had railed against the destiny that gave his youngest daughter to a Yankee engineer.  He had bade her choose between allegiance to an honored race and exile with one whom he termed an unknown, alien interloper.  But in the end he had forgiven, when she chose, as is the wont of women, Love’s eternal path.  Thus the Garvez rancho, at his death became the Windham ranch and there dwelt Dona Anita with her children Inez and Benito, for her husband, “Don Roberto” Windham lingered with an engineering expedition in the wilds of Oregon.

Just nineteen was young Benito, straight and slim, combining in his fledgling soul the austere heritage of Anglo-Saxons with the leaping fires of Castile.  Fondly, yet with something anxious in her glance, his mother watched the boy as he sprang nimbly to the saddle of his favorite horse.  He was like her husband, strong and self-reliant.  Yet,—­she sighed involuntarily with the thought,—­he had much of the manner of her handsome and ill-fated brother, Don Diego, victim of a duel that had followed cards and wine.

“Why so troubled, madre mia?” The little hand of Inez stole into her mother’s reassuringly.  “Is it that you fear for our Benito when he rides among the Gringos of the puebla?”

Her dark crowned and exquisite head rose proudly and her eyes flashed as she watched her brother riding with the grace of splendid horsemanship toward the distant town of Yerba Buena.  “He can take care of himself,” she ended with, a toss of her head.

“To be sure, my little one,” the Dona Windham answered smiling.  No doubt it was a foolish apprehension she decided.  If only the Dona Briones who lived on a ranchita near the bay-shore did not gossip so of the Americano games of chance.  And if only she might know what took Benito there so frequently.

* * * * *

Benito spurred his horse toward the puebla.  A well-filled purse jingled in his pocket and now and then he tossed a silver coin to some importuning Indian along the road.  As he passed the little ranch-house of Dona Briones he waved his hat gaily in answer to her invitation to stop.  Benito called her Tia Juana.  Large and motherly she was, a woman of untiring energy who, all alone cultivated the ranchito which supplied milk, butter, eggs and vegetables to ships which anchored in the cove of Yerba Buena.  She was the friend of all sick and unfortunate beings, the secret ally of deserting sailors whom she often hid from searching parties.  Benito was her special favorite and now she sighed and shook her head as he rode on.  She had heard of his losses at the gringo game called “pokkere.”  She mistrusted it together with all other alien machinations.

Benito reached the little hamlet dreaming in the sun, a welter of scrambled habitations.  There was the little ship’s cabin, called Kent Hall, where dwelt that genial spirit, Nathan Spear, his father’s friend.  Nearby was the dwelling, carpenter and blacksmith shop of Calvert Davis; the homes of Victor Pruden, French savant and secretary to Governor Alvarado; Thompson the hide trader who married Concepcion Avila, reigning beauty of her day; Stephen Smith, pioneer saw-miller, who brought the first pianos to California.