To avoid being confounded with this familiar element, I walked to the rear of the house, which was connected with a smaller building by a slight platform.  A grizzled, hard-faced old man was standing there, and met my salutation with a look of inquiry, and, without speaking, led the way to the principal room.  As I entered, four young men who were reclining by the fire slightly altered their attitudes of perfect repose, but beyond that betrayed neither curiosity nor interest.  A hound started from a dark corner with a growl, but was immediately kicked by the old man into obscurity, and silenced again.  I can’t tell why, but I instantly received the impression that for a long time the group by the fire had not uttered a word or moved a muscle.  Taking a seat, I briefly stated my business.

Was a United States surveyor.  Had come on account of the Espiritu Santo Rancho.  Wanted to correct the exterior boundaries of township lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of private grants.  There had been some intervention to the old survey by a Mr. Tryan who had preempted adjacent—­“settled land warrants,” interrupted the old man.  “Ah, yes!  Land warrants—­and then this was Mr. Tryan?”

I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccupied in connecting other public lines with private surveys as I looked in his face.  It was certainly a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect of that mining operation known as “ground sluicing”; the harder lines of underlying character were exposed, and what were once plastic curves and soft outlines were obliterated by some powerful agency.

There was a dryness in his voice not unlike the prevailing atmosphere of the valley, as he launched into an ex PARTE statement of the contest, with a fluency, which, like the wind without, showed frequent and unrestrained expression.  He told me—­what I had already learned—­that the boundary line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described in the loose phraseology of the DESENO as beginning in the Valda or skirt of the hill, its precise location long the subject of litigation.  I listened and answered with little interest, for my mind was still distracted by the wind which swept violently by the house, as well as by his odd face, which was again reflected in the resemblance that the silent group by the fire bore toward him.  He was still talking, and the wind was yet blowing, when my confused attention was aroused by a remark addressed to the recumbent figures.

“Now, then, which on ye’ll see the stranger up the creek to Altascar’s, tomorrow?”

There was a general movement of opposition in the group, but no decided answer.

“Kin you go, Kerg?”

“Who’s to look up stock in Strarberry perar-ie?”

This seemed to imply a negative, and the old man turned to another hopeful, who was pulling the fur from a mangy bearskin on which he was lying, with an expression as though it were somebody’s hair.