triumphant possession of Car- 
 melita. She raised herself to her knees and laid 
 her head caressingly on her friend s shoulder. 
 
 " Tell me, querida," she said coaxingly, " what 
 you know by the padre before you come here? " 
 
 Geraldine shook from head to foot, and then 
 burst into heavy dry-eyed sobs. Carmelita put 
 both arms around her and cried in sympathy, yet 
 with that exquisite sensation which a woman ever 
 feels when about to lift the curtain of a love affair 
 in which the element of mystery is dominant, 
 
 Geraldine turned and pressed her head against 
 the girl s shoulder. When the paroxysm had 
 passed she lay without speaking for a few mo 
 ments, panting a little. 
 
 " Tell me," whispered Carmelita, whose patience 
 was ebbing. 
 
 " I cannot tell you all, dearest. Only this much: 
 I knew your padre once and loved him. And 
 why should I deny it? I love him still. It is for 
 him I have left the world that I might be near 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 159 
 
 him, even if I never saw him. But now that he 
 knows I am here I suppose I must go." 
 
 " No, no, 1 cried Carmelita. " You no go and leave 
 me. The padre no is sure it is you and I never tell 
 him, never ! never ! " 
 
 " Oh! but he does know it is I. And now that 
 I know he knows, it will not be so easy to keep 
 silence. Already that passive endurance to which 
 I have schooled myself during the past year is 
 gone and I feel eager for something to happen 
 for the climax to come. But if he had never 
 known I could have gone on forever." 
 
 " Would you have stay here alway? " 
 
 " Yes, until I died or he went away. Then I 
 would have followed him." 
 
 Carmelita smoothed the yellow hair that was 
 falling over her shoulder. "Pobre Geraldinita! 
 But he suffer too. I know that. Always, even 
 when I am a little girl, I know he no is happy." 
 
 The hand which clasped Carmelita s gave it a 
 closer pressure. 
 
 " You no are angry with me? " 
 
 " No. T would not have had you tell him, but 
 now that it is done I am almost glad." 
 
l6o LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 She rose and went into the next room. When 
 she returned her face was calm and she sat down 
 before Carmelita. "Now tell me of your own 
 affairs," she commanded. " Have you heard any 
 thing further? " 
 
 Carmelita shook her head despondently, but 
 produced the certificate. " Perhaps you know of 
 some one who buy that? " she said. 
 
 "Ah ! " exclaimed Geraldine, as she read the 
 paper, " I can get you money for this. I have a 
 friend in San Francisco who has a mania for such 
 things and I will send it to him at once. You 
 ought to get a twenty-dollar gold piece at least," 
 
 Carmelita opened her eyes, " Dio mio ! " she 
 gasped, " I buy closes for all the childrens and a 
 bag of beans." Then she rose, divining that Ger 
 aldine wished to be left alone. 
 
 "Adios, mijita," she said. " I mus go, now. I 
 come again, for we no go yet." 
 
 Geraldine opened the door for her and kissed 
 her good-by, then turned the key and sank to 
 the floor clutching the curtain in her convulsive 
 hands, but uttering no sound. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. l6l 
 
 III. 
 INCARNATE. 
 
 CAEMELITA walked slowly homeward, her mind 
 crowded with an army of thoughts those led by 
 Geraldine and those by the squatters fighting for 
 supremacy. What had Geraldine been to the 
 padre? It was none of her affair, but she did wish 
 that she knew. It was the most romantic incident 
 which had entered her life; the loves and woes of 
 the birds paled before it. She would never have 
 a sorrow like that. Her troubles were all of the 
 sordid kind ; to sit by and weep fiercely while the 
 children starved, or moaned with the cold ; or to 
 feel the wolf gnawing at her own vitals, and won 
 der where her next dress was to come from ; it 
 would be made of bean bags, most likely. 
 
 She stood still with a feeling of surprise. She 
 had the same sensation, half eager, half restful, 
 which always touched her when she approached 
 her redwood. But he was not near her to-day; 
 
162 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 lie was high on the mountain with the spring- 
 liowers at his feet. She looked behind her. Far 
 away shimmered the mountain like a dark blue 
 tidal wave which had caught a forest in its rush. 
 Between, were a hundred green hills spangled with 
 flowers. The air was mad with melody and in 
 toxicating with perfume. The sun sent waves of 
 delicious warmth to the very hearts of the joyous 
 flowers. The earth lay wrapped in her newly 
 woven garment, sensuous and dreamy. Slowly, 
 involuntarily, Carmelita turned. A man stood at 
 the bend of the road. 
 
 She made a quick unreasoning step toward him, 
 then drew back and put her hand to her eyes. 
 She felt as if the earth were swaying with the gen 
 tle movement of a cradle, as if the unseen stars 
 had swept downward and were pelting her like 
 golden hail. Then she felt a sudden sensation of 
 pain and she wondered vaguely if it were for Ger- 
 aldine or if she had forgotten her. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Tremaine gently. "You 
 are not ill? " And he thought as he spoke that he 
 had never seen so beautiful a woman. 
 
 His commonplace words and a strong feminine 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 163 
 
 instinct combined to restore her self-control. u Si, 
 seiior," she said, almost coldly, "I am no very 
 well for to-day," and she moved down the road. 
 
 " You look the picture of health," he said aim 
 lessly, as he walked beside her; "but although the 
 weather is much warmer are not you cold in that 
 thin dress?" 
 
 Carmelita threw back her head, stung by the 
 commiseration in his voice. "It is the same I 
 wear alway," she replied haughtily. " I am use 
 to it." She look askance at him. He wore gray 
 travelling clothes and a soft felt hat. What was 
 he? She had never seen any one with whom to 
 compare him. And he was so tall and strong. 
 Could trees assume the form of men again -and 
 walk the earth? She glanced over her shoulder 
 once more at the mountain; but that vaporous 
 ocean told no tales. 
 
 "And who is she? " thought Tremaine. " Prob 
 ably the daughter of one of these squatters. But 
 she might be a young goddess. Will you tell 
 me your name? " he asked aloud. 
 
 " Carmelita Murietta." 
 
 "And you live here on the Cerritos Rancho?" 
 
1 64 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 She laughed shortly. His words recalled the 
 prosaic miseries of life and wafted other sensa 
 tions to dreamland. " Yes, I live here to-day, but 
 to-morrow, perhaps, I live in the grass of the Col- 
 minares Rancho. The Senor Tremaine say we go, 
 so we go, I suppose. But we fight! we fight! " 
 
 Tremaine felt rather awkward. Was he actu 
 ally taking the roof from this glorious creature s 
 head? It was true that she was a goddess and 
 should lie in beds of poppies with the clouds for 
 curtains, but probably she was not used to sleep 
 ing out of doors and didn t like it. 
 
 "And so you are one of the squatters who must 
 go? " he said lamely. " I am very sorry." 
 
 She laughed again. " Yes, you are more sorry 
 si you see the childrens who no have shirt to the 
 back or beans in the stomach. We have a little 
 lef now, and a few sheeps, but soon we have noth 
 ing. Oh, the Senor Tremaine! how I hate him! 
 Senor, he have gold enough to fill the hill there, 
 si it was holla out, and he turn us out our haci 
 endas and leave us to starve." 
 
 Tremaine grew hot to his hair, but although he 
 had braved the wrath of the squatters he had not 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 165 
 
 the courage to reveal himself to this girl. How 
 could he reason with her? He knew how futile all 
 words must be, but he felt impelled to right him 
 self if he could. 
 
 "But, senorita, the squatters knew for a year 
 that the ranch was not theirs. They had plenty 
 of time to find homes elsewhere before they spent 
 all their money on a law-suit. And if Mr. Tre- 
 maine paid a large price for this ranch as he 
 undoubtedly did it surely is his. That is only 
 common reason." 
 
 " It no is his," cried Carmelita indignantly. She 
 was not to be deceived by the sophistries of men. 
 " It is ours. We have it first, and the land was 
 make so the poor man can live, not for the rich 
 man to buy cause he no know what to do with his 
 moneys. The Senor Tremaine no is better make 
 than us. Why then he have millions and we 
 starve? Why he have the great house in San 
 Francisco and take our haciendas from us? "No 
 man have the right to say to other man, < Go starve. 
 I have plenty but I no care. When Adam and 
 Eve are born they only are give one garden and 
 they are the only peoples on the earth. But God 
 
1 66 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 who talk to peoples in those days; now he have 
 so many he no can he no let them take more. 
 He say : No, you no can have more than you need. 
 Leave the other for those who come bime by, that 
 all may be well and happy, like the birds (who 
 never take what no is theirs, nor want). But Eve 
 she eat the apple, and Satan tell her children to 
 take one from the other and keep his own." 
 
 "Well! well!" exclaimed Tremaine, "that is 
 the most original interpretation of the Bible I have 
 heard yet. Will you sit down here? " 
 
 They had reached the Mission and Carmelita 
 was not sorry to take possession of a box and lean 
 against the wall. Tremaine sat beside her and 
 watched her furtively. He had not been so inter 
 ested in a woman for years. She must have sprung 
 from the earth like the great red poppies over 
 yonder. He would not believe that she was of 
 mortal parentage. He wondered if she ever bent 
 a bow. If he were a painter he would put her in 
 a picture as Diana. 
 
 Carmelita had thrust her restive womanhood 
 under and bolted a trap-door above it, but she made 
 no attempt to stifle the frankness and confidence 
 
LOS CERRITOS. l6/ 
 
 the stranger inspired. That he was Tremaine never 
 occurred to her. She had long since made up her 
 mind that the hated tyrant was a little dried-up 
 old man with the sardonic features, not to say the 
 cloven hoof, of the devil. What this man s name 
 was she did not even wish to know. 
 
 Tremaine looked at her with a smile. He had 
 a very charming smile, half -indulgent, half -sym 
 pathetic, and the more effective in that the gaze 
 w T hich accompanied it was usually very long and 
 direct, as if he found it hard to remove his eyes. 
 
 " That is good reasoning though, especially for a 
 woman," he added teasingly. " But the question 
 has often arisen in rny mind you will understand, 
 of course, that there is nothing personal in this; 
 I know nothing of the people here whether the 
 great number of the lower classes are worth doing 
 anything for; whether the world w r ould not be 
 better if a good many of them were out of it. I 
 have often thought that a discriminating plague 
 would solve the problem better than all the rant 
 ing of the socialists. Do you understand those 
 who were left would have more elbow-room and a 
 surer chance to rise." 
 
1 68 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 "What!" cried Carmelita with flashing eyes. 
 " I no believe one word that. Si people no are 
 of use in the world why they are born? They no 
 come cause they want; they come cause they no 
 can help. What good you are in the world?" 
 She put the question with a struggle; but her 
 wrongs were deep and always mastered her. 
 
 He laughed somewhat bitterly. " Beally, seiio- 
 rita, none." 
 
 " You have plenty moneys? " 
 
 " Yes; a good deal." 
 
 "And what you do with it?" 
 
 " Well, I travel a good deal," he said, now highly 
 amused, " and I buy books and beautiful things. 
 Altogether I get out of life about as much as there 
 is in it." 
 
 "And you never give to the poor peoples? " 
 
 " O yes. I give certain regular sums to certain 
 charitable institutions and I generally give the 
 newsboys and flower-girls a dinner at Christmas." 
 
 "Well, you no are so bad," admitted Carmelita. 
 "Have you the land?" 
 
 " Yes some." 
 
 "And what you do with it? " 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 169 
 
 " Well, I rent it usually to farmers, or cattle- 
 raisers. Both pay very well." 
 
 "And you make the poor man pay rent when 
 you have the moneys to do all what you want? " 
 This with deep indignation. 
 
 " But, my dear senorita, I would not have the 
 money for all that I want if my land did not yield 
 me an income. If my land were not rented what 
 good would it do me? " 
 
 "And you think you are more of importance 
 than the hundred, two, three hundred farmers 
 who rent your land?" cried Carmelita fiercely. 
 " You think it is right that the poor man who 
 work all the day give you half what he make so 
 you can go to the great cities and buy the books? 
 Si you do that I think you are very bad man." 
 
 " Upon my word, you make me feel like a thief. 
 But will you allow me this much defence : I am 
 not responsible for the existing order of things. 
 I did not draw the social diagram nor plant the 
 lawns of prosperity and the vegetable garden of 
 poverty. Both are somewhat time-honored insti 
 tutions and I am but a child of circumstances. In 
 
I7O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 plainer language I cannot help the way things are, 
 and I but follow the lead of the world." 
 
 "Caramba!" she exclaimed, "that is the more 
 foolish thing I hear you say yet. The padre he 
 say it is the custom in the world to say no true. 
 That make it right for me to say no true? The 
 bad mens down here have the custom to steal the 
 horses from the big ranches. That make it right 
 for my uncle to take Miller s horse? No. Si half 
 the world buy all the land and keep the poor out, 
 it no is more right than si only one man do it. 
 What is right is right. Custom no can change." 
 
 " I cannot reason with this girl," thought Tre- 
 maine, " she is too keen and too ignorant. If I 
 should tell her that custom does change things, 
 she would merely laugh me to scorn. And if I 
 should tell her that I once made a fool of myself 
 and spent more money than she could count, try 
 ing to adjust a world that had baffled wiser heads, 
 she would simply tell me to go back and peg away 
 until I made off to a world where, let us devoutly 
 hope, each man lives in a golden hut and political 
 economy is an unknown science. But I should 
 like to talk to her all day. " What is that? " he 
 
LOS CERRITOS. I/I 
 
 demanded abruptly. The bell of the Mission was 
 tolling above him. 
 
 " It is the vesper. We only have it once in the 
 week now. The peoples they no can come more 
 often once they feel like coming ! " 
 
 Tremaine looked over his shoulder through the 
 door of the church. "Have you an organ?" he 
 asked hesitatingly. 
 
 Carmelita leaned forward eagerly. " You oh, 
 you make the musica? Si, we have one or-gan. 
 The padre he buy and the school-ma am she play 
 for the mass. But for the vesper she no come; 
 and she no play like they play in the city, the 
 padre, he say. senor, play, si you can. I so 
 much want to hear the musica re-al." 
 
 " You are sure your padre would not object? " 
 
 "He like! He love the musica. For that he 
 buy the or-gan" 
 
 " Very well. I rely upon you to make my peace 
 with him." He followed Carmelita into the Mis 
 sion and went up the rude steps to the little or 
 gan platform. The women, with shawls pinned 
 over their heads, came in one by one, dropped on 
 their knees and crossed themselves; the padre, 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 entering from the sacristy, made the sign of the 
 cross and knelt before the altar; Tremaine began 
 to play softly. His fingers grasped the keys as if 
 they were living things that he loved, and he held 
 them as if he would draw the sound from the or 
 gan s soul and imprison it in his own. Carmelita 
 listened breathlessly, ecstatically, every fibre of 
 her nature vibrating in unison. Even the voice 
 of the padre grew fuller and more inspired. 
 
 Tremaine played throughout the short service, 
 and gazed absently upon the rude religious scene 
 about him with a vague feeling that it was one of 
 a coming series of pictures he should never forget. 
 The windows were gone from the time-battered 
 old Mission, the plaster peeled from its walls, the 
 earthen floor was sinking above the buried priests, 
 forlornly huddled the saints on the altar. Then 
 through the melancholy casements came a flood of 
 golden sunset, and for a few brief moments the 
 Mission was triumphant in splendor. Even the 
 coarse outlines and hard care-worn faces of the 
 few kneeling worshippers were glorified into a 
 short unreal beauty like that given by a halo to 
 the commonplace head of a saint. The low rich 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 1/3 
 
 notes of the organ throbbed through the inarticu 
 late sound of prayer and the voice of the priest as 
 he intoned the psalms; but without, the world 
 might have sunk to eternal rest, it was so quiet. 
 
 The padre turned to his people and made the 
 sign of the cross, then withdrew as he had come ; 
 the women stumbled to their feet and passed out, 
 staring with drowsy curiosity at the unaccustomed 
 organist, but Carmelita remained on her knees, 
 spell-bound. Then Tremaine struck the keys with 
 imperious fingers and a Gregorian chant pealed 
 through the Mission, filling it from end to end. 
 Carmelita listened, quivering from head to foot, 
 then suddenly sprang to her feet, and rushing from 
 the church, flew over the hills to her home. 
 
1/4 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 NATURE AWAKENS. 
 
 TREMAINE had arrived at the Aguitas at mid 
 night to find that Hawkins had heralded him as 
 his friend, Mr. Smith. 
 
 " You must keep dark till the sheriffs turn up," 
 he explained as he hustled Tremaine into his room. 
 " These squatters d as soon kill yer as look at yer. 
 I know you ain t afraid of nothin ," in reply to 
 Tremaiiie s impatient protest, " but yer d jest be a 
 fool, nothin morn less, if yer went passearin 
 around this blazin ranch in yer own name before 
 the sheriffs come, and I don t spose yer want to 
 be cooped up in this hole." 
 
 " When are the sheriffs expected? " 
 
 " Not for two or three days. They re after a 
 murderer and they can t come here till they ve 
 run him down. Now be reasonable, Mister Tre 
 maine. It wouldn t be bravery, it ud jest be 
 damned tomfoolery." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 175 
 
 Tremaine slept on the proposition and concluded 
 that his prudent servitor was right. He wanted 
 a few days of solitude and aimless wandering, and 
 he had no desire to take either, pistol in hand. 
 He always experienced a sense of freedom and of 
 infinite possibilities when in the wilds of Califor 
 nia that he never felt elsewhere, and he had a 
 mighty desire to get out of himself once more. 
 The interval before the sheriffs coming was brief, 
 but it was something, and then the more excite 
 ment the better. 
 
 The day after his first interview with Carmelita 
 he met her again as he was riding along the river- 
 bank, fishing-pole in hand. She turned from him 
 in a sort of blind terror. All night she had lain 
 face downward on her bed, refusing to think, but 
 hearing always vast harmonies, peals of melody, 
 which ever and anon broke into shrieking discords. 
 Once or twice she had half sprung from the bed, 
 the blind instinct of the animal for its mate mov 
 ing restlessly in its sleep beneath her heart. 
 
