ears," said Uncle Lance, over Easter dinner,
"are food for reflection. When one nears the limit of his allotted
days, and looks back over his career, there is little that satisfies.
Financial success is a poor equivalent for other things. But here I am
preaching when I ought to be rejoicing. Some one get John's letter and
read it again. Let's see, the nineteenth falls on Saturday. Lucky
day for Las Palomas! Well, we'll have the padre here, and if he says
barbecue a beef, down goes the fattest one on the ranch. This is the
year in which we expect to press our luck. I begin to feel it in my old
bones that the turning-point has come. When Father Norquin arrives, I
think I'll have him preach us a sermon on the evils of single life. But
then it's hardly necessary, for most of you boys have got your eye on
some girl right now. Well, hasten the day, every rascal of you, and
you'll find a cottage ready at a month's notice."

The morning following Easter opened bright and clear, while on every
hand were the signs of spring. A vaquero was dispatched to the Mission
to summon the padre, carrying both a letter and the compliments of the
ranch. Among the jobs outlined for the week was the repairing of a well,
the walls of which had caved in, choking a valuable water supply with
debris. This morning Deweese took a few men and went to the well, to
raise the piping and make the necessary repairs, curbing being the most
important. But while the foreman and Santiago Ortez were standing on
a temporary platform some thirty feet down, a sudden and unexpected
cave-in occurred above them. Deweese saw the danger, called to his
companion, and, in a flash laid hold of a rope with which materials
were being lowered. The foreman's warning to his companion reached the
helpers above, and Deweese was hastily windlassed to the surface, but
the unfortunate vaquero was caught by the falling debris, he and the
platform being carried down into the water beneath. The body of Ortez
was recovered late that evening, a coffin was made during the night, and
the next morning the unfortunate man was laid in his narrow home.

The accident threw a gloom over the ranch. Yet no one dreamt that a
second disaster was at hand. But the middle of the week passed without
the return of either of the absent boys. Foul play began to be
suspected, and meanwhile Father Norquin arrived, fully expecting to
solemnize within a few days the marriage of one of the missing men.
Aaron