coincidence of his story with my own experience was not, after all, such a wonderful thing, considering what must have been the nervous and mental disturbance produced by the earthquake.  We dined together, attended only by Pedro, an old half-caste body-servant.  It was easy to see that the household was carried on economically, and, from a word or two casually dropped by Enriquez, it appeared that the rancho and a small sum of money were all that he retained from his former fortune when he left the El Bolero.  The stock he kept intact, refusing to take the dividend upon it until that collapse of the company should occur which he confidently predicted, when he would make good the swindled stockholders.  I had no reason to doubt his perfect faith in this.

The next morning we were up early for a breezy gallop over the three square miles of Enriquez’s estate.  I was astounded, when I descended to the patio, to find Enriquez already mounted, and carrying before him, astride of the horn of his saddle, a small child,—­the identical papoose of my memorable first visit.  But the boy was no longer swathed and bandaged, although, for security, his plump little body was engirt by the same sash that encircled his father’s own waist.  I felt a stirring of self-reproach; I had forgotten all about him!  To my suggestion that the exercise might be fatiguing to him, Enriquez shrugged his shoulders:—­

“Believe me, no!  He is ever with me when I go on the pasear.  He is not too yonge.  For he shall learn ’to rride, to shoot, and to speak the truth,’ even as the Persian chile.  Eet ees all I can gif to him.”

Nevertheless, I think the boy enjoyed it, and I knew he was safe with such an accomplished horseman as his father.  Indeed, it was a fine sight to see them both careering over the broad plain, Enriquez with jingling spurs and whirling riata, and the boy, with a face as composed as his father’s, and his tiny hand grasping the end of the flapping rein with a touch scarcely lighter than the skillful rider’s own.  It was a lovely morning; though warm and still, there was a faint haze—­a rare thing in that climate—­on the distant range.  The sun-baked soil, arid and thirsty from the long summer drought, and cracked into long fissures, broke into puffs of dust, with a slight detonation like a pistol-shot, at each stroke of our pounding hoofs.  Suddenly my horse swerved in full gallop, almost lost his footing, “broke,” and halted with braced fore feet, trembling in every limb.  I heard a shout from Enriquez at the same instant, and saw that he too had halted about a hundred paces from me, with his hand uplifted in warning, and between us a long chasm in the dry earth, extending across the whole field.  But the trembling of the horse continued until it communicated itself to me.  I was shaking, too, and, looking about for the cause, when I beheld the most weird and remarkable spectacle I had ever witnessed.  The whole llano, or plain, stretching