 " I was hoping to meet you," cried Tremaine. 
 " I am sure you can tell me where to find some 
 good fishing. I see nothing here." 
 
176 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 His direct matter-of-fact words broke the spell 
 of the night. 
 
 u In the creek on the mountain are plenty feesh," 
 she said. " I see them often." 
 
 " So I have heard. But I do not know the way. 
 Won t you be good enough to show me? " He 
 had suddenly lost his desire for solitude. 
 
 " It is there," pointing to the olive mountains. 
 
 " But, senorita, that is a mountain forest and I 
 am sure the creek does not run around the outside 
 of it. Please come with me." 
 
 Carmelita hesitated. " Bueno," she said at last. 
 " Wait here till I come." 
 
 She was but a short distance from her uncle s 
 hacienda and returned in a few moments on the 
 unprincipled mustang. Tremaine could not re 
 press a smile as she approached him. She be 
 strode the animal as unconcernedly as a lad and 
 dug her little bare heels into its flanks. The red 
 collar of her blouse fell away from her strong 
 brown throat and her position pulled the short 
 skirt to her knees. " She was never born for clothes 
 at all," Tremaine thought; "she might be the 
 primitive woman." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 177 
 
 Carmelita led the way across the narrow bridge, 
 then, raising her bridle, started off on a mild can 
 ter. She was not inclined to be talkative, and 
 Tremaine, after two or three futile attempts to 
 draw her ont, gave it np and consoled himself 
 with the beauty of the day. A week of warm 
 weather, which had come like a wave straight from 
 the inner chambers of the sun, had ripened the 
 country into a glory of color. Beds of pale blue 
 baby-eyes bordered hillocks of red and yellow 
 poppies, and between the groves of moss-draped 
 trees were miniature forests of gold and purple 
 lupins. The grain w T as waving in the fields, and 
 the gophers, whistling, sped through the grass. 
 
 " There is no more lovely spot in California, or 
 anywhere else, for that matter," exclaimed Tre 
 maine enthusiastically. " I could never tire of it, 
 and I am sure you never have." 
 
 " No," said Carmelita, her eyes filling with tears 
 and turning her head away, " I never tire." 
 
 "You shall not go," he exclaimed impulsively; 
 and as she turned to him in surprise, " I know 
 
 this man, Tremaine, and have some influence with 
 12 
 
1/8 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Mm. I am sure I can persuade him to let you 
 keep your farm." 
 
 She raised her head proudly. " Si all go, I go. 
 Si he give to all because it is right, I stay; but I 
 no take from him like a favor." 
 
 " What a combination she is ! " he thought, " she 
 makes other women seem like dolls." Aloud he 
 said, " But would you not stay for your uncle s 
 sake? He surely does not want to go." 
 
 " My uncle no would stay si the others go." 
 
 " Not for the sake of his wife and children? " 
 
 Her pride showed signs of weakening. " I no 
 know. It is hard to hear the childrens cry for the 
 food and for the closes to keep warm." 
 
 " But surely you have never heard that. This 
 seems to be the land of plenty." 
 
 She laughed bitterly. " It no was the land of 
 plenty this winter, senor. We have give all the 
 moneys to the lawyers and no have much left to 
 buy the beans and the flour. And it was very 
 cold, senor, and rain, rain, rain. Three or four 
 childrens die by the lungs. Si we no have the 
 padre and the senora I think we starve." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 179 
 
 " It isn t possible ! " exclaimed Tremaine. "Are 
 you as poor as that? " 
 
 " O serior, we are very poor! " 
 
 " Great heaven! " he thought, " I will give these 
 people the price of their crops. No wonder they 
 made a row, poor devils. I shall certainly speak 
 to Tremaine," he said, " and I know he will do 
 something for these men." 
 
 " Oh, he no will! " cried the girl. " He is a per- 
 fec devil. He have a heart black like the earth 
 the gopher over there turn up, but hard like the 
 stones in the creek." 
 
 Tremaine felt much as if his ears had been boxed. 
 
 " But perhaps he did not understand," he expos 
 tulated, " when I explain matters to him I am sure 
 he will do all he can to compensate you." 
 
 Then he experienced a strong desire to change 
 the conversation. There should be no clouds on 
 so perfect a day, and he might never have this girl 
 alone again. "By the way," he said abruptly, 
 " is there a Mrs. Pollock staying in the neighbor 
 hood on any of these ranches? " 
 
 Carmelita shook her head. " Who she is? " 
 
 " She is a woman who was once a great belle in 
 
I So LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 San Francisco. There was a rumor of an unfor 
 tunate affair, which you would not understand, 
 seiiorita, and she suddenly disappeared. It was 
 supposed at first that she had gone abroad 
 again, but of late it has come to be generally 
 understood that she is living on a ranch in Cen 
 tral California." 
 
 Carmelita caught her breath. Could he mean 
 Geraldine? But her loyalty was stronger than 
 her curiosity. She raised her hand and pointed 
 to the mountains they were approaching. 
 
 " Mira," she said. 
 
 The soft olive curtain had slowly lifted and the 
 mountain no longer looked like a mirage. The 
 redwoods stood out boldly against the darkening 
 aisles, and the wind rising, sighed a welcome 
 through the pines. 
 
 Tremaine s lids fell lower. The world was still, 
 but he felt the litany of the redwoods. Nature 
 laid her heart against his own and stilled its dis 
 content. Carmelita, with rapt eyes, made the sign 
 of the cross, and he felt her kinship. If there had 
 been even less of common language between them 
 he would at that moment have divined the comrade 
 
LOS CERRITOS. l8l 
 
 in her as absolutely and uniquely as if they had 
 whispered confidences from the hour of birth. 
 
 She did not take him up the mountain by her 
 usual trail, but by one rougher, more precipitous, 
 and a mile beyond. 
 
 " Better we tie the horses here, so they no feel 
 tire out," she said after they had climbed about a 
 quarter of a mile. " You can walk the rest of the 
 way, no? It no is very far." 
 
 Tremaine dismounted, glad to be on his legs 
 again. He turned to help Carmelita, but she was 
 already on the ground tethering her mustang. 
 She sprang as lightly as a squirrel up the steep 
 trail, but paused after a time to await Tremaine, 
 who was following with less agility. 
 
 "Now we go through the brush," she called 
 down to him. " I hope you no tear your closes." 
 
 He stopped suddenly and looked up at her. 
 She was several yards above him, standing on a 
 sort of shelf that projected over the path. Behind 
 was a dense mass of green and above her towered 
 the redwoods. Her hands rested lightly on her 
 splendid young hips and her head was a little 
 thrown back. The round elastic form looked as 
 
1 82 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 if it might bound away into the forest like a deer, 
 and her great eyes seemed guarding the mystery 
 of the forest s infancy, locked in their depths. 
 
 He went up the path, as usual saying what was 
 second in his mind. 
 
 " I am not afraid of the brush." 
 
 She looked at the clothes he wore, then at the 
 redwoods. "They are gray like the trees," she 
 said; "sometime I think you are a redwood be 
 fore," and then she dashed into the willows. 
 
 Tremaine put his hat in the pocket of his fish 
 ing jacket and holding his rod in one hand, forced 
 back the boughs with the other. Conversation 
 was not to be thought of here. The slender, re 
 bounding branches switched his face as if he were 
 a disobedient school-boy, the wild-rose trees caught 
 at his trousers, and the lilacs, sweet as they were, 
 filled his eyes with a blinding shower. He 
 emerged upon the bluff overhanging the creek, 
 with a sigh of relief. 
 
 Thank heaven that is over," he exclaimed fer 
 vently. " Do you come here often? " 
 
 " No by this way. I have another more open." 
 
 " Then why why did you bring me this way? " 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 183 
 
 " I have reason," said Carmelita, and Tremaine, 
 quite snubbed, put on his hat and followed her 
 down the bluff. 
 
 " Have be careful," she said, " the earth is loose." 
 
 Slipping, sliding, and catching at shrubs, they 
 reached the creek. Carmelita waded out into the 
 middle, then turned to Tremaine. 
 
 " You mus come in," she said. " You no can 
 catch on the bank. It no is deep enough there. 
 Oh! I forget. You mus take oif your shoses and 
 stockings no put on the boots." 
 
 " They are rubber boots," he said, and followed 
 his guide into the water. 
 
 "When you see the feesh you stand on the 
 rocks and throw out the line," she said, " I hold 
 the basket for you. There one is now." 
 
 He mounted the slippery rocks, whipped the 
 stream and his first fish swung slowly to Came- 
 lita, who stood on a big stone near by. 
 
 " Bueno ! " she said approvingly. " Now come 
 after me and have be careful for the sharp stones." 
 
 They plodded up the stream for an hour, Tre 
 maine catching a number of fine trout. It was 
 very beautiful, very cool, and very quiet. Noth- 
 
1 84 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 ing could be wilder or more picturesque, nothing 
 more calmly eloquent of the gulf between nature 
 and art. Great bunches of ice-grass with their 
 slender sweeping strands reflected in the gliding 
 waters ; banks of ferns, thick and strong as young 
 forests, or delicate as lace for a woman s gown ; 
 gnarled and twisted roots of trees, some massive, 
 others in their first cycle, crawling in and out of 
 the steep sides of the bluffs like writhing living 
 things, side by side with fresh vivid patches of 
 wet moss or an occasional oak that stretched out 
 at right angles from the cliff; sloping banks hid 
 den beneath dense beds of feathery fox-tail and 
 gay pageant of lilies ; wild fragrant honeysuckles, 
 and masses of pink azaleas ; sweeping willows and 
 crisp laurel; and high above, the mountain with 
 its silent redwoods and bending pines. In the 
 creek were dim tideless pools and tiny white- 
 tipped tumbling falls. Side by side were many- 
 hued rocks and great logs, now covered, now 
 rearing their heads like watchful crocodiles. The 
 winding sweep was lost in darkening sun-flecked 
 cave-like perspective. To great overhanging boul 
 ders dripping, moss-grown, magnificent bunches 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 185 
 
 of maiden-hair clung; on mossy island-like rocks 
 in the creek grew little groves of ferns and grasses 
 and tiny trees. A glorious wealth of color below, 
 a flaming lake in a vault of lapis lazuli above, a 
 great wonderful silence, broken only by a solitary 
 kingfisher swooping noisely down the creek, or 
 the wind surging through the tree-tops like a 
 suspended ocean. 
 
 Carmelita s gloom had vanished and she found 
 herself wondering if only a few miles away lay a 
 ranch whose gay spring gown was a bitter mock 
 ery. Her unquiet heart drowsed in a vague 
 sweet languor. Was there a world beyond, or 
 had a wall, higher than the highest peak, suddenly 
 girdled the mountain and shut her in forever with 
 her redwood lover? She looked at Tremaine and 
 smiled at the fancy. He was balancing himself 
 on a rock, angling desperately. His brows were 
 frowning in the intensity of absorption and his 
 nose was getting sunburnt. He caught his fish 
 and glanced overhead. 
 
 " It is getting hot," he said. " Let us sit on the 
 bank over yonder for a while." 
 
 She followed him to a green willow-garrisoned 
 
1 86 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 patch of land beneath the bank, and he threw 
 himself on the ground with a gratified sigh. 
 
 " It is deliciously cool here and this place is too 
 lovely for fishing. I have never never seen any 
 thing so beautiful." He lay for a few moments, 
 looking slowly about him, then turned to her. 
 " You love it too," he said, " I have watched you. 
 Whenever you raise your eyes you look as awed 
 as if the gates of heaven had suddenly opened." 
 
 She held her arms up to the trees, then dropped 
 them. " Yes," she said, " I love them." 
 
 " Do you come here often? " 
 
 " Yes. These trees are my friends like you have 
 the mens. I have give them names, and, you no 
 may believe, but they can talk." 
 
 " I do not doubt it." She was sitting on a fallen 
 log a yard from him, but he felt as if she were in 
 his arms. He felt companioned for the first time 
 in his life. "I have lived for months alone in 
 California forests and I have had a sense of inti 
 macy with trees that I never had for gabbling 
 mortals. I doubt I have doubted if any human 
 being could come as near." He pointed with his 
 fishing rod to a madrona. " Look at that creature 
 
LOS CERRITOS. iS/ 
 
 with her red kid gown and her bodice of bur 
 nished bronze. No woman is so slender and so 
 well dressed as she. Once she was an Indian 
 maiden, so perfect that Nature dared not let her 
 die. That redwood there loved her as Romeo 
 loved Juliet, and bitterness of race kept them 
 apart until what we call death united them. 
 When I die I pray I may become a redwood, for 
 no destiny seems to me so eternal in its peace, so 
 sublime in its strength." 
 
 Carmelita looked at him with dilating eyes and 
 throbbing throat. The confession he moved her 
 to had a different origin from the one that Geral- 
 dine had inspired. 
 
 " I will tell you " she whispered. 
 
 " What? " he asked eagerly. 
 
 And then she told him her soul s romance. 
 " When I see you yesterday," she said in conclu 
 sion, " I think my redwood have come down and 
 walk on the ranch. Now I know why. You love 
 the trees and know them like myself. No one 
 else I ever know do that." 
 
 Tremaine sat up suddenly and took a package 
 from the pocket of his basket. " Let us eat our 
 
1 88 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 luncheon," lie said almost coldly. "It must be 
 noon, and I am hungry." 
 
 They ate the rough sandwiches provided by the 
 landlady of the Aguitas, and chatted of trifling 
 things. At the meal s conclusion he produced his 
 travelling cup, and she took it from him. 
 
 " I get you some water from the little fall," she 
 said, " it is cold like mountain air in winter." 
 
 She waded into the creek and kneeling on a 
 rock, caught the bubbles as they boiled over. Her 
 long braids trailed on the stream and the water 
 reflected her strong round limbs and perfect face. 
 A mermaid was rising to the surface. Tremaine, 
 who was on his feet, saw the reflection. 
 
 " Stay where you are for a moment," he said. 
 " Do not move." He put his foot on a rock and 
 swinging himself up the bank, tore a great bunch 
 of maidenhair from its boulder. He leaped to the 
 earth again, gathered an arm-full of ice grass and 
 heavy ferns and waded out to Carmelita. She 
 looked up at him inquiringly, but made no re 
 monstrance as he twisted the maidenhair in her 
 own bluish locks and thrust the ferns into the 
 belt and neck of her gown. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 189 
 
 " Now look at yourself," lie said. " No gold- 
 haired Lorlei was ever so wonderful as this," and 
 together they leaned over the edge of the rock 
 and looked down. 
 
 " I look si I grow out the ferns," she whispered, 
 gazing at her luminous face beneath its waving 
 crown. Then her head moved and she looked into 
 Tremaine s reflected eyes. He was kneeling very 
 close to her, for the rock was narrow. "Your 
 eyes look like the sky when a storm coming and it 
 turn from blue to gray" she murmured, and 
 then paused suddenly. 
 
 Nature, lying on her feathered couch in vast 
 singing halls, opened her eyes, smiled, and dipping 
 her white fingers in a fount beside her, sent up 
 ward a wave of golden ether, light as wine, sweet 
 as the essences whereon the flowers supped. It 
 surged over the two kneeling there, over and 
 about them ; it swept in a warm pungent current 
 through their veins and mourfted in flood tide to 
 their heads. The outlines of the scene about them 
 were gone, the world was a shimmering sea of 
 light whose waves tossed perfume in the air, 
 whose depths murmured the echo of all the bliss 
 
IQO LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 the world had ever known. Then the wave re 
 ceded, slowly, and in its wake was the chill of 
 death. Tremaine sprang to his feet, nearly over 
 turning the stone, and Camelita, shivering from 
 head to foot, slipped into the water and waded to 
 the bank. 
 
 " My God ! " thought Tremaine, " am I in love 
 with this girl? What damnable folly ! " He strode 
 after her and caught up his fishing rod and bas 
 ket. "Come! let us go home," he said, almost 
 roughly. "I have business this afternoon and 
 have stayed too long already." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 19 1 
 
 V. 
 
 THE PRIEST AND THE WOMAN. 
 
 GEKALDINE opened her door and stepped out 
 into the court. The moon like a bashful school 
 girl looked at the earth over her curving arm. 
 Clouds drifted before the budding stars, and in 
 the far perspective of the picture seen through 
 the open end of the court the shadows were thick 
 as crowding ghosts. The trees were as quiet as if 
 the hurrying wind had never quivered them, and 
 not a sound broke that lonely stillness but the 
 low continuous croaking of the frogs and the 
 abrupt occasional hoot of the owl. 
 
 She shivered and drew her long cloak about her. 
 " I wonder if any spot on earth is as quiet as this," 
 she thought. " Sometimes I find myself believing 
 that this ranch is really a wandering satellite, and 
 that once it touched the earth and I stepped on." 
 She left the court and wandered to the stile, and 
 leaned against it for a few moments, then turned 
 
IQ2 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 it suddenly and walked down the hill to the road. 
 " It is horribly lonely," she thought, " but I must 
 have exercise, and the night is the only time. I 
 am mad with everlasting pacing up and down that 
 narrow gallery." 
 
 She walked on and on, starting at the shadows 
 and once screaming aloud as a soft bat brushed 
 her face, then forgetting fear and time in her own 
 unhappy thoughts. A hope was creeping on 
 stealthy hands and knees through her heart, born, 
 as many hopes are, of desire alone, but with vital 
 pulses. A dark mass loomed before her and she 
 knew that it must be the Mission. Then Hope 
 sprang to its feet, transformed to Will. Never 
 theless the woman put her hands to her eyes with 
 a terrified cry and her body swayed as if the earth 
 were rolling beneath it. Then her limbs grew 
 rigid and she crept about the corner of the Mis 
 sion and stood before the padre s house. One 
 bright window was like a jewel set in an iron wall, 
 and she advanced with careful steps and looked 
 through the thin cotton curtain. A man sat by 
 the chimney piece, his arms folded, his chin low 
 ered on his chest, his hollowed eyes staring at the 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 193 
 
 empty fireplace. Geraldine sank inertly to the 
 ground, her locked hands thrusting themselves 
 unconsciously between the wide cracks in the 
 adobe soil. "He is changed changed" she 
 whispered with eyes turned to the past, then 
 started in terror and wondered if she had screamed 
 the words aloud. 
 
