at a bite. The bite was Del Monte. Las Flores still comprised forty thousand acres; and Don Vincente and the Colonel had become in the course of thirty years wonderful cronies. So that was all right. The second evidence of human occupation was nearer at hand, in fact a scant half-mile distant. It was a brown little house, and it lay half hidden in the entrance to a cañon. Nothing much but the roof could be distinguished. This was the property of a man named Brainerd and, with its hundred and sixty acres, had once belonged to Del Monte. The Colonel had sold it, right from the heart of his own property, and it was the only bit of original Del Monte not still in his hands. The story is too long to tell here. But Brainerd was a gentleman, and a "lunger," and a widower, and the father of a little girl, and down on his luck, and proud enough to struggle for appearances, and intelligent, and a number of similar matters. To clinch matters he had read and could moderately quote Moby Dick. This seemed at the time of his coming the only available land. Indeed, with the sea on one side, the Sur mountains on the other, the rich walnut and orange farms occupying the third, and Del Monte and Las Flores on the fourth, the little town of Arguello might be said to be pretty well surrounded. To be sure, there were the sagebrush foothills of the Sur, but they were dry, desert, fit only for sheep and quail. Take it all around, a man of moderate means, ordered to live in Arguello valley if he would live at all, would be puzzled to find a little ranch unless he went far out. Then the Colonel happened along. Somehow Brainerd found himself in the little brown house.
But if the Colonel had cared to turn around he could have seen the houses of Arguello only a mile away, with the white Mission on the hill, and again the gleam of the sea, where the coast swept back almost at right angles to form the harbour.
The Colonel did not turn around, however. He stood there straight and slim in his long frock coat, with his fine, lean, kindly old face raised to the sun. and the breeze, and his white hair stirring softly. The sky was very blue, and in its deeps swung buzzards in wide, stately circles. The air was warm and fragrant, and on it floated the clear liquid songs of the meadow larks and the quick buzzy notes of the quail. The sun's warmth fell softly like an essence in suspension, and the Colonel seemed to himself to be soaking it into his physical being as though it were indeed an ethereal, permeating substance. And the Colonel in his simple old heart found it good and thanked his God.
But now on a sudden he waked as though he had been called, and with an appearance of almost guilty haste he strode down the hill. The two hounds, who had been patiently awaiting his pleasure, yawned, stretched and followed after. The Colonel walked briskly around the house to the front door. To the handle of the bell-pull hung a turkey-feather duster as though left by a careless housemaid. It was there a-purpose, however, as it was there on all the bell-pulls in Southern California; and the Colonel put it to its appointed use on his boots.
He crossed the little hallway in two strides and entered the dining room.
His wife Allie sat already at table behind a silver coffee service beneath which burned an alcohol lamp. She was a small, plump, merry looking woman, with black hair in which appeared no thread of white. Her dress was of heavy fine black silk, relieved with white lace. Its cut was very plain and old-fashioned, but possessed a chic of its own that placed Allie definitely above the class of commonplace, small plump women. Her air was of brisk, amused tolerance, with a background of fine competence. Though she did not wear a bunch of keys at her girdle, one felt that it would have been symbolically appropriate for her to have done so. She raised her face for the Colonel's gallant kiss.
"You are very late this morning, Richard," she remarked.
"There was much to attend to. You remember this is a very important day."
The Colonel sat across the table, but immediately arose to set aside a cut-glass bowl of magnificent red roses that had filled the centre of the table.
"I would rather see you, dear, than the most beautiful roses in the world," he answered Allie's murmured protest.
He attacked the sliced oranges before him. A door opened noiselessly to admit the soft-footed Chinaman, bearing a laden tray. He stood waiting. The Colonel dallied with his fruit, telling Allie interestedly his morning adventure, pausing often with his spoon between plate and mouth.
"You eat fluit," broke in the Chinaman finally. "You stop talkee talkee, eat blekfus."
"Well, I declare, Sing Toy!" cried the Colonel.
But Sing Toy, secure in the righteousness of his attitude, budged not one inch from it.
"Belly late," he pointed out without excitement. "You walkee walkee, no catch blekfus, you catch headache. I know." He spoke from the profound empirical wisdom of years of service, in this family; and therefore he spoke in confidence. The Colonel collapsed and meekly devoured his orange. Sing Toy changed the plates and served the food. His calm eye swept the dining room masterfully.
"You change your nightgown," he told Allie, and left the room.
"I swear that Chinaman will drive me beyond bounds!" cried the Colonel.
"He merely meant the laundry boy was going to begin the week's wash to-day," chuckled Allie, placidly. "I am only thankful that he did not say it before our guests. You know perfectly well, Richard, what a faithful dear old thing he is."
"I suppose so," muttered the Colonel, "still——"
Sing Toy thrust his pig-tailed head through the door.
"Hot day, "he announced. "Cunnel go catch thin coat. That one too thick. I fix um on bed. You go puttum on."
II
In the meantime the mounting sun was beginning to burn away the layer of high fog that had overhung the town. Each night, at this time of year, this blanket crept in from the sea and gathered out of nothing in the coolness of dawn. To one in the town it exactly resembled heavy rain clouds. Indeed, it was always difficult to persuade the tourist that his umbrella and mackintosh were unnecessary, that with absolute certainty it could be stated that those threatening, lowering clouds contained not one drop of rain. To one who had arisen early enough to have ridden up the Sur, it would have looked like a tumbled, shining silver sea through which thrust the peaks of higher hills. From either point of view it appeared a solid and permanent bit of weather that would take some tune and doing to alter.
Nevertheless, about nine o'clock a weird brilliance appeared all at once to permeate the air. The heavy, inert dead clouds seemed suddenly infused with life. A glimpse of overhead blue was hinted and instantly obliterated. A phantom half-suggestion of a mountain peak in full sunshine showed for a moment through a gauze of white misty light. Then between two minutes simultaneously, all over the cup of the heavens, the dark clouds thinned to a veil. The veil was rent in two, twenty, a hundred places. It dissolved. A few shreds, drifting down a new freshness that arose from the sea, alone remained and they melted to nothing before one's eyes. Magically the blue sky was clear, and the sun was sending down its showers of golden warmth. The semi-circle of mountains rose hard and clear in the sparkling air; the sea twinkled with a thousand eyes; the surf lay white along the yellow shore. And none more foolish than the distrustful tourist compelled to convey past concealed contempts his umbrella and his mackintosh.
The town of Arguello began then, as it does now, in a wharf; a long wharf that reached a half mile to find its deep water. It ended indeterminately in open country after two miles. Its one long main street was unpaved, unimproved. All its sidewalks were of wood; and there were no sidewalks except in the "centres of commerce, wealth, and fashion." The buildings in its business part were mostly one-story wooden affairs that pretended to be two-story by means of false fronts. There were, however, a number of
