The people took all the roofs off
their houses too. They were made of the tule reeds; so they would do
again. Oh, Senorita, don't ask me to tell you any more! It is like
death. I can't!"

Ramona was crying bitterly. She did not know what to say. What was love,
in face of such calamity? What had she to give to a man stricken like
this.'

"Don't weep, Senorita," said Alessandro, drearily. "Tears kill one, and
do no good."

"How long did your father live?" asked Ramona, clasping her arms closer
around his neck. They were sitting on the ground now, and Ramona,
yearning over Alessandro, as if she were the strong one and he the one
to be sheltered, had drawn his head to her bosom, caressing him as if
he had been hers for years. Nothing could have so clearly shown his
enfeebled and benumbed condition, as the manner in which he received
these caresses, which once would have made him beside himself with joy.
He leaned against her breast as a child might.

"He! He died only four days ago. I stayed to bury him, and then I came
away. I have been three days on the way; the horse, poor beast, is
almost weaker than I. The Americans took my horse," Alessandro said.

"Took your horse!" cried Ramona, aghast. "Is that the law, too?"

"So Mr. Rothsaker told me. He said the judge had said he must take
enough of our cattle and horses to pay all it had cost for the suit up
in San Francisco. They didn't reckon the cattle at what they were worth,
I thought; but they said cattle were selling very low now. There were
not enough in all the village to pay it, so we had to make it up in
horses; and they took mine. I was not there the day they drove the
cattle away, or I would have put a ball into Benito's head before any
American should ever have had him to ride. But I was over in Pachanga
with my father. He would not stir a step for anybody but me; so I led
him all the way; and then after he got there he was so ill I never left
him a minute. He did not know me any more, nor know anything that had
happened. I built a little hut of tule, and he lay on the ground till he
died. When I put him in his grave, I was glad."

"In Temecula?" asked Ramona.

"In Temecula." exclaimed Alessandro, fiercely. "You don't seem to
understand, Senorita. We have no right in Temecula, not even to our
graveyard full of the dead. Mr. Rothsaker warned us all not to be
hanging about there; for he said the men who were coming in were a
rough set, and they would shoot