 But there was no sound in the house, and in a 
 moment she raised herself, and turned as if to fly 
 down the road, then went suddenly to the door 
 and lifted the latch. The key had been turned. 
 She knocked loudly on the thick oak panel. The 
 padre came at once with a lamp in his hand. 
 
 " Who is it? " he asked kindly, for he was used 
 to sudden calls. 
 
 He saw that a woman stood before him, but the 
 fog ocean tossed before the moon. She made no 
 answer. He held the lamp high above his head 
 and it shone full on the white face and gleaming 
 hair of the woman. With a hoarse cry, he fell 
 back into the darkness, until she could see noth 
 ing but his blanched horrified face. She sprang 
 forward, and taking the lamp from his relaxing 
 fingers, grasped his arm and almost pushed him 
 
194 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 into the study. He threw himself into a chair 
 and covered his face with his trembling fingers, 
 then suddenly sprang to his feet and pointed to 
 the open door. 
 
 " Go! " he cried imperiously, " Go! " 
 
 " No, not yet," she said. " Let me stay a moment. 
 I did not plan this visit, but now that I am here I 
 must stay and speak." He turned from her and 
 leaned his elbow on the chimney piece. " Do you 
 know," she went on, hardly knowing what she 
 said, " that I have lived here for more than a year ? 
 That I came here to be near you? " 
 
 He moved abruptly, but made no reply. " I 
 shall stay near you until I die," she went on. 
 
 The priest s rigid fingers dug his face until the 
 blood almost started. " O God, go ! " he groaned, 
 "Go! Go!" 
 
 She moved to approach him, but he turned 
 swiftly and held out his arm. 
 
 " Do not come near me," he muttered. 
 
 Geraldine s cloak had slipped to the floor and 
 her slender black-robed figure looked vibrant 
 with suppressed emotion. Her heavy hair had 
 tumbled from its pins, a flame had sprung from 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 195 
 
 the clear fathomless depths of her perilous eyes. 
 But as she held out her arms there was no volup 
 tuous seduction in her manner. When a woman 
 really loves and her heart is racked with agony 
 and doubt, passion is frozen and art is forgotten. 
 But a great cry escaped from her soul. 
 
 "Come! Come! Let us go where the church 
 cannot follow us." 
 
 " Traitress ! " he shouted, making no further at 
 tempt to control himself, " I hate you! How dare 
 you come to me? What farce is this that brings 
 you to bury yourself in an adobe hovel? Is it 
 your idea of penance? You have come here to be 
 near me and you will stay near me until you die ! 
 My God ! what irony. Go ! for I have nothing to 
 say to you. Not a word." 
 
 She sprang forward with a low, frightened cry, 
 but he retreated before her. " Not another word," 
 he said, " I will not listen to it. Leave the house 
 at once or I shall leave it." 
 
 For a moment the woman stood staring incred 
 ulously at him, but in his eyes was no relenting. 
 Then with an imperious movement of her head, 
 
196 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 she sank slowly on her knees, raising her arm 
 until the hand showed white against the dark. 
 
 " My father," she said, " I command you to hear 
 my confession." 
 
 The priest caught his breath, and raised both 
 clenched hands to his breast ; but his faith was 
 strong within him and he stood while she spoke. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 197 
 
 VI. 
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF THE MISSION. 
 
 THE next evening Tremaine was walking among 
 the woods of the ranch, endeavoring to outstride 
 his own uneasy thoughts, when he was arrested 
 by a peculiar sound. A bird was calling and an 
 other was answering, but in the voice of the bird 
 who seemed to be on the ground, was a strangely 
 human note. He stood for some moments listen 
 ing to the dialogue. The moon was flooding the 
 wood and he suddenly saw something move be 
 neath a tree. It looked like a human form and 
 he put his hand mechanically to his pistol. At 
 the same moment he stepped on a crackling 
 branch, and in the face quickly turned to him he 
 recognized Carmelita. 
 
 She raised her finger warningly. " No make a 
 noise," she whispered, " but come si you like." 
 
 Tremaine, much mystified but nothing loath, 
 
198 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 walked softly over to her, and sank on the ground 
 at her side. 
 
 " Listen." She raised her voice and warbled a 
 few strains, and Treniaine recognized the para 
 doxical bird. A shower of notes fell from above 
 and for some moments the duo went on. Tre- 
 maine was deeply interested and felt that this 
 strange girl was about to reveal herself in a new 
 phase. He might be better off were he a thou 
 sand miles away from this ranch, but he felt a su 
 preme content that he was not. Her small brown 
 hand lay on her knee and his own closed suddenly 
 over it. For a moment the duo was threatened, 
 and then Carmelita s voice went on in richer mea 
 sure. After a time she paused and turned to him. 
 
 " You know what I do? " she asked. 
 
 " I do not." 
 
 " That poor bird you no know how sad he is ! 
 He losta his wife in the winter. The rain wash 
 her down from the nest one day. I find her and 
 bury her here by the tree. The poor bird he is so 
 lonely, senor! I come talk to him sometimes and 
 he feel better. To-night he tell me the whole 
 story again. You like to hear it, senor? " 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 199 
 
 Tremaine, who was divided between a desire to 
 laugh and to kiss her, murmured that nothing 
 would give him more pleasure. 
 
 " Well, you see it was like this. It rain so hard 
 las winter that the nests no were strong in the 
 trees. One day it no rain, but the clouds are 
 black like the river, and this bird and his wife go 
 to call on nother bird to see si they can borrow 
 some grass to tie their nest more firm. But no 
 one have any to spare; all are fraid like them 
 selves. One bird ask them to stay in his house, 
 but Enrique that is the name de my bird no 
 want, for he and his wife no been marry long and 
 they like be together. So, late they go home, and 
 he kiss her and tell her no be fright, and tuck her 
 in bed. Bime by she go to sleep, and he spread 
 his wing over her, so she no get wet si the rain 
 come; and bime by he go to sleep too. Then, 
 senor, in the night come the rain. It is like the 
 river jump to the sky and then fall down in one 
 big sheet. It wash the nest from the tree, senor, 
 and just sweep the poor little birds to the groun. 
 Then it beat on them like stones, it come so fast. 
 Enrique no could cry out and ask his wife how she 
 
20O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 is. He no can see, and bime by he no feel. The 
 rain beat his senses away. And the next morn 
 ing, senor, when he wake, it have clear off, and 
 there in the nest he no was in himself was 
 poor little Manita, dead. The rain wash her life 
 away. Oh, senor ! he cry, cry, all the day. Then 
 I come and find him with his wing over her, and 
 his voice so sad I sit down in the mud and cry 
 too. And then I dig the grave and the padre he 
 make a little cross. And Enrique never leave this 
 tree. I find him here always." 
 
 Tremaine bent his head and looked in her face. 
 The story had touched him, but the girl s wild 
 tender nature appealed to him more thrillingly 
 than the sad little tragedy of the bird. 
 
 "And he never married again?" he asked, as 
 comment was required. 
 
 Carmelita s eyes flashed. " Of course not ! He 
 no love her ? " 
 
 Tremaine stood up suddenly. " I have a fancy 
 to see the old Mission by moonlight," he said. 
 "Will you come with me? or would you rather 
 go home. It is late." 
 
 " I go to the Mission," said Camielita obligingly. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2OI 
 
 She rose to her feet and warbled a few notes. A 
 plaintive voice responded, and she followed Tre- 
 maine down the path. 
 
 " He say good-night. You hear ? He is very 
 sorry I go." 
 
 " Undoubtedly." He made no further attempt 
 at conversation until they reached the Mission, 
 when again his conscience smote him and he asked 
 her if she should not be at home. 
 
 "Are you sure your aunt will not be worried? 
 It must be nearly eleven o clock." 
 
 " My aunt have the other childrens and always 
 I do what I feel like. Sometimes when I go to 
 the mountain and no feel like come home I sleep 
 in a tree that been eat out by the fire and my 
 aunt she no mind. She love me, but you see she 
 have so many others," and she pushed a box 
 against the wall and sat down. 
 
 The supreme isolation of her life, conveyed in 
 the careless almost absent words, again gave 
 Tremaine a sense of having touched her soul with 
 his. His own loneliness was so appalling! And 
 now, a piece of driftwood on the stream of Circum 
 stance, he had floated to an island of security and 
 
202 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 peace, bliss and communion, with Nature to mur 
 mur banns and blessings and he must touch and 
 drift on ! As yet no desire had entered into his 
 love. He had outgrown the indiscriminate and 
 omnipresent sensuality of youth, and beautiful 
 and half clothed as the girl was, her kinship to 
 Nature was too close for him to regard her by the 
 standard of other women; her kinship with him 
 so absolute that passion could be but the demand 
 for closer spiritual union when Nature com 
 manded her subtlest interpretations. The feeling 
 he had for her now was one of great and perfect 
 friendship. She had stolen into his nature com 
 pleting and quickening. She had put her ten 
 fingers in rapid succession upon every note of his 
 being and drawn fullest measure of sound from 
 each. The world sang to him once more. 
 
 Carmelita sat motionless, her head on her hand. 
 She had made no attempt to define what she had 
 felt in the creek yesterday. Something had come, 
 and she held it close and hid its face. 
 
 " Talk to me," he said. " Tell me something about 
 yourself. Who were your father and mother? " 
 
 "My father was Joaquin Murietta." Carme- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 203 
 
 lita s pride in her erratic parent had not declined 
 with ethical advancement; her life had been too 
 solitary, her nature was too romantic. 
 
 "No? I had no idea you were of such distin 
 guished birth. And your mother ? " 
 
 She told Tiim that fair mother s history, and he 
 listened with great interest. " That is romantic ! " 
 he exclaimed when she had finished. " I knew 
 you did not come from the vegetable garden. 
 And you you with such parentage, you are out 
 of place in this commonplace existence. Who 
 will you marry, I wonder." He uttered the words 
 idly. He did not picture her the wife of any man. 
 
 CarmelJta parted her lips. The air seemed to 
 have left her lungs. " I never marry," she said 
 coldly, after a moment, but the knuckles of her 
 hand bruised her cheek. "Alway I live like 
 this. The padre say so, and I know." 
 
 Tremaine set his teeth suddenly, and she rose 
 and leaned against the pillar by her box. He 
 gazed at her for a moment and then paid her a 
 compliment with angry vehemence. 
 
 u How beautiful you are! " he said. " I cannot 
 hell) telling you that. Do you know that in the 
 
2O4 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 world I come from I have never seen a woman so 
 perfect as you?" 
 
 She turned to him and smiled, the warm blood 
 rushing to her face and throat. Then, with a sud 
 den impulse of coquetry, the first of her life, she 
 swept her hair from its braids and shook the silky 
 web about her. It clung to her like inky mist, 
 and through it peered her startled face with its 
 parted lips and appealing eyes. The action was 
 exquisite, the first tribute of a woman to the man 
 who had stirred her heart from the calm of its 
 birth, and Tremaine s pulses leaped and fought 
 against their prisoning walls. He sprang to his 
 feet and his eyes flashed their answer to the ap 
 peal of hers. Oh ! but the hour and the woman 
 were witching. The night pulsed about them! 
 The very air was drugged with the perfume of the 
 spring flowers, the heavy scent of locust blossom s. 
 
 He folded his arms and set his shoulders against 
 the pillar behind him. 
 
 " Your hair is very beautiful," he said coldly. 
 " Were I an artist I should paint you so." And 
 he stood regarding her calmly from beneath his 
 eyes concealing lids. He needed no brush to com- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2O5 
 
 memorate the scene: the great silent expanse, 
 rolling away like a sea of reflected silver until it 
 met and broke against the far-off mountains ; the 
 ruinous old Mission, grand in its simple resigna 
 tion to poverty and neglect ; the beautiful woman, 
 with her eager passionate face and wonderful 
 glory of hair; it was etched into his brain. 
 
 She turned from him and began braiding her 
 hair, her flesh chilled, as if the night wind were 
 the breath of mid-winter. As she thrust the 
 strands back and forth with awkward fingers her 
 downcast eyes caught sudden view of her bare 
 legs. Blushing a hot painful red she shrank back 
 into the shadow of the pillar, yet feeling that 
 there was no night which would cover her naked 
 ness from this man s gaze. Her pulse throbbed 
 against her swelling throat and she trembled from 
 head to foot with shame. What must he think 
 of her ? The women he knew did not dress like 
 that. Why, why, had she not thought of this be 
 fore? And for a moment a demon within her 
 raved and bit and cursed the fate which had 
 wrought her ignorance. 
 
 Her instinct was to fly into the Mission and 
 
206 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 bolt herself in a cell until he should have gone; 
 but pride, blind but peremptory, forbade her to 
 provoke misinterpretation. She bit her lips and 
 in a moment the muscles of her throat relaxed. 
 
 "Buenas noches," she said, shaking her hair 
 about her. "No come with me. I go to see the 
 senora," and she walked down the road with head 
 erect and burning face. Tremaine did not follow. 
 He was puzzled, but glad to be alone. 
 
 She went straight to Lindavista, but when she 
 reached Geraldine s door it was some time before 
 it was opened. Then Carmelita gave a little cry 
 of horror, forgetting her own trouble. 
 
 " Geraldinita! " she cried, "what is the matter? 
 You are ill, no? You are white like the virgin in 
 the Mission." 
 
 " Come in," said Geraldine, grasping her hand 
 eagerly. " I am so glad you are here. Stay with 
 me to-night." 
 
 " Si, I stay. But why you are so pale ? " 
 
 " I wish to God I were paler," exclaimed the 
 woman passionately. She pushed the girl into a 
 chair, sitting by her. "What brought you? Is 
 there any more trouble? " 
 
LOS CERRTTOS. 2O/ 
 
 " Geraldina, I go to ask you to give me some 
 thing, and you no will mind, no? for I never ask 
 for nothing before." 
 
 "Ask for what you want, my dear girl. You 
 are welcome to all I have." 
 
 " I no want much. Only one old skirt long 
 that you no wear any more." 
 
 " But my child, what will you do with a train? " 
 
 " I no want a train, only a dress to cover my 
 legs all roun!" 
 
 Geraldine was too wise to ask questions, and 
 she went into the next room, returning in a mo 
 ment with a black skirt. 
 
 " Take this," she said. " I am very glad to get 
 rid of it. It never suited me." 
 
 " But it is too good, Geraldina. You no have 
 nothing more old?" 
 
 " I shall never wear this again and it is two 
 years old at least. Here, put it on." She threw 
 it over the girl s head and fastened the belt. 
 
 Carmelita walked down the room, surveying 
 herself over each shoulder and down the front. 
 Her self-respect was restored, and she felt digni 
 fied and worthy to be the daughter of her mother. 
 
208 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " They no can see my legs now," she exclaimed 
 triumphantly. " I no look indecente any more." 
 
 " You never looked indecent," said Geraldine 
 indignantly. " Who has said such a thing to you ? " 
 
 " No one say to me " and then she threw 
 her arms about Geraldine and broke into wild, 
 convulsive weeping. Geraldine drew her down on 
 to the divan, and putting her head on the girl s 
 shoulder, wept also. Her grief was less violent 
 but it was more hopeless, for youth with its ignor 
 ance of life was behind her. 
 
 " I no know si I am happy or sorry," sobbed 
 Carmelita. 
 
 But the woman had no such doubt. 
 
LOS CERRITOS, 2OQ 
 
 VII. 
 
 ALEXANDER TREMAINE. 
 
 " I HAD almost forgotten," said Geraldine the 
 next morning. " I have twenty dollars for you." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 " It came yesterday. It is a greenback, but you 
 must have gold or you would never realize its 
 value." And she threw back the heavy stuffs of 
 the divan and took from a drawer a heavy piece 
 of gold, new and bright. 
 
 The girl was unf eignedly delighted. " I go to 
 the Aguitas to-day," she cried, "and buy some 
 closes for the children and plenty beans and flour. 
 Geraldina, I love you." 
 
 Geraldine put her arm about the girl s shoul 
 ders. " You have not yet told me your trouble," 
 she said. " Some day perhaps you w^ill. Remem 
 ber that I am your friend and that I love you." 
 
 Carmelita turned away her head to hide the 
 blood that had jumped to her face. " I no know, 
 
 Geraldina. I no think I ever tell." 
 14 
 
2IO LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " What can it be? " thought Geraldine. 
 
 That afternoon Carmelita went with her gold to 
 the Aguitas. This landmark of civilization was 
 a good four miles from her home, but she walked 
 the distance swiftly and reached the place before 
 dark. The porch in front of the "hotel" was 
 crowded with excited groups discussing the com 
 ing of the sheriffs on the morrow; but even the 
 young men were too absorbed to notice her, and 
 she slipped into the store and made her purchases. 
 It was a question of deep moment, the spending 
 of those twenty dollars, and when it was finally 
 settled, and the man had been instructed to give 
 the heavier things to Espinoza when he should 
 call, the porch was deserted and night had come. 
 
 She put her bundle under her arm and was 
 about to strike across the road, thankful that she 
 would go unseen, when she heard the sound of 
 voices in a large room adjoining the store. Even 
 this fragment of the world appealed to her curi 
 osity at times and after a moment s hesitation she 
 stepped to the window and peered within. For 
 many moments she stood motionless, too fasci 
 nated to move. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 211 
 
 The large room was bare and uncarpeted, but 
 huge logs crackled hospitality in the open fire 
 place, reddening the ugly peeling walls with their 
 leaping glare. In the centre of the room, gath 
 ered close about a table, were four men, bearded, 
 dark, desperate looking, their sombreros pulled 
 low over watchful eyes, their hands iilled with 
 shuffling cards, small heaps of gold glittering be 
 side them. Silent, calm as sphinxes, they saw 
 their piles augment or disappear, while the men 
 who to-morrow might be without a roof to their 
 heads, crowded about with greedy gaze and mut 
 tered wagers. In a corner a man was making a 
 captured bat smoke a cigarette, and by the hearth 
 crouched the old Indian holding his ghoulish 
 hands to the flames. 
 
