The old woman thumped and pounded the mass of dough until the small
tenement shook. Then, after much shaping and some crowding, she
consigned her six rather corpulent loaves to "the pans," and turned on
her nominal lord.

He had fallen asleep, with his head dropped forward on his breast: his
hat had fallen off, and lay in his lap in a receptive attitude, as if
expecting that the head would presently drop into it.

Mrs. Withrow gave him a withering glance.

"Forrester sent you, did 'e? You miser'ble old jelly-fish! You're a nice
match fer Forrester, you are!"

She pushed her loaves angrily under the stove, to the discomfiture of
the cat, who, being thus rudely disturbed, yawned and stretched, and
curved its back to the limit of spinal flexibility, as it rubbed against
the old woman's knees.

III.

The California winter had blossomed and faded. The blaze of the poppies
on the mesa had given place to the soft, smoky tint of the sage, and
almost insensibly the cloudless summer had come on.

Work had commenced in Sawpit Canon. Unwillingly, and after much
wrangling, the old woman had yielded to the evident fairness of
Forrester's offer. Even in yielding, however, she had permitted herself
the luxury of defiance, and had refused to appear before a notary in the
valley to sign the deed. If it afforded her any satisfaction when that
official was driven to the door by Colonel Forrester, and entered her
kitchen, carrying his seal, and followed by an admiring and awestricken
group of children, she did not display it by the faintest tremor of her
grim countenance. She had held the end of the penholder gingerly while
she made her "mark," and it was when old Withrow had been banished from
the room, and the notary, in a bland, perfunctory way, had made her
acquainted with the contents of the document, and inquired whether she
signed the same freely and voluntarily, that she deigned to speak.

"Did Nate Forrester tell you to ask me that?" she demanded, darting a
quick glance through the open door at the Colonel, who sat in his
road-wagon under the trailing pepper-tree, flicking the flies from his
roadster's back. "Ef he did, you tell 'im fer me that the man don't live
that kin make me do what I don't want to. An' ef he thinks the two or
three kaigs of wine he's poured into that poor, miser'ble, sozzlin' old
man o' mine has had anything to do with me signin' this deed, he's a
bigger fool than I took 'im to be, an' that's sa