Russell took the
guitar from Benicia's hand and laid it on the floor.

"This waltz is mine, senorita," he said.

"I no know--"

"Senorita!" said Don Fernando Altimira, passionately, "the first waltz
is always mine. Thou wilt not give it to the American?"

"And the next is mine!"

"And the next contradanza!"

The girl's faithful retinue protested for their rights. Russell could
not understand, but he translated their glances, and bent his lips to
Benicia's ear. That ear was pink and her eyes were bright with roguish
triumph.

"I want this dance, dear senorita. I may go away any day. Orders may
come to-morrow which will send me where I never can see you again. You
can dance with these men every night of the year--"

"I give to you," said Benicia, rising hurriedly. "We must be hospitable
to the stranger who comes to-day and leaves to-morrow," she said in
Spanish to the other men. "I have plenty more dances for you."

After the dance, salads and cakes, claret and water, were brought to the
women by Indian girls, who glided about the room with borrowed grace,
their heads erect, the silver trays held well out. They wore bright red
skirts and white smocks of fine embroidered linen, open at the throat,
the sleeves very short. Their coarse hair hung in heavy braids; their
bright little eyes twinkled in square faces scrubbed until they shone
like copper.

"Captain," said Russell to Brotherton, as the men followed the host into
the supper room, "let us buy a ranch, marry two of these stunning
girls, and lie round in hammocks whilst these Western houris bring us
aguardiente and soda. What an improvement on Byron and Tom Moore! It
is all so unhackneyed and unexpected. In spite of Dana and Robinson I
expected mud huts and whooping savages. This is Arcadia, and the women
are the most elegant in America."

"Look here, Ned," said his captain, "you had better do less flirting and
more thinking while you are in this odd country. Your talents will get
rusty, but you can rub them up when you get home. Neither Californian
men nor women are to be trifled with. This is the land of passion, not
of drawing-room sentiment."

"Perhaps I am more serious than you think. What is the matter?" He spoke
to a brother officer who had joined them and was laughing immoderately.

"Do you see those Californians grinning over there?" The speaker
beckoned to a group of officers, who joined him at once. "What job do
you suppose they have put up