 " Come," said a voice behind Carmelita s shoul 
 der. " Do not look any more. There may be a 
 fight any moment." 
 
 Carmelita started, almost dropping her bundle, 
 but Tremaine took it from her. " I will go home 
 with you," he said. " It is too late for you to be 
 on this part of the ranch alone." 
 
 They walked for some distance in silence. The 
 
212 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 moon was not up yet and the road had little light, 
 but Carmelita felt as if the ground had turned 
 buoyant as air, and vague disturbance fled. 
 
 " I have no right to this," thought Tremaine, 
 " but it is for the last time." " Why have you put 
 on that long dress ? " he demanded abruptly. " I 
 like the short one much better. It suits you, and 
 that long shapeless thing does not." 
 
 " I like," said Carmelita briefly. "And it is very 
 strange si you no like, for you no can be use to the 
 short skirt where you live before." 
 
 " I like what I am not used to. You were not 
 afraid to take this walk alone? " he added quickly. 
 
 " I no think ; I want so much to get the things ; 
 but I am glad you come." 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 " I find an old certificate, and the senora send 
 to the city and sell for me. She give to me las 
 night one big gold piece, and I go to the Aguitas 
 to buy the closes for the childrens, and many 
 other things that no would interest you, senor." 
 
 "And what did you get for yourself? " 
 
 " Nothing, for I no want. The senora she give 
 to me this dress." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 "When?" asked Tremaine quickly. 
 
 She hesitated. " Las night." 
 
 A flash of inspiration came to Tremaine and for 
 a moment he saw the objects about him less dis 
 tinctly. " She loves me! " he thought exultingly, 
 and he repeated the words many times. He put 
 out his arms with a swift motion. There was an 
 ache in the muscles and he held them so rigidly 
 that they were cramped. Then he dropped them 
 suddenly. She was a little ahead and saw noth 
 ing. If she had she would have sprung to him 
 as naturally as a forest queen springs to its mate. 
 
 " Talk to me," he said. " Say something. I like 
 to hear your fancies. Tell me about your birds 
 and flowers." 
 
 " I tell you one thing I have think for a long 
 time, ever since the senora tell me the history," 
 she answered, willing to please him, and finding 
 the subject a congenial one. " You have hear of 
 Semiramis, no? She was a great queen before 
 Babylon I think." 
 
 " Yes, I have heard." 
 
 u You remember she have the hanging gardens 
 on her palace, no? Well, this is what I think. 
 
214 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Nature she have the palace in the earth the 
 flowers they describe to me, and the house of 
 Semiramis no can compare. You no may believe, 
 but I do, and I believe it is right under us, and 
 California is the hanging garden de her." 
 
 " I shouldn t wonder! " 
 
 "And sometimes in the night when it is warm 
 and the air so sweet I no can bear to sleep inside, 
 I see Tier. She is tall like the big oaks, but she 
 shine like a star through the fine mist and she 
 sweep her train over her hills, and the wild flow 
 ers kiss her feet and the air whisper with a sound 
 I never hear any other time cept when I kneel 
 and hold my ear one foot from the groun. You 
 ever hear that sound, senor ? It no is roar, or 
 buzz, or hum, but all three and low. I often lis 
 ten, for when you stand high you no hear." 
 
 " I have heard it when I have been lying alone 
 in the woods on a summer s day. But go on. 
 What are those frogs talking about? " 
 
 "Listen! you no can tell? I know. They sing 
 the funeral mass for the dead birds." 
 
 " Never mind any more," said Tremaine harshly, 
 " there is your home." He threw the bundle to 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 215 
 
 the ground. " Give me your hands," he said, " I 
 have something to say to you." 
 
 She looked at him wonderingly and then gave 
 him both warm quivering hands. He crushed 
 them roughly against his breast and brought his 
 flushed face close to her paling one. His self-con 
 trol was leaving him and his knees shook sud 
 denly. The words came with difficulty, but he 
 said them. 
 
 " Carmelita! I am Alexander Tremaine." 
 And he dropped her hands and went down the 
 road, and out of her sight. 
 
2l6 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 AT THE FOOT OF THE CTCOSS. 
 
 THE padre was sitting by his table, his face 
 buried in his hands, when he heard the outer door 
 open and a woman s footsteps rushing toward his 
 study. He sprang to his feet, the cold drops start 
 ing on his forehead, then sank back with a quick 
 sigh of relief. It was Carmelita. 
 
 He looked at her for a moment, unseeingly, 
 then rose suddenly and put out his hand. 
 
 " My child, what is it? " he asked. " What has 
 happened to you? " 
 
 She pressed her hands about her throat as if 
 she would speak, then threw herself headlong to 
 the floor and lay on her face at his feet. She 
 made no sound, but she shook like a wounded 
 panther that has crawled to a familiar spot to die. 
 
 The padre sat down and folded his arms. He 
 knew that the time had not come to speak. He 
 divined the cause of her agony. The day he had 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 217 
 
 turned his eyes to the organ platform and seen 
 the commanding head of the stranger he had felt 
 a prophetic sense of its coming, and since, he had 
 passed them twice. He had intended to seek 
 Tremaine and ask him to go before any harm 
 should be done. And now it was too late. While 
 man hesitates love flies with lightning in his 
 wings, and strikes. 
 
 Once, as he sat watching her mortal woe, a 
 question almost unconsciously drifted through his 
 mind. Which would be worse : to marry an igno 
 rant Mexican and spend her life in a dirty hovel 
 with a swarm of half -naked children and not a 
 memory of youth, or to have known the splendid 
 agony of love and loss and despair ? He thrust 
 the question aside with a shudder. He knew the 
 bitterness of memories. 
 
 The girl s quivering body grew quiet and she 
 lay motionless for a few moments, then rose to 
 her feet and stood looking down on him with 
 sullen demand. 
 
 He rose also. "Do not speak," he said, "I 
 know I know." 
 
 He walked rapidly up and down the room, striv- 
 
2l8 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 ing to think of some comfort to give her; but he 
 knew the futility of words to heal such wounds. 
 Suddenly his eyes fell on a black curtain which 
 hung before a recess in the wall, and with a rapid 
 stride he stood before it. He turned his eyes to 
 hers for one expressive second, then flung the cur 
 tain aside and Carmelita made the quick involun 
 tary sign of the cross. In the recess was an altar 
 with crucifix and lighted candles. The priest 
 raised his eyes and his hand, pointing upward, 
 then, his eyes meeting hers again, he lowered his 
 arm slowly and pointed to the steps of the altar. 
 Carmelita crossed the room and fell on her knees, 
 pressing her arms about the altar. Then the 
 priest went out and left her alone. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 219 
 
 IX. 
 
 THEEE CITIZENS OF CEEEITOS. 
 
 " WE VE got two pistols apiece, sir," said the 
 sheriff. " I hope you re fixed." 
 
 "Yes," said Tremaine. "But I don t wish any 
 dispossessing done to-day. We will talk to the 
 men and see if they have any suggestions to 
 make. Hawkins will explain." 
 
 He sprang on his horse, the sheriffs and Haw 
 kins got into the wagon, and they went down the 
 road that led through the ranch. The sheriff and 
 deputies had arrived at twelve o clock the night 
 before, and no plans had been made. 
 
 " It s a stroke of luck you come when you did," 
 said Hawkins, "the squatters was just beginnin 
 to ketch on to the fact that Mr. Tremaine was 
 himself. I persuaded him to go by the genteel 
 name of Smith fur a while, fur he would ride all 
 over the ranch, and if they had knowed who he 
 was his life wouldn t have been worth a damn." 
 
 The sheriff eyed Tremaine. " He s good n big. 
 
22O LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 and he don t look like he d take water too easy. 
 Guess they wouldn t enjoy a tussle with him. 
 Hanged if I would. But he looks like he knowed 
 it was a serious business." 
 
 " Yes, he looks a deal more serious than when 
 he come. I guess he s looked into things a bit, 
 but he s a man as don t say much." He raised his 
 voice. " Castro s house is on the other side of the 
 hill, sir," he called to Tremaine. " Better have yer 
 pistol ready. He s the wust o the lot." 
 
 Tremaine broke from his thoughts with a start 
 of relief and spurred his horse to the top of the 
 hill. A neat farm, fenced with branches, lay below. 
 Smoke was curling from the chimney and an old 
 woman sat in the door way. The scene was peace 
 ful, and signs of moving there were none. The 
 birds twittering in the trees seemed no more con 
 fidently established in their nests. Castro s par 
 ents were too old to reason. He told them they 
 were to stay, and they gave no thought to exile. 
 
 "Well, of all the gall!" exclaimed the sheriff. 
 " But that s just like Castro." 
 
 They drove through the gate and the old woman 
 pushed her ragged white hair out of her eyes and 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 221 
 
 grinned a yellow and solitary tooth into view, 
 while with one skinny hand she scratched her 
 mahogany cheek. A facetious traveller, seeing 
 her once at the Aguitas, had christened her Cleo 
 patra and the name had clung to her ever since. 
 Not that the squatters had ever heard of the dark 
 and limber queen, but they knew that a joke was 
 intended and were ready to keep it up. The 
 sheriff, with his hand on his hip pocket, jumped 
 from the wagon and went up to the old woman, 
 followed by the others. Tremaine rode to the 
 porch, but did not dismount. 
 
 " Can we see yer son? " asked the sheriff. 
 
 Cleopatra mumbled something and pointed over 
 her shoulder. But she had no need to call her 
 son. He was not attending to his vaquero duties 
 during this momentous crisis, and as he heard 
 the sheriff s voice he gave a hoarse growl and 
 strode to the door like an angry lion from its lair. 
 As he saw Tremaine his jaws began to work and 
 his huge nostrils dilated. But Tremaine gave him 
 a long gaze from beneath his drooping lids and in 
 a moment he turned uneasily to the others and 
 blusteringly demanded what they wanted. 
 
222 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " We want to talk to you a bit. 1 
 
 " I no got nothing to say." 
 
 "But we have to you," said the sheriff. He 
 rolled a quid to the other side of his mouth and 
 seating himself on the window sill swung his leg 
 as an accompaniment to his words. 
 
 " Now look here, Castro, I know you and you 
 know me. What I ve got to say you kin jest be 
 lieve, you bet. If you want to stay on this place 
 you ve got to pay rent or buy. The place ain t 
 yourn. It s Mister Tremaine s. The law has give 
 it to him square, square, and no joke; and you ve 
 either got to pay or git." 
 
 " The law be damned," yelled Castro, " I no leav 
 ing this place si you bring the army with you. I 
 die by the door first. The place no is Serior Tre 
 maine s. I have before and it is mine." 
 
 " That ll do, Castro. Just tone down that voice 
 of yourn, will yer? We re none of us deef. Now, 
 if you ve made up your mind not to rent or buy, 
 Mr. Hawkins tells me that the Sennor Tremaine 
 has made up his mind to give yer the price o 
 yer crops ; and in common decency you ought to 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 223 
 
 treat him as well s lie treats you and not give him 
 no more trouble." 
 
 " Senor Dios ! " shouted Castro, " I lika choke his 
 dirty gold down his throat. I no want his moneys. 
 I want my land. Now go to hell." And he strode 
 into the house, gnashing his teeth, muttering and 
 growling. 
 
 " Well," said the sheriff, sliding from the win 
 dow seat and stamping his foot into his boot. 
 There s only fight with him, that s certain. We ll 
 try somewheres else. Looks as if there was goin 
 to be reel gay times." 
 
 They drove down the road, one of the deputies 
 throwing his legs over the back of the seat and 
 absently toying with his pistol, and in a short 
 time they drew up before another hacienda. Here, 
 neatness did not prevail and the crop was uneven 
 and straggling, as if the hand that had guided the 
 plough had felt little nerve for its work. Four 
 or five ragged children were playing on the porch, 
 and at the sound of the wheels a large Mexican 
 woman waddled to the door. She wore a solitary 
 garment of calico, and acres of fat quivered serenely 
 upon other acres, as she walked. 
 
224 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " Scott! What a fairy," observed the sheriff. 
 "But she won t cuss, that s one comfort. She 
 couldn t get up the steam." 
 
 The woman made no courtesy as the men ap 
 proached her. She looked sullen and indifferent. 
 
 " Buenas dias ! sennora," said the sheriff heart 
 ily. " Can we see yer husband? " 
 
 " He feeda the pigs," said the woman. " Jose, 
 go calla him," and she turned her back and re 
 turned to the stove. 
 
 One of the youngsters disappeared around the 
 corner of the house, and in a moment returned 
 with a tall man dressed in overalls and a flannel 
 shirt. His mouth was set under his heavy beard, 
 as if apprehension threatened to master him. He 
 gave his head a little jerk, then stood waiting for 
 the men to speak. 
 
 " My good man," said the sheriff, " before lettin 
 the law take its course, Mister Tremaine wants to 
 know if yer have any propositions to make. If 
 yer want to rent, the terms won t be very hard, 
 and if yer want to buy, yer can do it on the 
 instalment plan." 
 
 The man folded Ms arms. " I no got one cents," 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 22$ 
 
 he said. " I got two pigs. When I killing them, 
 si I no can sell my horse, the childrens starve. I 
 no can do it nothing more." 
 
 "Well, you be in a bad way," assented the 
 sheriff. " But the sennor will buy yer crops." 
 
 The man laughed. "Looka them," he said. 
 " How much they worth? Much better we starve 
 and have done." 
 
 "Then you have no plans to sergest?" said the 
 sheriff, rising from the box on which he had so 
 ciably seated himself. 
 
 "How the poor man can maka the plan? The 
 rich man do it that and the poor man eata the 
 grass." 
 
 " Then yer re ready to go without trouble? " 
 
 The man looked at his children and the blood 
 blazed to his face. 
 
 "Oh! whatte I can do?" he cried. "Si you 
 putting me out I mus go! It no is use to fight. 
 I telling them that. The law taking from us our 
 own and we no can do it nothing. Take it ! Put 
 ting out the wife and childrens but I no can stay 
 to see," and he fled around the angle of his house. 
 
 " Come," said Tremaine hurriedly. " Let us go." 
 15 
 
226 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " I hope he s not goin to be soft about it," said 
 the sheriff to Hawkins as they rode off, " because 
 he d do no good if he was. They re a lazy lot, 
 anyhow. They hav n t got a cent left, that s cer 
 tain, but they might jest as well starve on the 
 high-road and let him have his land. What a 
 daisy place he could make of it ! " 
 
 The next farm in their progress belonged to a 
 " white squatter." The children swarming over 
 the porch this time were white-haired, but so sun 
 burnt that they were few shades fairer than their 
 Mexican brothers. A woman was sitting in the 
 door mending a child s dress, and her husband 
 was digging in the field. He stood up and watched 
 the approaching visitors with a scowl. He had 
 been a good-natured man, but the hardships and 
 worry of the last year had turned his blood to 
 acid. As the men alighted and spoke to his wife 
 he walked forward and stood before them. 
 
 "What d yer want?" he demanded savagely, 
 for he suspected their errand. 
 
 The man of law said, with a friendly smile, 
 " I m only the sheriff don t go and get skeered, 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 22/ 
 
 though," he added, as the man paled under his 
 weather-beaten skin. "We re willin to make 
 terms if you ve got anything ter sergest." 
 
 k> I ain t got nothiri ter suggest," growled the 
 man, k! and I ain t goin ter leave." But his pitia 
 ble attempt at bravado did not deceive even his 
 wife, and she put the rag she was mending to her 
 eyes and began to cry silently. 
 
 " But I m afraid yer ll have ter," said the sheriff, 
 putting his hands into his pockets and regarding 
 the wretched man with a bland smile. " Law is 
 law, yer know, and if yer don t pay or go, we ll 
 be under the painful necessity of puttin y out 
 bout this time to-morrow. I m sorry, but them s 
 my orders, and I m only a servant of the law." 
 
 " Come to-morrow," said the man with inad vert- 
 ant significance. 
 
 "Aha!" thought the sheriff. "Something s in 
 the wind." But he made.no comment. "Do you 
 all feel alike on this question that yer won t 
 budge till yer re fired? " 
 
 " Yes," said the man sullenly, " that s the way 
 we feel. The land s ourn, not that thief Tre- 
 maine s. Oh, that s him, is it. Well, let him be 
 
228 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 damned. I fur one am willin he should hear my 
 opinion of im. If he takes the land what s mine 
 in spite of the law, he s a thief, nothin mor n less. 
 You kin arrest me if yer like. No thin could be 
 wuss than tis now." 
 
 " Oh, we won t arrest yer; for bein wusted, it s 
 natral you should feed a little riled, and words 
 don t do no harm. It s only when shots is fired 
 that yer run risks. Sometimes bullets hit too 
 hard and then yer re strung up. But yer re too 
 hard on Mister Tremaine. He intends to give yer 
 the price o yer crops." 
 
 Tremaine writhed on his saddle for the third 
 time that day. Every time the sheriff made that 
 offer he felt as mean and paltry as if a starving 
 woman had begged of him in the street and he 
 had thrown her a nickel. 
 
 The man laughed aloud. " He d better keep it," 
 he said with a sneer. " He might want it to buy 
 one of them silk shirts with, he s got on. We 
 don t need it. The lawyer didn t want no money 
 fur what he didn t do! " 
 
 Tremaine spurred his horse and galloped down 
 the road, the men hurrying after him. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 22Q 
 
 " He s a fool, that man," exclaimed the sheriff, 
 as he lashed his horse. " He ain t got no right to 
 be one minute alone on this ranch. They d as 
 soon kill im as look at im." 
 
230 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 X. 
 
 A BKOKEN MEDITATION. 
 
