house occupied the site of an
old Spanish _rancho_ situated in a beautiful valley about ten miles from
Santa Fe and was generally conceded to be the most attractive estate in
Chihuahua, though not the largest and most valuable; Don Felipe Ramirez
possessed that. Both house and garden were a living monument to Dick's
natural refinement and good taste. There were no jarring notes or
lavish, tawdry display, the pitfalls into which the parvenue and petit
bourgeois invariably fall. This was his only hobby, and just why he
indulged it, he himself would have found it difficult to answer, for in
reality, he cared but little for it.

He regarded it chiefly as a precaution against old age. He would
continue to improve and beautify the place until the day arrived when he
would retire from the world to pass the few remaining years of life amid
the quiet and seclusion which the country afforded. And he often
pictured himself when alone and musing over his cigar, as a lonely,
white-haired patriarch, without offspring to perpetuate his name, seated
in the center of his _patio_, smiling benignly upon the frolicsome
little brown children of his Indian retainers as they laughed and
disported themselves about him.

"Ah!" cries the world. "Mr. Yankton has a history!" Of course. What man
or woman has not, even though they dare not admit it? Had he loved too
much or too little? There were even some who attributed that exquisite
vein of melancholy in his nature to the shadow of a married woman. Was
he haunted by the fear that some fair, false one might marry him for his
fortune, not for himself? Or, was his aversion to marriage due solely to
the fact that the right woman had not yet arrived?

These and many other questions had been asked and thoroughly discussed
by the matrons and daughters of Santa Fe, especially by the latter, to
all of whom he had made love and sent flowers and serenaded in turn
until, out of sheer desperation, they called alternately upon God and
the devil to keep or punish this gay Lothario who loved all and yet
none, and who gave such exquisite _fiestas_ in his beautiful _hacienda_.

Now it so chanced that, at the same hour Don Felipe was conducting
Blanch and Bessie to the canon, Dick was returning to Santa Fe on
horseback from his _hacienda_ where he had passed the night. As there
was no particular reason why he should reach the _Posada_ before noon,
he decided to indulge his fancy by lingering in the cooling shade