al. It
was with a strange mixture of regret and relief that Judge Wells saw the
hour of the trial arrive, and not a witness on the ground except Farrar
himself. That Farrar was a brutal ruffian, the whole country knew. This
last outrage was only one of a long series; the judge would have been
glad to have committed him for trial, and have seen him get his deserts.
But San Jacinto Valley, wild, sparsely settled as it was, had yet as
fixed standards and criterions of popularity as the most civilized of
communities could show; and to betray sympathy with Indians was more
than any man's political head was worth. The word "justice" had lost its
meaning, if indeed it ever had any, so far as they were concerned. The
valley was a unit on that question, however divided it might be upon
others. On the whole, the judge was relieved, though it was not without
a bitter twinge, as of one accessory after the deed, and unfaithful to
a friend; for he had known Alessandro well. Yet, on the whole, he was
relieved when he was forced to accede to the motion made by Farrar's
counsel, that "the prisoner be discharged on ground of justifiable
homicide, no witnesses having appeared against him."

He comforted himself by thinking--what was no doubt true--that even if
the case had been brought to a jury trial, the result would have been
the same; for there would never have been found a San Diego County jury
that would convict a white man of murder for killing an Indian, if
there were no witnesses to the occurrence except the Indian wife. But he
derived small comfort from this. Alessandro's face haunted him, and also
the memory of Ramona's, as she lay tossing and moaning in the wretched
Cahuilla hovel. He knew that only her continued illness, or her death,
could explain her not having come to the trial. The Indians would have
brought her in their arms all the way, if she had been alive and in
possession of her senses.

During the summer that she and Alessandro had lived in Saboba he had
seen her many times, and had been impressed by her rare quality. His
children knew her and loved her; had often been in her house; his wife
had bought her embroidery. Alessandro also had worked for him; and no
one knew better than Judge Wells that Alessandro in his senses was as
incapable of stealing a horse as any white man in the valley. Farrar
knew it; everybody knew it. Everybody knew, also, about his strange fits
of wandering mind; and that when these half-cr