 LATE that night Tremaine was walking slowly 
 up and down before the Aguitas revolving a prob 
 lem that had temporarily driven even Carmelita 
 from his mind. What should he do in regard to 
 these squatters? If he turned them out to starve 
 on the highway he would feel no better than any 
 common murderer who cut a man s throat for the 
 sake of his pocket book. The law was on his side, 
 but he was almost glad that at last he felt it a 
 duty to set some law at defiance. And yet he was 
 not prepared to hand over his land bodily to these 
 men. He was a generous man, but his business 
 faculty had been carefully trained by a close and 
 long-headed New England father. And would he 
 do them any material good? That was another 
 question. An unfortunate experience had made 
 him sceptical. He regarded Henry George as the 
 most enlightened of political economists, but even 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 231 
 
 his theories would be apt to warp if the applica 
 tion was too premature. In ultimate equality he 
 had not a grain of belief: so long as human nature 
 retained its primitive ingredients, the clever 
 or the lucky man would always get to the top. 
 ]N"or was it desirable. In that heaven of the fam 
 ished socialist, with its stunting perfection and 
 chloroforming monotony, no man with brains or 
 passion would wish to exist. It read well, but the 
 application would be deadly. For the small and 
 easy ambitions that w T ere left, no man would care 
 to compete, and the most pungent quality of life- 
 variety would be gone. Nevertheless he had it 
 in his mind to give these squatters their farms if 
 only by way of experiment. It would be interest 
 ing to watch the outcome. He was inclined to 
 provide for the unfortunates in some way, and 
 perhaps to give them their farms was the easiest 
 solution of the matter. 
 
 He felt a strange sensation as if an eagle had 
 rushed by him, tearing his hair as she passed; 
 and then he knew that a bullet had gone through 
 his hat. He stepped back onto the porch of the 
 Aguitas, and standing behind a pillar, cocked his 
 
232 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 pistol. The moon was up and the night was still. 
 For a half -hour he waited for the man to betray 
 himself, but the half-hour passed and there was 
 no sound but the music of the frogs. 
 
 " It s that fiend, Castro," he thought. " I should 
 enjoy getting a shot at him." 
 
 Another half -hour passed and then he stepped 
 into his room and closed the door. " Whoever it 
 is I ll hear from him again," he thought. "And 
 it s time to go to bed; I must be up early to-mor 
 row." He moved about the room, feeling for a 
 candle, then stopped short and listened. There 
 was a crackling of paper under his door, followed 
 by a sound of running feet. Before he could 
 reach the porch a man was galloping down the 
 road. He fired a shot after the burly figure, but a 
 loud laugh was the only answer, and he opened 
 the missive directed to him and read it by the 
 moon s vivid Hght. From an almost unintelligi 
 ble jargon of Spanish and English he gathered 
 that if he did not take the stage the next morning 
 he would swing from the highest tree on the Cer- 
 ritos ranch before night. The rest of the page 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 233 
 
 was given over to a choice assortment of vitupera 
 tive epithets, and was signed with the names of 
 sixty squatters. Tremaine flung the note into the 
 dust of the road and returned to the house. 
 
234 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 XL 
 
 IN VASQUEZ CANTON. 
 
 THE next morning when Tremaine spoke of his 
 adventure, the sheriff begged him to return to 
 San Francisco. " They ll kill yer sure s fate," he 
 said, " and you can t do no good by stayin . We 
 kin do the business better without yer." 
 
 " I shall not go," said Tremaine. " Do you sup 
 pose I am going to let the brutes run me off the 
 ranch? Besides the satisfaction I shall have in 
 seeing the thing through, I have private reasons 
 for wishing to remain until the squatters are ac 
 tually dispossessed." 
 
 "Well, you can t say I havn t warned yer. 
 But I ll betcher twenty dollars to two bits I ship 
 a corpse back to Frisco." 
 
 Tremaine laughed and rode out of the Aguitas 
 yard. As he turned the corner of the building he 
 came face to face with Espinoza, who had evi 
 dently been lying in wait for him. The man 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 235 
 
 glanced hurriedly around, then slipped a note into 
 Tremaine s hand." "From Carmelita," he said 
 nervously. "No say nothing for the love of 
 heaven, senor." 
 
 " No ; have no fear; I will not betray you. And 
 I may as well tell you now, you are to keep your 
 land your hacienda." 
 
 Before the bewildered man could reply, Tre- 
 maine had spurred his horse and was galloping 
 down the road. He did not draw rein until he 
 reached a wood near the Mission. Then he tore 
 open the note with the impatience born of delay. 
 
 " Oh, senor, go! go! " it ran. " They kill you si 
 you stay. Castro he swear and las night they 
 have the meeting and they all are very mad and 
 say they shoot you si you come near the housses. 
 And I I senor, I mus tell you si you hate me. 
 Before you come I jump on the table in Castro s 
 field one night and I do it all I can to make them 
 hate you ; I make them wild by what I say and I 
 beg them to Mil you, senor, and they go crasy 
 when I speke and shout they will. And now they 
 go to do it and it is my faul! Castro say he and 
 
236 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 plenty mens write and tell you si you no go they 
 hang you to the tree. They want to fright you so 
 you go with the sheriffs and no make them shoot 
 and be hang up. I know you no go for them, but 
 I ask you go, senor. I write this on my knees and 
 I beg you go and no be kill. And I think si I ask 
 that one thing you do it. 
 
 " CAKMELITA." 
 
 Tremaine quickly folded the brown paper mis 
 sive as the sheriffs came rattling down the road. 
 He could not grant her prayer, but he wished that 
 a continent was between them. 
 
 The hacienda they had planned to attack first 
 belonged to a Mexican named Lopez, and they 
 had sent him warning the night before. As Tre 
 maine, who was riding some distance ahead of the 
 wagon in spite of the warning calls of the sheriff, 
 emerged from the grove of trees before the man s 
 farm, he saw some fifty or sixty men standing in 
 a row before the door. As he approached them 
 each raised his gun to his shoulder and put his 
 finger to the trigger. Tremaine set his teeth, but 
 the danger gave him the first sense of stimulation 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 237 
 
 he had felt that morning. He was not excited, 
 but he was in a mood to sullenly pit with fate 
 itself and ask no quarter. He raised the bridle of 
 his mustang and dashing down the path, sprang 
 to the ground and had flung a man aside and en 
 tered the house before the squatters realized 
 whether he was a man or an apparition. He seized 
 a chair and threw it out of the window, and then 
 the whole body of them surged into the room and 
 surrounded him with furious curses and brandish 
 ing fists. He paid no attention, but flung a mat 
 tress after the bed, and at the same moment the 
 wagon drove up. 
 
 "God!" cried the sheriff. "The man s clean 
 mad," and leaping from the wagon he rushed into 
 the house, fingering his revolver and followed by 
 the others. The squatters, poor wretches, were 
 intimidated by the detenu inat ion and contempt 
 of Tremaine and his men, and stood back like 
 whipped curs. The sheriff saw his advantage. 
 
 " Now look yere," he said, throwing a sack of 
 beans into the open, then turning to the men with 
 his knuckles on his hips. "You see we ain t 
 afraid, don t yer, and yer can t do nothin ? If yer 
 
238 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 kill us there is plenty more where we come from, 
 n nd rope enough to swing the whole damned lot 
 o yer. If yer kill Mr. Tremaine he s got a wife 
 who ll fight for the property after im. He s got 
 money and law behind im and you ain t got 
 nothin . So jest clear out and we ll do what we 
 come for. What s more, the first man as raises his 
 gun drops. Now git." 
 
 The men sullenly withdrew, and one of the de 
 puties was told to watch them while the others 
 carried out the household goods and laid them on 
 the ground. The men, thoroughly cowed, made 
 no further attempt to resist, and \vlien the work 
 was done Tremaine and his men departed un 
 molested. They dispossessed two other families, 
 with no disturbance beyond the crying and male 
 dictions of the women, and then Tremaine an 
 nounced his intention of leaving his comrades to 
 finish the work by themselves. 
 
 "There will be no further trouble," he said, 
 " and I m sick of the business." 
 
 " Well, I m doggoned ! " exclaimed the sheriff. 
 "You don t mean to tell me that yer goin to 
 meander around this ranch by yerself ? If they 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 239 
 
 git a chance at yer with no one to tell the tale 
 they ll riddle yer, sure pop." 
 
 " They ll do no more to-day," said Tremaine. 
 
 His tone silenced dispute, and the sheriff 
 shrugged his shoulders and drove away. 
 
 Tremaine rode along listlessly, giving his horse 
 the bridle. The road lay by the river, already 
 sinking and half choked by the trees and shrubs 
 washed down by winter storms. But the poppies 
 were red on the banks, and the yellow lupins 
 mocked the corruption below. The sun like a 
 golden nautilus skimmed the concave deep. The 
 birds sang in the trees as if the world had stopped 
 to listen and knew naught of sorrow nor care. 
 Only a hare, sitting by an oak-tuft, suddenly raised 
 his long ears at sight of man, then fled wildly into 
 the distance. 
 
 It is a pretty trick of authors to make nature 
 ever in sympathy with man, but as a matter of 
 fact she seldom is. Where one person, stunned 
 with grief, hears the wind moan in sympathy, and 
 watches a leaden sky drop heavy tears, unnum 
 bered gaze with straining eyes across a radiant 
 landscape and wonder, in the egoism of their grief, 
 
240 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 how the men can work in the fields as they did 
 yesterday, how the birds can sing, the warm breeze 
 scatter the perfume of the flowers abroad, how 
 the very earth does not cease to revolve. As for 
 another phase of the matter, Shakespeare, that 
 master of tricks, yet makes Richard III. on the 
 morning of the battle of Bosworth most perti 
 nently say: 
 
 " The sun will not be seen to-day: 
 The sky doth frown and lour upon our army. 
 Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me 
 More than to Richmond? for the self -same heaven 
 That frowns on me, looks sadly upon him." 
 
 Tremaine, usually at one with nature in any 
 mood, was depressed by her to-day. Carmelita 
 was nature s favorite child and the mother sug 
 gested the daughter. Moreover he was not on 
 good terms with himself. He had sacrificed his 
 better promptings to that determination to win at 
 cost of man or right which is in the blood of every 
 Calif ornian of this generation: the legacy inher 
 ited from the men whose fever for gold and hard 
 ships in an unbroken country had made the indi 
 vidual paramount to the race. " I suppose it is 
 the brute in me," he thought. " We Californians 
 
LOS CERR1TOS. 24! 
 
 are made of nature s raw material, character, in 
 tellect, genius, all, and are half barbarians in con 
 sequence. I feel savage yet and hot for a fight." 
 
 The road turned and passed the head of a gulch. 
 The place was unusually lonely even for a thinly- 
 settled country, and lying between two high and 
 thickly wooded hills was sombre on that brilliant 
 day. Long strands of sickly green moss, like 
 witches unkempt beards, draped every limb, and 
 no flowers grew among the rocks. Half way down 
 the canon was a rude hut, and above it grew heavy 
 willows, casting their long shadows over a de 
 serted dwelling that no man passed at night alone. 
 
 " It is the hut of Vasquez," thought Tremaine, 
 " and will be worth having seen." 
 
 He rode down the gulch, his horse stumbling 
 over the loose stones. The bandit had not been 
 grasping in the matter of land, for he could not 
 have raised a crop there. 
 
 When Tremaine reached the hut he dismounted 
 and went within. There were only two rooms and 
 no furniture except a rusty old stove and a bench. 
 Miserable as the articles were they would have 
 
 been appropriated long ago in this land of poverty, 
 16 
 
242 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 had there been a man in the neighborhood who 
 dared go to the ruined home of the outlaw and 
 brave his ghost. More than one, galloping by the 
 gulch at night, swore that he had seen a shadowy 
 form flying up and down as if pursued by the 
 demons who were doubtless his present associates. 
 
 Tremaine sat down on the bench in the kitchen 
 and lit a cigar. He liked the quiet of the place 
 and it did not mock him with memories of Car- 
 melita. This gloomy canon did not suit her. 
 Nature had wrought her in spring when the blood 
 was red and warm in her own veins, imagination 
 rich with the awakened instinct of creation. She 
 should lie forever in banks of wild-flowers, or 
 splash through a wondrous creek gorgeous with 
 primitive color and a pink mist creeping over the 
 mountain above 
 
 He rose impatiently and went out to the open. 
 The tethered mustang, already fond of him, raised 
 his nose from the grass, coaxing for a longer meal. 
 But Tremaine was in no mood to linger. He was 
 about to untie the lariat when something hard hit 
 his shoulder and glided over his arm. 
 
 The low infuriated cry of a woman, a howl of 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 243 
 
 pain and baffled purpose, and in a fateful instant 
 two men had rushed together and grappled. In 
 the thick side of Castro s buckskin jacket was the 
 knife Carmelita had plunged there as he flung 
 the lasso, and this Tremaine strove to wrench out, 
 for neither man had time to draw his pistol. But 
 in that first sudden confusion he saw nothing but 
 the face of Carmelita. It was transfigured. Not 
 a trace of its tenderness remained. The teeth 
 were clenched with fierce cruelty behind tense 
 bloodless lips, the eyes were blazing with lust of 
 blood, the whole face as terrible in its ferocity as 
 that of a tigress wrenched of her young. 
 
 " Kill him ! Kill him ! " she screamed. " He go 
 to rope you and drag you like the dog. O Dios ! 
 si I no come after him ! " 
 
 Then Tremaine lost consciousness of everything 
 but the blind instinct to kill. All the pent-up 
 passion of years, stirred, but repressed of late, 
 leaped through his veins and boiled in his head. 
 In that moment he was as great a brute as the 
 one he fought. The men grappled like bears in a 
 death embrace, each snatching at the other s pistol 
 and wrenching to right and left as fingers and hip- 
 
244 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 pockets approached too near. If Tremaine had 
 only a Derringer ! If he could only tear the veins 
 from the man s body and get him prone that he 
 might stamp him to jelly. Again he made a pass 
 for the low swinging knife his own was flattened 
 between two hot, straining bodies and again, 
 Castro, roaring like a bull, and making furious 
 lunges with his jaws, tightened his embrace, until 
 Tremaine felt as if ribs and lungs were being 
 ground to paste. But if Castro had muscles of 
 iron, Tremaine s were those of steel. 
 
 The two men s faces were close together, black, 
 murderous. Their savage breath mingled. Sud 
 denly Castro flung the whole weight of his huge 
 body on Tremaine s left forearm and the wrist 
 bone cracked like a china plate. A knife flashed 
 in the air and through the thin silk shirt into 
 Tremaine s left shoulder. Then with a mad shout 
 of triumph Castro flung the wounded man to the 
 ground and swung his right hand for his pistol. 
 But Carmelita had it. She had not wept nor 
 prayed. She had watched her chance. As Castro 
 stabbed Tremaine she plucked the pistol from its 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 245 
 
 sheath on his hip, and he turned to find it pointed 
 at him. She could not miss that broad target. 
 
 "Go," she whispered hoarsely; but her hand 
 was steady. " Go, Castro, or I shoot. Touch him 
 and I kill you dead." 
 
 Castro, with purple, shaking lips, glared from 
 her to Tremaine. His antagonist s face was white 
 and the eyes were closed. Was he dead already? 
 The lasso lay near him and seemed to twist itself 
 into a hangman s rope. Castro ran down the 
 gulch as if the law was already at his heels, and 
 Carmelita knew that he would not return. 
 
246 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 XII. 
 
 A GHOST. 
 
 THE pistol dropped from Carmelita s hand, the 
 ferocity ebbed from her face, her womanhood 
 surged to the surface once more. 
 
 " Dios de mi alma! " she sobbed, "he is dead." 
 
 She fell on her knees and bent over him. " Si 
 he is dead he is mine," she thought, and exulta 
 tion kept pain at bay for a moment. "It no can 
 be wrong to kiss him now si he is dead," and she 
 laid her cheek to his, then put both hands about 
 his face and kissed him on the mouth. She drew 
 his head up to her warm, round bosom and laid 
 it there unheeding the weight of his body. 
 
 " I stay here till I die too," she whispered to 
 him. " I never leave you." She pushed back the 
 damp hair and drew her brown fingers across his 
 forehead with a woman s instinctive caress, smooth 
 ing down the refractory hairs of his eyebrows. 
 " The other woman, she no can do that never again. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 247 
 
 Si he live, I no do it nothing, but now, si she come, 
 I kill her by the door." 
 
 For this girl, in passion or in suffering, had had 
 no thought of what is technically known as sin. 
 A pure child of nature, she had, vital and undy 
 ing within her, the instinct of chastity, that tradi 
 tional inheritance of woman, transmitted down 
 through the centuries; and the cold light of intel 
 lectual reasoning could never even wither it. 
 Naturally gifted as she was, she must feel always, 
 reason never, and there had been no influence in 
 her plastic years to make unbonded love seem 
 other than deadly sin. Her conscience had grown 
 to unblunted maturity and spread its green and 
 fragrant branches over the clean white flowers of 
 her soul. Tremaine, in restive hours, had judged 
 rightly that she could be won only as such women 
 can be; and, when social ideals were crumbling, 
 perhaps that alone had cemented his resolution 
 to go where he could see her no more. 
 
 Her eyes fell on the trickling blood again, and 
 she relaxed her arms and laid him gently on 
 the ground. She remembered having heard that 
 a dead man s blood did not flow. She took his 
 
248 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 hat and running to the spring behind the house 
 filled it with water. When she returned she put 
 his head on her knee and dashed a palm-full of 
 the water in his face. 
 
 He opened his eyes under the shock and looked 
 up vaguely. Then, as sense returned, he remained 
 quiet, gazing into Carmelita s eyes, which revealed 
 more than she knew. For a moment she too was 
 silent, fearful of startling away the returning 
 spirit, then suddenly averted her eyes from the 
 growing power of his, and the blood that had 
 burnt her face receded quickly. 
 
 "Your arm hurt?" she asked, her voice cold 
 with the effort to steady it. 
 
 "Yes; it is broken." 
 
 "The padre I go for him soon. But first, 
 much better you go in the hut." 
 
 " Yery well. But you must help me." 
 
 He managed to struggle to his feet and drag 
 himself to the hut, then fainted again. 
 
 The water revived him after a time, but his 
 head was heavy, and his swollen arm throbbing 
 with pain. He lay for a few moments grasping 
 Carmelita s tightly, then opened his eyes. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 249 
 
 "Can you bring me my saddle fora pillow?" 
 he asked. 
 
