eno had felt woe as if in hell, had she
known the thoughts with which her Felipe galloped this morning out of
the gateway through which, only the day before, he had walked weeping
behind her body borne to burial.

"And she thought this no shame to the house of Moreno!" he said. "My
God!"

XXII

DURING the first day of Ramona's and Alessandro's sad journey they
scarcely spoke. Alessandro walked at the horses' heads, his face sunk on
his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground. Ramona watched him in anxious
fear. Even the baby's voice and cooing laugh won from him no response.
After they were camped for the night, she said, "Dear Alessandro, will
you not tell me where we are going?"

In spite of her gentleness, there was a shade of wounded feeling in her
tone. Alessandro flung himself on his knees before her, and cried: "My
Majella! my Majella! it seems to me I am going mad! I cannot tell what
to do. I do not know what I think; all my thoughts seem whirling round
as leaves do in brooks in the time of the spring rains. Do you think I
can be going mad? It was enough to make me!"

Ramona, her own heart wrung with fear, soothed him as best she could.
"Dear Alessandro," she said, "let us go to Los Angeles, and not live
with the Indians any more. You could get work there. You could play at
dances sometimes; there must be plenty of work. I could get more sewing
to do, too. It would be better, I think."

He looked horror-stricken at the thought. "Go live among the white
people!" he cried. "What does Majella think would become of one Indian,
or two, alone among whites? If they will come to our villages and drive
us out a hundred at a time, what would they do to one man alone? Oh,
Majella is foolish!"

"But there are many of your people at work for whites at San Bernardino
and other places," she persisted. "Why could not we do as they do?"

"Yes," he said bitterly, "at work for whites; so they are, Majella has
not seen. No man will pay an Indian but half wages; even long ago, when
the Fathers were not all gone, and tried to help the Indians, my father
has told me that it was the way only to pay an Indian one-half that a
white man or a Mexican had. It was the Mexicans, too, did that, Majella.
And now they pay the Indians in money sometimes, half wages; sometimes
in bad flour, or things he does not want; sometimes in whiskey; and if
he will not take it, and asks for his money, they laugh, and tell him to
go, then. One ma