n in San Bernardino last year, when an Indian would not
take a bottle of sour wine for pay for a day's work, shot him in the
cheek with his pistol, and told him to mind how he was insolent any
more! Oh, Majella, do not ask me to go work in the towns! I should kill
some man, Majella, if I saw things like that."

Ramona shuddered, and was silent. Alessandro continued: "If Majella
would not be afraid, I know a place, high up on the mountain, where
no white man has ever been, or ever will be. I found it when I was
following a bear. The beast led me up. It was his home; and I said then,
it was a fit hiding-place for a man. There is water, and a little green
valley. We could live there; but it would be no more than to live,, it
is very small, the valley. Majella would be afraid?"

"Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid, all alone on a high mountain. Oh,
do not let us go there! Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there
no other Indian village you know?"

"There is Saboba," he said, "at foot of the San Jacinto Mountain; I had
thought of that. Some of my people went there from Temecula; but it is
a poor little village, Majella. Majella would not like to live in it.
Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There
was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley,--Senor Ravallo; he
found the village of Saboba there when he came to the country. It is one
of the very oldest of all; he was good to all Indians, and he said they
should never be disturbed, never. He is dead; but his three sons have
the estate yet, and I think they would keep their father's promise to
the Indians. But you see, to-morrow, Majella, they may die, or go back
to Mexico, as Senor Valdez did, and then the Americans will get it, as
they did Temecula. And there are already white men living in the valley.
We will go that way, Majella. Majella shall see. If she says stay, we
will stay."

It was in the early afternoon that they entered the broad valley of San
Jacinto. They entered it from the west. As they came in, though the sky
over their heads was overcast and gray, the eastern and northeastern
part of the valley was flooded with a strange light, at once ruddy and
golden. It was a glorious sight. The jagged top and spurs of San Jacinto
Mountain shone like the turrets and posterns of a citadel built of
rubies. The glow seemed preternatural.

"Behold San Jacinto!" cried Alessandro.

Ramona exclaimed in delight. "It is an omen!" she