 She went out and unsaddled the mustang, turn 
 ing the animal loose as she did so. After she had 
 fixed Tremaine s head comfortably he said to her: 
 
 " Go now, but don t be long. And get out my 
 revolver before you go. 
 
 She gave him his pistol, put Castro s in her own 
 belt, then left the hut. There was little to be said 
 between them ! 
 
 Her mustang was tethered at the head of the 
 gulch and she sprang on him and urged the tired 
 animal to a gallop. The padre s house was ten 
 miles away, but she reached it before dark. On 
 her last visit she had been too blind with her own 
 grief to notice the change in him, but she was 
 shocked at his face to-night. 
 
 " You are like the old mens," she said. " Padre 
 mio! what is the matter? " 
 
 But he would answer none of her questions, 
 and she stated her errand. He heard her listlessly, 
 but promised to go to Tremaine and set his arm. 
 
 " I will get Espinoza and a wagon and mattress," 
 he said, " and bring Mr. Tremaine here. He will be 
 
250 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 more comfortable than at the Aguitas. Now go 
 and take this medicine in case he has fever. It 
 may be morning before I get there, although I 
 shall go as quickly as possible. And take this 
 bread and candle." 
 
 The ride back was dark and haunted by many 
 a fear. Just before she reached the gulch the 
 moon, swimming between the great ocean of 
 space and rolling waves of cloud, sent a long 
 beam through the dark currents and made the 
 haunted canon momentarily alight. A faint wind 
 was swaying the moss that hung from the gaunt 
 branches of the trees on the hills, and the ghostly 
 light gave it a horrid suggestion of human vital 
 ity. Carmelita shuddered and crossed herself. 
 She had all the superstition of her race and breed 
 ing. Oh! if Tremaine had only gone elsewhere 
 this day. She could have ridden through twenty 
 counties without a qualm. She brought her horse 
 to a halt which nearly unseated her. Something 
 was running down the gulch. Dios! it was the 
 murderer himself. She wheeled her horse about 
 and flew over the road she had come. But only 
 for a moment. With a savage exclamation of dis- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 251 
 
 gust she turned again and headed straight for 
 the hut. Something tottered past her waving its 
 long arms and crying like a dumb beast in pain. 
 She sprang from the mustang with half shut-eyes 
 and panting chest, and rushing into the house, 
 bolted the door and lit the candle with jumping 
 fingers. She thrust it hastily upon a shelf and 
 ran to Tremaine. He was sitting up, watching 
 her with bright widely opened eyes. 
 
 U O sefior," she gasped, "si you know how 
 glad I am you no are sleep ! I have so terreeblay 
 fright. Yasquez but much better you lie down." 
 
 " Do not turn any of them out to-day," he said 
 unsteadily. " I have something to say to them 
 first," and he tried to stand up. 
 
 " Dios mio " ! thought the girl, " he have the de 
 lirium, like Jacoba when she have the fever. 
 Oh, what I do!" 
 
 She took him by the arm and forced him back 
 to his pillow. 
 
 " Lie down," she cried peremptorily. " I no let 
 you move." 
 
 He tried to shake her off. "But suppose I 
 don t want to lie down. Just make this person 
 
252 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 let go my other arm, will you? I must be off. I 
 have something important to say to those men." 
 
 "But I want you stay here with me, senor," 
 faltered the girl. 
 
 " But suppose I don t want to stay with you, 
 my good girl; what then? " 
 
 She bent over him with dilating eyes. " You 
 no know me? You no know me? Oh, say you 
 know me and I no care for the rest! " 
 
 He looked at her blankly and did not seem dis 
 posed to answer at all. 
 
 The girl put her lips to his ear. 
 
 " Alejandro ! Alejandro ! " she whispered, " Oh, 
 you know me, si you no are right ! " 
 
 " I might give them five hundred a piece," he 
 murmured, " but it seems so paltry. " Oh, if one 
 could only know what it is best to do." And he 
 closed his eyes and fell into an uneasy slumber. 
 
 Carmelita crept close to him because he was the 
 only living thing near, not because she felt any 
 sense of his protection to-night. The wind was 
 sighing in the canon. The great willows behind 
 the hut trailed their branches over the roof with 
 a slow monotonous scraping. The low boom of 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 the river came from far, and in the room the sick 
 man muttered. Carmelita made no attempt to 
 sleep. Superstition was quickening every pulse. 
 She dared not move lest again she see Vasquez in 
 the shadows behind her. The candle in the corner 
 looked like a solitary watcher at a wake, and its 
 flame bent and flared as the wind crept through 
 the cracks of the hut then the shadows danced 
 like the ghosts of the band Vasquez had gathered 
 about him in hell. 
 
 The girl put her arid lips to her lover s ear. 
 "Alejandro ! Alejandro ! " she muttered implor 
 ingly. " Come to me. Oh, I am so fright." 
 
 " Perhaps, perhaps," muttered Tremaine. " But 
 it seems such a Quixotic thing to do." 
 
 A gust of wind came through the window and 
 blew out the candle. It swept cold leaves like 
 dead fingers across the face of the cowering girl 
 and rattled the latch with a long howling wail. 
 
 She caught her galloping nerves, and crossing 
 the room lit the candle again. 
 
 " Once I think I am brave," she thought hope 
 lessly, " but now I think so great a coward no live. 
 Oh ! si he were well. I no care for nothing then " 
 
254 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 Slie turned quickly with a suppressed cry. 
 Some one was creeping among the stones in front 
 .of the hut. An icy sweat burst from every pore 
 of her body. If the steps were Castro s jhe would 
 be the lioness defending her wounded mate, but 
 against ghosts her spirit offered no bulwark. 
 
 The steps shuffled near. They stopped, and a 
 long sighing moan smote on throbbing ears. Car- 
 melita, with hard dilating eyes, stared at the 
 window. Again the stealthy steps approached 
 no ! the thing was crawling. Then, a hand, lean, 
 white, nerveless, moved on the low sill and hung 
 limply over. The waves had broken on the shore 
 of the moon s cold domain and the bloodless thing 
 on the sill gleamed in the hard white beams. 
 The hand gave a spasmotic clutch, there was a low 
 gurgling sound, and then, slowly, with painful 
 effort, a white matted head, with gaunt hungry 
 face, raised itself within the aperture and snapped 
 its gums at Carmelita. 
 
 The girl broke into wild hysterical weeping. 
 
 "Dios mio! Dios mio!" she cried frantically. 
 " It is the old Indian." 
 
 She snatched the loaf of bread from the shelf 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 255 
 
 and flnng it through the window, then fell prone 
 beside Tremaine, her senses at rest. With an in 
 stinctive movement, he put out his arm and drew 
 her to him, but did not awaken. 
 
256 LOS CERRtTOS. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE EESPITE. 
 
 THE padre and Espinoza arrived at dawn. Car- 
 melita was herself once more, but her eyes were 
 hollow and her face was white. Tremaine was still 
 half -asleep, but no longer muttered. 
 
 "Pobrecita! pobrecita!" said Espinoza, patting 
 his niece s forlorn head. "Bad time you have, 
 no? He maka much troubles, mijita? " 
 
 She fondled his hand but made no confidence, 
 and in a moment the padre, who was examining 
 Tremaine s arm and chest, called to her to bring 
 him some water. 
 
 She watched the priest bind up the wound and 
 gave a little cry as he set the wrist. 
 
 "Hurtcha him?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Yes; but he is the kind to stand it. Give me 
 those bandages." 
 
 The padre had studied surgery before coming 
 to this abandoned spot and in a short time Tre- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 257 
 
 maine had been skilfully cared for. Then the two 
 men put him on the mattress and carried him to 
 the wagon. Carmelita followed and took his head 
 in her lap, and after a long cold ride Tremaine 
 was made comfortable in the padre s bed. He sent 
 word to Hawkins that he had had an accident and 
 would not be at the Aguitas for a week, but gave 
 him no particulars. 
 
 His fever lasted two days and he slept most of 
 the time, but on the third he awoke with normal 
 pulse and a clear head. He felt rather weak, but 
 the languor in his veins was not unpleasant. As 
 he opened his eyes Carmelita gave him his medi 
 cine and told him that the padre had gone out 
 and would not return for some hours. 
 
 " Thank heaven," he thought, but aloud he said, 
 " Carmelita, come here." 
 
 She took a chair by the bed. 
 
 " What I can do? " she asked. 
 
 " Give me your hand." 
 
 After a moment s hesitation she put her hand 
 in his. She did not observe that his clasp was 
 any weaker than when lie had sat beside her lis 
 tening to Enrique s woes. 
 17 
 
258 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " Tell me, Carmelita, have you forgiven me for 
 being Alexander Tremaine?" 
 
 She looked past him at the whitewashed wall 
 by the head of the bed. 
 
 " I no know," she said at length. " You no can 
 help, I suppose. And I no can help too." 
 
 " But did you not hate me at first just after I 
 told you?" 
 
 " I no know what I feel then. I no ask me." 
 
 "Tell me another thing; did you follow Castro 
 the other day ? It seems hardly possible that you 
 were in the canon by accident." 
 
 " Yes, I follow him all the day, when I find you 
 are out with the sheriffs, and no pay attention to 
 my letter. And jus after you throw the things 
 out of the first hacienda and fright all the mens 
 so they no do it nothing, I am at Miller s house 
 and I hear Castro swear to killing you. So I fol 
 low him and I stick him with the knife jus when 
 he throw the rope, so it no go straight. O senor, 
 you know what he do si the rope go right and tie 
 your arms so you no can move? He drag you 
 roun on the groun like you are a calf and whip 
 you and stamp on you and spit in your face. Then 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 259 
 
 when lie have make you so shem you want to die 
 he shoot you and you no can do it nothing." 
 
 Tremaine s face flushed purple at the bare 
 thought of the indignity he had escaped. And a 
 woman had saved him from it ! But he did not 
 resent the rescue, for the woman was Carmelita. 
 
 "And I give you so much in return!" he an 
 swered bitterly after a moment. " I have done so 
 much good by coming to this ranch ! " 
 
 "0 sefior!" cried the girl, the enforced self- 
 control of the past week beginning to give way, 
 " why we live? why we are make? " 
 
 "When a few million more unhappy mortals 
 have asked that question, Carmelita, perhaps the 
 Almighty will see fit to answer it," said Tremaine 
 bitterly. " In the mean time the priests will 
 stand before their altars and give thanks that the 
 millions are permitted to suffer." 
 
 "But, sehor! senor! it is so hard to live fifty, 
 sixty, years, and in life there no is nothing- 
 She sprang to her feet and walked up and down 
 the little room. " The padre say in life there is 
 nothing. Geraldina say there no is one thing but 
 love and that no last. I no know what the other 
 
260 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 peoples they do in their lifes to forget what no 
 make them happy to remember, but I see mine. 
 For fifty years I sit sometime in my room and 
 make the closes for the childrens, sometime I 
 kneel in the Mission and pray to die, and some 
 time I ride to the mountain. Bime by I am too 
 old to ride, and then I only go to the Mission. 
 That, senor, is my life." 
 
 " Carmelita, be careful! " Tremaine half sprang 
 from the bed, then sank back again and turned 
 his face to the wall. 
 
 She stood beside him. "Forgive me, no?" she 
 said, but her eyes were still flaming and her mouth 
 was tightly set. " I no complain any more. And 
 I have you now. I forget I can think of that while 
 I live. Think, senor, think si you no come ! Then 
 I no have nothing to remember." She thought of 
 Geraldine s white face as she spoke, but she would 
 not have given back one of her memories. 
 
 He turned suddenly and looked at her with the 
 powerful and penetrating- gaze which had con 
 vinced so many people of the truth of his words, 
 against their own preconceived ideas. 
 
 He spoke deliberately. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 261 
 
 " You will forget me," he said. " You are only 
 a child. I am the first man you have seen except 
 your padre and these people you scorn. But that 
 is all. You do not really love me. You will find 
 that out when 
 
 "What! " cried Carmelita, stung, as all women 
 are, by distrust in the strength of their passion. 
 Her self-control gave way utterly. " You think I 
 no love you? Why, then, you think I lie on the 
 groun all night when you tell me your name and 
 I know you have the wife, and remember I have 
 tell the mens to kill you. Why I beat myself 
 against the earth and beg it to opa and take me 
 down and keep me forever? Why you think I go 
 before it is light to the mountain and beg my red 
 wood to fall on me and kill me si he love me? 
 Why you think I cry and sob till 1 no have one 
 tear left and my eyes burn like they have the fire 
 in them that eat my heart? Why I hate the birds 
 in the trees I hare love before? The padre he tell 
 me to pray, but I no can ! The prayer is good 
 when you have live your life, like Geraldina and 
 the padre. It is good when you feel tire out and 
 pray for strength to live; but no when you are 
 
262 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 young and the heart want another heart like its 
 own. God no can satisfy, then. We no can feel 
 Him, or see Him, or hear Him. He is cold and 
 far and pure like the moon, and that no is what 
 we want when we are young. Si you no have the 
 wife I could love you like the old love God, but 
 si I no can have that I no want nothing else at 
 all." And Carmelita, who had meant to keep her 
 soul in its depths, rushed from the house, and 
 springing on Tremaine s mustang urged him to a 
 wild gallop. When she returned, hours later, 
 physical fatigue had conquered spiritual pain. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 263 
 
 XIV. 
 
 KICH AND POOR. 
 
 A WEEK passed and Tremaine s strength re 
 turned in spite of himself. He was in no hurry to 
 get well, but his powerful physique could not be 
 long affected even by a broken arm, and one morn 
 ing the padre told him that the ride to the Agui- 
 tas would not hurt him and that the sheriffs had 
 finished the dispossessing and were awaiting fur 
 ther instructions. 
 
 "Very well," said Tremaine shortly. "I will 
 drive over at ten to-night. I do not wish to go 
 before." Then he held out his hand to the priest. 
 " Forgive me," he said, " and let me thank you for 
 your hospitality, poor a return as thanks must be." 
 
 " Do not thank me," said the priest. " I did but 
 my duty. But there is one question I wish to ask 
 you, if you will pardon my presumption." 
 
 "Ask anything you like." Tremaine pushed a 
 chair to the open window and sat down. Carme- 
 lita had gone out and the two men were alone. 
 
264 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " Will you tell me whether you intend doing 
 anything for the wretched people, who at present 
 are herding like so many animals on Mr. Light- 
 foot s ranch?" 
 
 " Yes, I shall do something." 
 
 The padre shook his head. " Go and see them 
 before you decide what to do. You do not realize 
 their misery. There are over three hundred of 
 them, men, w r omen, and children, and they are 
 sleeping in the wet grass at night; in the daytime 
 huddling under the trees to escape the scorching 
 sun ; the children crying with hunger and running 
 naked with the pigs; the women sunk on the 
 ground in hopeless indifference; the men sullen 
 and cowed out of their manhood. Mr. Tremaine," 
 said the pries fc, stirred from his apathy by the 
 call of humanity, which alone had power to touch 
 him, " you are a rich man and burdened with a 
 terrible responsibility. You have millions that 
 you took as lightly from your dead father s hand 
 as you accepted the sweetmeats your mother gave 
 you when a child. What can you do with fifteen 
 million dollars? A hundred thousand would sup 
 ply every want, gratify every ambition display, 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 265 
 
 and love of power alone excepted. You spend 
 your life in alternate gratification of your petty 
 desires and in revolving plans for the investment 
 of your money. As you sit in your magnificent 
 library, whose luxury must surfeit and weary at 
 times, with your lawyers and agents looking over 
 your deeds and accounts, your leases and mort 
 gages, frowning with annoyance at rents overdue, 
 or thinking uneasily of a great sum in the bank 
 which is bringing no interest, does imagination 
 never picture your mother at the wash-tub, your 
 wife toiling for a dozen clamorous children, sewing, 
 nursing, scrubbing your floors up to the hour of 
 confinement, cooking your wretched dinner with 
 a screaming half -fed child in her arms? When 
 your valet brings the clothes you are to wear at a 
 costly dinner to which rich men flock at your bid 
 ding, do you ever amuse yourself picturing a one- 
 roomed hovel of which you are lord, and wherein 
 you sit down to a dinner of greasy meat and boiled 
 potatoes with a lot of half-washed scuffling chil 
 dren, and a hot-faced frowsy wife, cross, sullen, 
 snatching her mouthfuls between the demands of 
 her children? Do you see yourself in a woollen 
 
266 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 shirt you have worn for a year, and a pair of over 
 alls stiff with grease and earth, eating your savor 
 less meal, too weary in heart and body to make 
 complaint? When you lie down to rest in a bed 
 which yields to your body and rests every mus 
 cle, do you intensify its luxury by imagining your 
 self on a filthy pulah mattress, stifling under your 
 low ceiling, but in your heavy sleep not hearing 
 even the angry quarrels of your children, crowd 
 ing into their narrow beds? Forgive me if I have 
 offended you, but it is time the world should solve 
 the problem it has wrought. Socialism is a fail 
 ure ; and the further it develops the deeper does 
 it demonstrate its impotence. It will be a hun 
 dred years before Henry George is recognized as 
 a great man. I see no present solution of a great 
 and intricate problem but that the rich should 
 realize their duty to the poor." 
 
 Tremaine was not angry, and he had made up 
 his mind what to do for the squatters; but the 
 subject was one he was fond of arguing. 
 
 "Are you sure we have any duty to the poor? " 
 he asked. " In this nineteenth century there is no 
 more excuse for poverty than for certain diseases 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 267 
 
 in the advanced state of medical science. Intelli 
 gence and the commercial instinct have never been 
 so well and widely developed. It is the excep 
 tion when the clever man or the industrious man 
 does not get a competence, whether his sphere be 
 a large one or a small one. There is no place in 
 the economy of nature for the man who is not 
 willing to work, or for the witless. Neither is 
 there any place for the beggar. When a man 
 finds that the world has no place for him, either 
 because he has outgrown usefulness or never had 
 any, or because he has not been able to make his 
 friends love him well enough to be eager to keep 
 him alive, then he should be quietly put out of 
 the way by the code of the country. The scheme 
 of creation takes only the race into account, not 
 the individual. You are a priest, but you are also 
 an intelligent man, and I don t believe I shock 
 you. I subscribe to no charitable institutions ex 
 cept those for children ; for they no matter what 
 their misfortunes of birth have a future, and only 
 time can prove w r hether they are fit to live or not. 
 I always give a begging woman money because I 
 
268 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 am a man, although the same logic applies to 
 either sex ; but I never give a nickel to a man." 
 
