eads _sombreros_ with
broad brim, and band of bullion--the _toquilla_. In addition, each has
over his shoulders a _manga_--the most magnificent of outside garments,
with a drape graceful as a Roman _toga_. That of one is
scarlet-coloured, the other sky-blue. Nor are their horses less grandly
bedecked. Saddles of stamped leather, scintillating with silver studs--
their cloths elaborately embroidered; bridles of plaited horse-hair,
jointed with tags and tassels; bits of the Mamaluke pattern, with
check-pieces and curbs powerful enough to break the jaw at a jerk.

The steeds thus splendidly caparisoned are worthy of it. Though small,
they are of perfect shape--pure blood of Arabian sires, transmitted
through dams of Andalusia. They are descended from the stock
transported to the New World by the _Conquistadores_; and the progenitor
of one or other may have carried Alvarado or Sandoval--perhaps Cortez
himself.

The riders are both men of swarthy complexion, with traits that tell of
the Latinic race. Their features are Spanish; in one a little more
pronounced than the other. He who wears the sky-coloured cloak has all
the appearance of being Mexican born. The blood in his veins giving the
brown tinge to his skin, is not Moorish, but more likely from the
aborigines of California. For all this, he is not a true _mestizo_;
only one among whose remote ancestry an Indian woman may have been
numbered; since the family-tree of many a proud Californian has sprung
from such root. He is of medium size, with figure squat and somewhat
square, and sits his horse as though he were part of the animal. If
seen afoot his legs would appear bowed, almost bandied, showing that he
has spent the greater part of his life in the saddle. His face is flat,
its outline rounded, the nose compressed, nostrils agape, and lips thick
enough to suggest the idea of an African origin. But his hair
contradicts this--being straight as needles, and black as the skin of a
Colobus monkey. More like he has it from the Malays, through the
Californian Indian--some tribes of which are undoubtedly of Malayan
descent.

Whatever the mixture in his blood, the man is himself a native
Californian, born by the shores of San Francisco Bay, on a _ganaderia_,
or grazing estate. He is some twenty-six or seven years of age, his
name Faustino Calderon--"Don" by ancestral right, and ownership of the
aforesaid _ganaderia_.

He in the scarlet _manga_, though but