dre named it "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles,"
making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for
angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there
is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the
majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial bound, treading upon
sunbeams in their pilgrimage.

The plaza, round which the new town roars from dawn to dusk, is still
haunted by a crumbling old adobe, while near it droop dusty pepper trees
that seem to whisper to each other endlessly--"Manana! Manana!" Whisper
as did those swarthy vaqueros and the young, lithe, low-voiced
senoritas who strolled across the plaza in the dusk of by-gone days.
"Manana! Manana!--To-morrow! To-morrow!"

And the to-morrows have come and gone as did those Spanish lovers,
riding up through the sunshine on their silver-bitted pinto ponies and
riding out at dusk with tinkling spur-chains into that long to-morrow
that has shrouded the ancient plaza in listless dreams. Mexicans in
black sombreros and blue overalls still prowl from cantina to cantina,
but the gay vaquero and his senorita are no more.

Overland Red, a harsh note in the somnolence of the place, stepped
buoyantly across the square. And here, if ever, Overland was at home.

A swarthy, fat Mexican shaved him while a lean old rurale of Overland's
earlier acquaintance obligingly accepted some pesos with which to drink
the senor's health, and other pesos with which to purchase certain
clothing for the senor.

The retired rurale drove a relentless bargain with a countryman,
returning with certain picturesque garments that Overland donned in the
back room of the little circus-blue barber shop.

The tramp had worthily determined to hold wise and remunerative converse
with the first Easterner that "looked good to him." He would make
half-truths do double duty. He needed money to purchase a burro, packs,
canteen, pick, shovel, dynamite, and provisions. He intended to repay
the investor by money-order from some desert town as soon as he found
the hidden gold. This unusual and worthy intention lent Overland added
assurance, and he needed it. Fortune, goddess evanishing and coy, was
with him for once. If he could but dodge the plain-clothes men long
enough to outfit and get away....

The "Mojave Bar," on North Main Street of the City of Angels was all but
empty. Upon it the lassitude of early afternoon lay heavily. The
spider-legged music