 " Your logic is right," said the priest, who, in 
 spite of himself, felt the stimulus of speaking 
 with a man of his own world once more, " but it 
 would be dangerous to the race to extinguish the 
 instinct of charity of charity for charity s sake. 
 Human nature would harden without its leaven 
 ing influence. And, unquestionably, T think you 
 view the matter somewhat brutally. Eemember 
 the men who have no chance ; men with brains and 
 industry who rot in an old-world city for means to 
 carry them to the new. Not but what the male 
 could work his own way over, but what is he to do 
 with a wife and family of children? " 
 
 " He has no business to have either wife or chil 
 dren until he is established in life. There is your 
 i world s solution of the problem it has wrought ; 
 let procreation halt until the world is large enough 
 once more for its inhabitants. I am not quoting 
 Malthus. Let the marriage ceremony wait. You 
 shake your head at me. Don t talk to me of the 
 sin of ignoring nature. It does not weigh a feather 
 in the scale against the crime of stuffing the world 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 269 
 
 with puny beings whose only resource is to crawl 
 out of life as fast as starvation and disappoint 
 ment will take them." 
 
 " Well, let that point go. Good, or bad, it ap 
 plies only to the future. What is to be done for 
 the misery of the present? Do you think, your 
 self, that it is right and just, that a few hundred 
 rich men should hold the world in their hands, 
 should stifle in luxury while the multitude toils ; 
 that millions should be at the mercy of the rich 
 for the miserable wages they make? " 
 
 " Has it ever occurred to you, that the rich are 
 at the mercy of the poor, not the poor at that of 
 the rich? Who permits us to be rich if not the 
 poor? Who, generation after generation, have 
 slowly and inevitably forged the conditions which 
 allow a man to amass wealth at the expense of his 
 brethren, but the poor since they represent the 
 great body of humanity? Suppose each man 
 renting a house in San Francisco should suddenly 
 rise and say, 4 1 will pay no more rent? Who 
 would compel him? The police? militia? They 
 are included in the renting community. Who 
 would compel them? The army? Suppose the 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 epidemic spread? What chance would the army 
 have against the concerted millions of America? 
 Then I should see my mother at the wash-tub, and 
 my wife stewing greasy meat under a cabin roof 
 while I scratched among the potatoes. But that 
 is just where we are safe. There never will be a 
 concerted movement. The timid and the indiffer 
 ent element are too largely in the majority, and 
 all must take the stand, or none at all. But the 
 fact remains that we rich men hold our wealth be 
 cause the poor man fosters the conditions which 
 enable us so to do. Why does he foster them? 
 Because he intends to be a rich man himself, some 
 day, and if he destroyed the conditions he would 
 destroy his own hopes. He does not want medi 
 ocrity any more than the rich man wants it. 
 
 " He wants to get to the top. 
 
 " Therefore he lets the top alone." 
 
 The priest smiled. " That is true," he said al 
 most with enthusiasm, " that is true. I don t pre 
 tend to argue the question with you, for I have 
 given it too little study. But I appeal again to 
 your charity, and in spite of your cold-blooded 
 theories, I believe you have a good deal. You in- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2/1 
 
 tend to do something for these people, and I have 
 a curiosity to know what it is." 
 
 " I am perfectly willing to tell you. I shall give 
 them back the land, and divide the rest of the 
 ranch into fifty-acre farms, which I shall give to 
 such applicants as investigation proves are worthy. 
 I say give them, but I shall retain control for 
 five years, and at the end of that time every lazy 
 man will be turned off. At the same time I will 
 pay the taxes, build the cottages and seed the 
 farms. The scheme interests me. The experi 
 ment is a dangerous one ; it may be a terrible fail 
 ure. Suddenly put a hopeless man in possession 
 of a future, and either his self-respect will develop, 
 or a faith in providence which is technically known 
 as laziness. But although I recognize no obliga 
 tion in the matter, I am glad to give a number of 
 fellow -men that chance in life so often desper 
 ately demanded. I shall make the farms as small 
 as possible, however, because the less a man can 
 live comfortably upon, the more contented he is. 
 Place him beyond the limitations of small desires 
 and he wants the earth and is miserable because 
 he can t get it. None of us who are beyond would 
 
2/2 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 go down to those conditions, but it is a charity to 
 keep the seeds of discontent in our own small 
 patches, and build a wall about them." 
 
 " You will succeed," said the priest, " I feel sure 
 of it, for you have head as well as heart. You 
 will not find much to reward or encourage you at 
 first. These men are sullen and lazy, their char 
 acters are grovelling and insensible to all higher 
 instincts. But remember that civilization has 
 barely touched them, that circumstances alone 
 have made them what they are, that under the 
 same conditions you would have been no better. 
 But remember also that if the men are nearly 
 hopeless, a plastic generation is rising ready to be 
 fashioned in the unyielding mould of Circum 
 stance ; and I envy you that you have it in your 
 power to decree whether they be animals or self- 
 respecting men. I need not tell you that what 
 energy and life I have left are at your service." 
 
 Lt Yes," said Tremaine, " I rely upon you to be 
 my chief steward, for you can reach these people 
 in many ways that I cannot." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 273 
 
 XV. 
 
 DIVIDING LINES. 
 
 THE stars were thick above the Mission as Tre- 
 maine and Carmelita walked up and down the 
 cloisters during the last hour they were to spend 
 together. The light in the girl s eyes was watch 
 ful as if the spirit were on unresting guard over 
 the rebellious womanhood which grew with the 
 demand for its surrender. During the last few 
 days she had not spoken of herself, and Tremaine, 
 w r ith returning strength, had been equally shy of 
 the subject. He had asked her many questions 
 about the squatters, and slight as was her personal 
 acquaintance with them, there was little she could 
 not tell of their habits and characters. 
 
 They had not spoken for some time, but sud 
 denly he gave an impatient sigh, and turned to her. 
 
 " I never felt less like talking business," he said, 
 "bat I have something to say to you and it must 
 
 be said now, for I shall not see you again." 
 18 
 
2/4 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 She looked hard at the grim walls of the Mis 
 sion opposite, but made no reply. 
 
 " I cannot give you happiness, my dear; I have 
 brought you only misery. But this I will do in 
 commemoration of you : the squatters shall have 
 their homes and I shall divide the rest of the ranch 
 among those who will make the best use of it. I 
 say I do this in commemoration of you," he said 
 turning to the astounded and enraptured girl, 
 " but I am bound to confess that I am glad of the 
 occupation and interest it will give me. Are you 
 satisfied with me, Carmelita? You were very hard 
 upon me once, I remember. You told me some 
 pretty sharp home truths during that first inter 
 view of ours. But if there is anything more you 
 want you shall have it." 
 
 She looked back at him with eyes in which the 
 watch-fires had suddenly died. 
 
 " Senor," she said, " you make me glad, you 
 have make me suffer. I no can say no more." 
 
 Tremaine turned from her quickly. He had 
 that self-control which only passionate men do 
 have, until they see fit to let it go, when its very 
 memory cowers afar, forlorn, with trailing wings. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2?$ 
 
 The attempt to be business-like made him 
 brusque. " This scheme will have its consolation 
 for you " he was beginning, when she inter 
 rupted him eagerly. 
 
 " Senor, there is one more thing." 
 
 " What is it? I shall have more happiness in 
 giving than you in taking." 
 
 " Buy the forest on the mountain. Si you take 
 care the mens take care the trees too. It kill me 
 si they are cut down." 
 
 " I will buy the redwoods and you shall never 
 see an axe in the forest again. But to go back 
 to what I was saying. I wish you to be the lead 
 ing spirit here. Your Geraldine, whoever she 
 may be, has taught you the meaning of the word 
 society. Form one here so that these people will 
 take an interest in each other. Society developed 
 that far is a virtue; a step further and it is a vice. 
 You do not understand, Carmelita, and, thank 
 heaven, you never will. But make them meet and 
 be gay together. Have pic-nics (they are primi 
 tive enough to enjoy them) and dances. Make each 
 wedding an event; I will give every girl her wed 
 ding-gown. Spur their ambition and make them 
 
2/6 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 go to school. I put you and the padre in charge 
 of the ranch for I shall not return. He will send 
 me a report four times a year and you will send 
 me a demand for everything you want done. One 
 day there will be a town here and you will be re 
 spected and remembered as its patron saint." 
 
 The girl s face flushed and sparkled. Her heart 
 folded its wings for a moment. 
 
 "O senor! senor!" she cried. "I can do all 
 that ! There go to be something in the life ! " 
 
 She looked past him dreamily. A measure of 
 compensation had come to her and there was some 
 light in the future. It was as if a pink glow had 
 suffused the gray plain the priest had pictured, 
 and sparks were bursting through the ashes be 
 neath the smiles of the passing souls above. 
 
 Tremaine held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-by," he said. 
 
 She looked at him blankly then remembered. 
 The pink glow vanished, the world was gray. She 
 touched his hand with her cold fingers. 
 
 "Good-by," she said. Then appalled, broken, 
 she flung herself upon him pressing her ams con 
 vulsively about him. " O my redwood ! my red- 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 wood!" she sobbed wildly, "give to me the 
 strength, the comfort ! I no can bear alone ! Help 
 me to stand. Oh, put your arms around me, and 
 then I no care*, they are so strong." 
 
 Tremaine bent his head and the Mission threw 
 its shadow over his white face and dilating nos 
 trils. His arm curved rigidly about her, but he 
 pressed her tenderly and said comforting words. 
 
 She threw herself back against his arm and lifted 
 her wet face. " I no could help," she sobbed, " I 
 no could help. I no can stand alone like before, 
 and no one is strong like you. You are the. tree 
 now. He no will be the same again. Oh ! Alejan 
 dro, why we are make? " 
 
 " You will never be alone. Think and believe 
 that I am with you always. You will never be 
 out of my mind for an hour at a time. You have 
 my heart and my soul. Now go, Carmelita." 
 
 A wagon rattled out of the padre s corral. Tre 
 maine stood listening to the wild thumping of a 
 mustang s hoofs, dying in the distance. 
 
2/8 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 XYL 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 GEEALDIISTE lay on the divan watching the snn 
 slip over the mountain. Once she held her hand 
 up to the parting rays and fancied they wandered 
 through. Her face was white as the azaleas be 
 neath her window and her mouth was like their 
 withered petals. Her youth had gone, but it left 
 no pang. ISTor did she suffer. In the days and 
 nights which had passed since she spoke with the 
 priest, vitality had burned to its embers and rest 
 had come. Each mortal has one central interest 
 which binds him to life. The priest had put the 
 period to this woman s, and did she live through 
 eternity, the dim lamp in her soul would never 
 give a flicker nor send a ripple through her veins. 
 Her heart was not even sad; it pulsed haltingly 
 though its numbered beats. 
 
 The door opened, and the woman turned her 
 head. An old man, with cold calm spiritual face 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 279 
 
 entered and stood beside her. She held out her 
 hand, but no color touched her face. Had he 
 come with the youth and ardor of their first hour s 
 passion he could not have stirred her. 
 
 The priest took her hand and looked into her 
 calm eyes. " I have come," he said, " to tell you 
 that the struggle is over, that the man is dead, 
 and the priest alone remains. I have thought it 
 best to tell you this that you might have one re 
 proach less on your soul. During these days I 
 have plucked memory up by her roots ; I have 
 pinched imagination to death between my fingers 
 as I would snuff out a candle ; I have dug a grave 
 and buried passion. Now, for the first time, I am 
 equipped for my work, for the first time I can 
 hope for forgiveness for the sins of my youth. I 
 can pray for your soul as well as mine, and I be 
 lieve that our sin will be forgiven us." 
 
 The woman moved her head, her eyes wander 
 ing to the golden mountains. Where w T as her 
 lover? Waiting far back on the shores of youth? 
 A man is more than one being in his life. If the 
 last persists, why not the first? If there be a here 
 after for his age, why not for his youth? 
 
280 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 "Is religion impossible without fanaticism?" 
 she said faintly. " It was not sin. You had not 
 been ordained, your future was still your own, 
 and man was not made to live on dogmas. And 
 your church our church, if you will, for it holds 
 me, too should be satisfied. If I betrayed one 
 of its poor secrets that slipped your tongue, I be 
 trayed it through ignorance of its awful signifi 
 cance, and I have been punished! I could not 
 foresee the terrible consequences. The most terri 
 ble to me has been that you loved your religion 
 better than me. I could have stood the separa 
 tion, since it was inevitable, but not that." 
 
 " I have not come to reproach you further. The 
 fault was mine from the beginning. I broke the 
 vows my spirit, if not my tongue, had made." 
 
 She smiled at the swimming mountains, vague 
 and exquisite as the memories of the past. 
 
 " Yes," she murmured, " thank God you did." 
 1 The priest sighed and bent over her. " I go, 
 Geraldine. But let me speak to you first as priest 
 to penitent. The world has no longer a place for 
 you. Give your soul and energies to the church. 
 Spend your life at the foot of the cross, praying 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 28 1 
 
 for the sins of mankind. For every prayer offered 
 up on raked knees, aching through a winter s 
 night on a stone floor, shall a woman s erring soul 
 be reclaimed. I know a beautiful convent, Geral- 
 dine, in the heart of Europe, whose gardens are 
 like the groves of paradise, leading the thoughts 
 to celestial gates. The lilies lie on the lake and 
 the gray stone walls thrust their rough old stones 
 through swarming green. The chapel is arched 
 and dim, and the nuns kneel in their oaken stalls 
 and chant like a celestial choir, while the incense 
 floats above and wreathes the pictured windows. 
 Do you remember the chorus of nuns in Chopin s 
 nocturne? In those moments your spirit will faint 
 with heavenly ecstasy; you will know a delicious 
 foretaste of the joy to come. But the cells are 
 cold and bare, and on their stones you will mor 
 tify the flesh, and your spirit will wail for the re 
 demption of the world. This is the life for you, 
 Geraldine. Give me your promise to go and I 
 will write to-morrow to the reverend mother." 
 
 But Geraldine, still with that smile of perfect 
 peace on her cold lips, had gone down into the 
 shadowy valley, to dwell forever by that quiet 
 river whose voice would chant dear memories. 
 
282 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THEEE LAMPS GO OUT. 
 
 As Tremaine stood on the porch of the Agnitas 
 waiting for the stage which would carry him back 
 to civilization, his eyes were suddenly arrested by 
 an object far down the road he was to traverse. 
 It looked like a small pink cloud which had floated 
 on from sunrise. Directly beneath the cloud 
 which, by the way, was floating toward the Agui- 
 tas was another object that looked much like a 
 wagon drawn by a pair of spanking horses. Tre 
 maine levelled his field glass at the approaching 
 phenomenon. Yes, it certainly was a wagon, and 
 those horses were not mustangs. And yes the 
 pink cloud was a parasol. 
 
 He lowered his glass with a laugh. " Kather a 
 refreshing sight," he thought, " but so incongru 
 ous that it is almost a parody." 
 
 He walked up and down the porch, idly watch 
 ing the approaching wagon when his steps turned 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 283 
 
 Mm toward it. Some people were doubtless trav 
 elling in their own conveyance to the hot springs 
 ill the south. As the wagon came nearer he could 
 make out that a woman in it wore a dress of sil 
 ver gray, and later, that she had fair hair. Sud 
 denly he stopped short, his heavy eyes opening 
 wide with an angry gleam. 
 
 " Jimminy Creepers," exclaimed Hawkins, who 
 was sitting on a barrel chewing tobacco, " if it ain t 
 Missis Tremaine." 
 
 Mrs. Termaine it was. She drove up, smiling, 
 fresh and dainty as the wild flowers she had not 
 deigned to notice. As she saw Tremaine she wafted 
 him a kiss with her little gray fingers, and seemed 
 not at all disconcerted by his lack of enthusiasm. 
 
 " You wouldn t answer my letters to say I could 
 come," she cried, with her infantile pout, " so I 
 made up my mind to do as I pleased for once. 1 
 was determined to see this place, and have a look 
 at the picturesque Californian. Do they wear 
 sombreros and ponchos? What is the matter with 
 your arm?" And she sprang lightly past Tre- 
 maine s hand, followed by her less agile maid. 
 
 " I hurt it. You have selected an unfortunate 
 
284 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 time," added her husband coldly. " I return by 
 the stage to day." 
 
 "No! no! you must not go," she said coax- 
 ingly, " I am too tired to go back to-day. Just 
 think! I have driven thirty miles. Why can t 
 they run the trains this way? You would not be 
 so cruel as to take me right back." 
 
 Tremaine hesitated. It would be rather brutal- 
 " Very well," he said finally, " I will stay over un 
 til to-morrow; bat you must go then. I have im 
 perative business ; and I do not suppose you wish 
 to stay here alone." 
 
 "Of course not, although if I had known you 
 would be so selfish I should have brought a lot 
 of people and we could have entertained each 
 other. I would have brought them, anyhow, but 
 I was not sure of the accommodations. I suppose 
 you have something for me to eat and a place 
 where I can rest." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," and he opened the door 
 of his room. " You can have this. There is another 
 vacant, I believe, but this is the more comfortable. 
 You will have to leave the door open or keep 
 your lamp lit, however, for there is no window." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 285 
 
 "No what? but that is too funny. I shall have 
 an experience to relate when I go home. A room 
 without a window ! " 
 
 Pier maid fixed her comfortably on the bed, and 
 Tremaine sent her some fried steak and cold ap 
 ple pie, upon which the landlady had placed a 
 large slice of butter. She discarded the butter 
 with a wry face, but being hungry, managed to 
 eat the rest, and then slept like an infant for a 
 couple of hours. At the end of that time she felt 
 like a morning rose and returned to the porch 
 where her unwilling lord was awaiting her. 
 
