“Bime by they meet one Indian, who belong to the tribe they want, and ’fore he can shoot they point the pistol and tell him he mus show them where are the girls.  He say he taking them, and on the way he telling them the chief and nother chief make the girls their wives.  This make them wild, and they tie up the horses so can climb more fast.  But it is no till late the nex morning when they come sudden out of a gorge and look right into a place, very flat like a plaza, where is the pueblo de the Indians they want.  For moment no one see them, and they see the girls—­Dios de mi alma!  Have been big feast, I theenk, and right where are all the things no been clear away, Ester, she lie on the groun on the face, and cry and sob and shake.  But Beatriz, she stan very straight in the middle, ’fore the door the big wigwam, and never look more hansome.  She never take her eyes off the chief who taking her away, and no look discontent at all.  Then the Indians see the brothers and yell and run to get the bows and arrows.  Don Enrique and Don Roldan fire the pistols, but after all they have to run, for no can do it nothing.  They get out live but have arrows in them.  And that is the las we ever hear de my senoritas.  Many time plenty white peoples watch the mountains and sometimes go in, but no can find nothing and always are wound.

“And my poor senora!  For whole year she jus sit in one room and cry so loud all the peoples in San Diego hear her.  No can do it nothing with her.  Ay, she love the husband so, and the two beautiful girls!  Then she die, and I am glad.  Much better die than suffer like that.  And Don Rafael and Don Carmelo?  Oh, they marrying other girls, course.”

NATALIE IVANHOFF:  A MEMORY OF FORT ROSS

At Fort Ross, on the northern coast of California, it is told that an astonishing sight may be witnessed in the midnight of the twenty-third of August.  The present settlement vanishes.  In its place the Fort appears as it was when the Russians abandoned it in 1841.  The quadrilateral stockade of redwood beams, pierced with embrasures for carronades, is compact and formidable once more.  The ramparts are paced by watchful sentries; mounted cannon are behind the iron-barred gates and in the graceful bastions.  Within the enclosure are the low log buildings occupied by the Governor and his officers, the barracks of the soldiers, the arsenal, and storehouses.  In one corner stands the Greek chapel, with its cupola and cross-surmounted belfry.  The silver chimes have rung this night.  The Governor, his beautiful wife, and their guest, Natalie Ivanhoff, have knelt at the jewelled altar.

At the right of the Fort is a small “town” of rude huts which accommodates some eight hundred Indians and Siberian convicts, the working-men of the company.  Above the “town,” on a high knoll, is a large grist-mill.  Describing an arc of perfect proportions, its midmost depression a mile behind the Fort, a great mountain forms a natural rampart.  At either extreme it tapers to the jagged cliffs.  On its three lower tables the mountain is green and bare; then abruptly rises a forest of redwoods, tall, rigid, tenebrious.