 " I want to be amused, Alex," she said plain 
 tively. " Take me somewhere. I want to see the 
 place and the people. If you make me go back 
 to-morrow it is your duty to entertain me to 
 day. Do they all live in one room ? " 
 
 Tremaine groaned in spirit. He did not feel in 
 an amusing vein, and his wife was the last person 
 on earth he wanted to talk to. And to drive with 
 her about this ranch ! 
 
 " You would not find these people interesting, 
 and the roads are very rough," he was beginning, 
 when Hawkins came to the rescue. 
 
286 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 " If you will excuse my officiousness, sir," lie 
 said, tipping his hat, "I would suggest as how 
 you took Missis Tremaine to see the cattle brand- 
 in over to Lightfoot s. It s only a matter of six 
 miles and she kin stay there all night. If you 
 don t want to go, I would like nothin better n to 
 take her, as I d like to see the round-up myself." 
 
 Tremaine caught eagerly at the proposition. 
 
 " Yes, go, Adelaide," he said. " There is an ex 
 perience, if you want one, and will give you some 
 thing to talk about. The Mexican is picturesque 
 on horseback, if anywhere, and Lightfoot has the 
 finest cattle in the valley." 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine needed no urging; the proposi 
 tion had fascinated her at once. She rose to her 
 feet and tied the strings of her bonnet. 
 
 " Do we go now? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, ma am, we hav n t no time to lose and it s 
 one o clock now. I ll put two fresh mustangs in 
 that ere light wagon you brought and we ll be off 
 in fifteen minutes." 
 
 " Have you been ill," demanded Mrs. Tremaine 
 of her husband, as they walked back and forth, 
 awaiting Hawkins return. " You are rather pale 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 287 
 
 and you look quite different I can hardly say 
 how; but you do." 
 
 " I had some fever, but I am well enough now." 
 
 " Did you have much trouble with these people? 
 Have they all gone? " 
 
 "They went, but they come back to-morrow; I 
 will explain when we return to town. I do not 
 feel in a humor for talking business to-day." 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine lifted her pretty little pink chin, 
 " Well, one thing is certain ; dispossessing squat, 
 ters has not improved your temper. You are as 
 cross as a bear." 
 
 " I am not cross, but it has annoyed me to be 
 obliged to defer my return to town. Are you sure 
 you are too tired for the trip? It is not too late." 
 
 He remembered afterward that her curved little 
 mouth had never set itself in a more determined 
 line as she looked past him at the approaching 
 wagon and replied with her babyish inflection. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders impatiently and 
 helped her into the wagon, then felt some com 
 punction for his abruptness. 
 
 "Take good care of yourself," he said, as he 
 
288 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 wrapped the linen dust cloth about her. " The 
 roads have been badly cut up by the heavy rains 
 and you will be a good deal jolted. Hold on when 
 you come to the bad places. Shall I raise your 
 parasol for you?" 
 
 "No, thanks. Grood-by," and Mrs. Tremaine, 
 whose temper was rarely ruffled, gave him a charm 
 ing smile and drove off under her pink canopy, re 
 garded with awe and admiration by the habitues 
 of the Aguitas. 
 
 " Would you like to see Poverty Flat, Missis? " 
 asked Hawkins. 
 
 "Poverty Flat?" 
 
 "That s what they call the place where the 
 squatters is camped. I suppose Mister Tremaine s 
 told you that he s give them all their farms." 
 
 "He s done what?" 
 
 " Give em to em, out and out, or will at the 
 end of five years, and is agoin to pay the taxes to 
 boot. The sheriff has cleared out in disgust. I 
 don t mean to pass any remarks myself, and Mis 
 ter Tremaine s old enough to know his own bizness 
 best, but I ll be doggoned if I kin help doin a 
 heap o thinkin ." 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 289 
 
 " I am sure you must be mistaken. Mr. Tre- 
 maine is considered an unusually good business 
 man. How many of them are there? I suppose 
 they could all be put at one end of the ranch so 
 that they wouldn t interfere with us." 
 
 Hawkins knew that he had no right to gossip 
 about Tremaine s plans, even to his wife, but the 
 temptation to communicate the astounding news 
 was too great to be resisted. 
 
 "Well you see, Missis," he said, "you ain t 
 heard the wust yet not by a long shot. Mister 
 Tremaine is goin to send down two surveyors to 
 stake off the ranch into fifty-acre farms, and I ve 
 got orders to give any man possession who comes 
 down with a certificate from him. There ain t no 
 use mincin the truth, he s goin to give this eli- 
 gant ranch, fifty thousand acres, clean away, and 
 I for one call it a damned shame. Excuse me, 
 Missis, but I do. Remember I ve knowed Mister 
 Tremaine man and boy." 
 
 Adelaide turned white about her lips. " And I 
 am not going to have my Spanish house and Eng 
 lish park," she said, unconsciously stating her 
 grievance aloud. " He is going to give this mag- 
 
2QO LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 nificent place, that Tie paid two hundred and 
 twenty thousand dollars for, to a lot of common 
 ignorant Irish emigrants and dirty natives. He 
 shall not ! I will not let him." 
 
 Hawkins shook his head. "I don t kalkilate 
 you can do any good, Missis. Mister Tremaine s 
 pretty set in his ways, once he takes a streak. The 
 deed s done." 
 
 " He will be the laughing stock of San Francis 
 co," exclaimed Adelaide, another phase of the ca 
 lamity presenting itself. " The papers will fairly 
 hoot at him. I won t stay in the town. But I 
 always knew he d do something ridiculous. Un 
 der all that sleepy indifference, there are a lot of 
 old-fashioned notions and absurd impulses. I only 
 wonder he hasn t presented his whole fortune to 
 the State and turned me out into the street." In 
 the bitterness of her grief she felt almost confi 
 dential toward the disapproving servitor. 
 
 " I sympathize with you, ma am. I do indeed. 
 But there s Poverty Flat, if you d like to see it. 
 I felt rather sorry for em before, but I ll be 
 hanged if I do now r ." 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine turned her head and looked 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 29 1 
 
 through shining angry eyes at the wretched en 
 campment by the roadside. 
 
 *! do not wish to stop," she said. " They are 
 not even picturesque. Look at those dirty little 
 naked children playing with the pigs ! It s inde 
 cent. And those fat women are really horrible. 
 Tremaine had better buy them some corsets." She 
 had the latent vulgarity of all cold natures, but 
 she would have attributed its manifestation to the 
 revolt of outraged refinement. 
 
 Hawkins thought her very witty and laughed 
 heartily. u That ud be throwin jewels to swine, 
 sure enough. They never seen corsets in their 
 born days. This is the Rancho de los Colmenares 
 means Ranch of the bee-hives, and belongs to 
 Mr. Lightfoot. He s got about sixty thousand 
 acres, but the ranch ain t a circumstance to the 
 Cerritos for beauty. It s mostly flat, you see, but 
 its a bully farm for raisin cattle. Mr. Lightfoot 
 must have made a good pile last year. It s a big 
 pay in business, I tell you what." 
 
 Mrs. Tremaine^ was beginning to tire of the 
 agent s attempts to entertain her, and retiring 
 within herself, meditated upon her wrongs. She 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 had one compensation in store. Several times 
 during her married life she had given Tremaine 
 an extremely uncomfortable fifteen minutes. She 
 decided that when she returned* to the Cerritos to 
 morrow morning he should feel as if he were be 
 ing slowly crushed in an ice-field. That was one 
 of her accomplishments, and she was proud of it. 
 
 The wagon jolted heavily over the rough road 
 and she wished that she had not come. Her back 
 ached and the sun blazed through her thin parasol. 
 
 " How many more miles have we? " she asked. 
 
 " We ll be there in ten minutes, Missis," and 
 Adelaide, tipping back her sunshade, saw, about 
 a quarter of a mile away, a large adobe house with 
 a rude garden about it, and, at the back, a large 
 corral and a field of cattle. 
 
 They re roundin -up now," continued Haw 
 kins. " We re in good time for the brandin ." 
 
 The road took them by the field and Adelaide 
 looked with some interest at the army of red and 
 white animals with their tossing horns. A num 
 ber of vaqueros were galloping about shouting at 
 the cattle and trying to press them into rank. 
 
 " By Golly ! " exclaimed Hawkins suddenly, 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 293 
 
 " if there ain t Castro. Well, of all the gall, and a 
 sheriff after him. And there s Espinoza too." 
 
 As Castro saw Hawkins he spurred his horse 
 and rode up to him. The scowl on his face was 
 heavier than usual. 
 
 " Whatte this I hear? " he demanded. " Espi 
 noza go to keep his hacienda? " 
 
 Hawkins gave a grunt. He was not afraid of 
 Castro, with a half dozen other men in sight. 
 " What s that your bizness? " 
 
 " Telia me si it is true? " roared Casto. " Diablo ! 
 whatte he do for the Senor Tremaine to getta his 
 ranchita when the others live in the mud? He 
 give to him Car 
 
 " Shut up! " interrupted Hawkins, and he drove 
 off. Castro sent a volley of curses after him, then 
 wheeled and galloped directly over to Espinoza. 
 
 Hawkins drove the wagon into the shed and 
 lifted Mrs. Tremaine to the ground. 
 
 "You won t mind walkin a bit? But there s no 
 safe place to tie the horses near the corral." 
 
 "I am glad to walk," she said, and moving 
 lightly over the ground, she looked like an ani 
 mated silver statue topped by a big pink rose. 
 
294 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 The sun beat full upon her, and as she walked up 
 the road toward the corral Lightfoot and his va- 
 queros stopped a moment to look at her. 
 
 " Who s the visitor? " asked the master curious 
 ly. " Looks like Frisco. That s Tremaine s agent 
 with er. Blowed if I kin be bothered with er, 
 though, and Mrs. L. s away. Here, Castro, stop 
 your rowing with Espinoza and help round up 
 these cattle. They re as obstinate as mules to-day. 
 Rope that girl over there. She s been behavin* 
 like hell all mornin , and they ll be makin a break 
 fust thing you know. Here! none o that 
 
 But before the words were out of his mouth, 
 Castro had snatched his pistol from his belt and 
 discharged it at Espinoza. The shot missed its 
 mark, but struck a steer just behind. With a fu 
 rious bellow the animal reared and struck a neigh 
 bor with its forefeet. In a second terror and 
 fury had run like an electric wave over the whole 
 body of cattle. 
 
 "My God!" cried Lightfoot, "there s goin to 
 be trouble." 
 
 The cattle were seething and trampling, stum 
 bling against each other and rushing aimlessly from 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 2Q5 
 
 right to left. Castro, seeing what he had done, 
 felt a brute desire to show these angry beasts with 
 their ominous mutterings that he was master. 
 .With a hoarse cry which every one of them under 
 stood he dashed along their front, vociferating at 
 them like a furious general at a cowardly army. 
 For a second the cattle shrank, then blind terror 
 possessed them once more. He was too late. The 
 smell of blood was in their nostrils ! . 
 
 Suddenly their aimless trampling ceased. One 
 in the front rank had caught sight of the brilliant 
 pink and silver object coming up the road. Then 
 purpose entered into his madness, and with a fu 
 rious bellow he made straight for the open. 
 Lightfoot and his men yelled with horror. The 
 former raised himself in his stirrups and waved 
 his hat frantically at the stupefied woman, pointing 
 toward his house. Castro was half way across the 
 field when the concerted movement took place. 
 As he saw that a stampede was inevitable he 
 turned with an oath and dashed down the road. 
 Hawkins had caught Mrs. Tremaine by the hand 
 and was running across the open in the poor hope of 
 getting beyond the catties flank before they should 
 
296 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 have time to turn. Adelaide gave one terrified 
 glance over her shoulder, then shut her eyes and 
 stumbled after Hawkins. But still she saw those 
 tossing horns like gaunt skeleton fingers, those 
 flaming eyes and frothing mouths. Castro, yell 
 ing frantically, neared them. His horse shied 
 violently at a large pink object on the ground, 
 reared at the vicious pull on his cruel bit, stum 
 bled and went down with the cursing Mexican in 
 a cloud of dust. The harsh, horrified shouts of 
 Lightfoot and his men, the hoarse protest of one 
 doomed man, the gurgling curses of another as 
 he tore the ground with teeth and nails, the shrill 
 hopeless scream of a woman, and the cattle, close 
 in their ranks as an army which was to decide the 
 fate of a nation, swept over the shaking miles. 
 
 And where a moment before had been two strong 
 men and one fair woman, was a pulpy mass of 
 flesh and cloth trampled down into the ever wait 
 ing, all receiving earth. 
 
THE LITANY OF THE REDWOODS. 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 299 
 
 THE LITANY OF THE REDWOODS. 
 
 A LIGHT fall of snow had drifted through the 
 redwood tops and powdered the brown pine nee 
 dles. The squirrels chatted in their hidden store 
 rooms, and the deer leaped in the keen bright air. 
 The redwoods, gray and stern, set their heads 
 against the coming blasts and braced their rigid 
 arms. They might succumb to man and steel, 
 but Nature had no enemy to pit against them. 
 
 Carmelita lay at the foot of her redwood. She 
 did not feel so intimate with him as of old, but 
 she loved him for remembrance sake and he was 
 her only friend. For she was very lonely. Geral- 
 dine had gone. The padre was like a passing 
 ghost. She had not heard from Tremaine since 
 she had bidden him good-by in the Mission s 
 cloister. She had sternly put aside all insistent 
 hopes born of his wife s horrible death, but that 
 lie ]oved her and that she would see him again she 
 
300 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 never doubted. Not a mile from her tree, in the 
 very heart of the forest, an immense adobe house 
 had been built on a cliff above the creek. Men 
 had come from the city and furnished it, and an 
 old couple had been placed in charge. Carmelita 
 knew that sooner or later Tremaine would come 
 and live in that house ; but at this point her fu 
 ture s perspective closed suddenly. Every even 
 ing she spent an hour in the cloisters of the Mis 
 sion and Tremaine was with her then. 
 
 She raised her head. A horseman was coming 
 up the road ; the dry branches were crackling un 
 der the mustang s feet. She sat up with a frown. 
 This was her own domain and no one had ever 
 passed this way before. It must be one of the 
 new fanners, and for a moment her philanthropy 
 was threatened. 
 
 The horse toiled up the steep road, and through 
 the trees she saw him round the gulch. She sprang 
 to her feet, the breath struggling in her throat. 
 Horse and rider passed behind a clump of trees, 
 then reappeared a few feet away, and Carmelita 
 turned and pressed her face to her tree. 
 
 Tremaine threw the bridle over the horse s neck 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 301 
 
 and came to her. He took her to him and kissed 
 her face and mouth until the girl lay heavy in his 
 arms, her fingers drawn to her palms with pain in 
 their tips. He unbraided her hair and cast it 
 about her. " That is the way I always see you," 
 he said, his own voice shaking, " only it should 
 drift over a long, white gown. We will be mar 
 ried in the old Mission by your padre, and the 
 house by the creek is ready for us." 
 
 He pushed his hand through her warm hair, 
 but looked past her awakening eyes. " I have a 
 plan of life to propose to you," he went on steady 
 ing his voice. " I have given it much thought in 
 lonely nights since we parted ; but I have lived 
 widely, I have known the redwoods, and I think 
 I am right. I want you to have no friend, not 
 even an acquaintance, but myself; that is, of our 
 station in life. We have both work to do among 
 these squatters. But you must have no one to 
 depend upon for your pleasure, your diversion, 
 your entertainment, or happiness, you must have 
 no companion but myself. This is not jealousy, 
 Carmelita, unless it be a jealous desire for your 
 good. I have drunk of all the wines that flow 
 
3O2 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 from the fountain of life. There is nothing in 
 society, nothing in friendship, nothing even in 
 personal contact with great minds. Their written 
 words are always the best part of them. Friends 
 have other friends, or when they do not betray or 
 scratch they weary with the minds we have ex 
 hausted. Society is a bubble to be pricked, not 
 blown. So I have come to this conclusion : that 
 the only chance of happiness lies in the isolated 
 companionship of mated souls. Nor can I see 
 anything selfish in such a life. I fail to remem 
 ber ever having done any man good by listening 
 to his tiresome opinions or to his string of woes 
 that he had poured into a dozen ears before mine. 
 But let that go. Later in a year or two you 
 shall see all that the best part of the world has to 
 offer. Does all this sound selfish to you, Carme- 
 lita? Aside from my own desires, I have planned 
 for your good with all the sense and experience I 
 possess. With people in general you have noth 
 ing in common, and in that minor world we call 
 society you would be wretched and disgusted. 
 You would not understand nor be understood. 
 But life in its free and educating sense you 
 
LOS CERRITOS. 303 
 
 shall know and feel that no woman stands before 
 yon. My God! what a woman you will make." 
 
 He went on dreamily, his face against hers. 
 " Is there one woman who will look at life through 
 the eyes of her lover and not insist upon nibbling 
 every apple until each line flower of her nature is 
 brown and curled at the edges? Shall we live in 
 this forest until we have absorbed its mighty sym 
 bolism and the mystery of the redwoods? We 
 shall know that primeval union- 
 He unclasped his arms and pushed her back 
 against the tree, looking full into her eyes. 
 
 " Tell me that you love me," he said. " Quick! " 
 She gazed at him for a moment with languid 
 eyes and parted lips. Then a great flame burst 
 from her heart and swept through her body. She 
 gave a loud, ecstatic cry, like a lioness who has 
 found her mate. 
 
 "Alejandro ! Alejandro ! I love you! " 
 And she flung her arms about him and kissed 
 him full on the mouth. 
 
 He staggered under her passionate lips as he 
 had not when Castro s arms had crushed him, and 
 his self-control gave way. He caught her in a 
 
304 LOS CERRITOS. 
 
 sudden, hard embrace and kissed her until the 
 mountain reeled beneath them and the forest hum 
 dinned in their ears as if all the sounds of earth 
 were in that lonely spot. 
 
 " I say before to myself, but no like this," she 
 panted, shaking in his arms, then said no more. 
 
 But the redwood sighed, for his heart was lonely. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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