ge it. Everything, of course, will be done to promote
good-will between the Californians and the new-comers. Then, when the
United States make up their mind to take possession of us, I shall
waste no blood, but hand over a country worthy of capture. In the
meantime it will have been carefully drilled into the Californian mind
that American occupation will be for their ultimate good, and that I
shall go to Washington to protect their interests. There will then be
no foolish insurrections. Do you care to hear more?"

Her face was flushed, her chest was rising rapidly.

"I hardly know what to think,--how I feel. You interest me so much as
you talk that I wish you to succeed: I picture your success. And yet
it maddens me to hear you talk of the Americans in that way,--also
to know that your house will be greater than ours,--that we will be
forgotten. But--yes, tell me all. What will you do then?"

"I shall have California, in the first place, scratched for the gold
that I believe lies somewhere within her. When that great resource
_is_ located and developed I shall publish in every American newspaper
the extraordinary agricultural advantages of the country. In a word,
my object is to make California a great State and its name synonymous
with my own. As I told you before, for fame as fame I care nothing;
I do not care if I am forgotten on my death-bed; but with my blood
biting my veins I must have action while living. Shall I say that
I have a worthier motive in wishing to aid in the development of
civilization? But why worthier? Merely a higher form of selfishness.
The best and the worst of motives are prompted by the same instinct."

"I would advise you," she said, slowly, "never to marry. Your wife
would be very unhappy."

"But no one has greater scorn than you for the man who spends his life
with his lips at the chalice of the poppy."

"True, I had forgotten them." She rose abruptly. "Let us go back," she
said. "It is better not to stay too long."

As they walked down the canon she looked at him furtively. The men of
her race were almost all tall and finely-proportioned, but they did
not suggest strength as this man did. And his face,--it was so
grimly determined at times that she shrank from it, then drew
near, fascinated. It had no beauty at all--according to Californian
standards; she could not know that it represented all that intellect,
refinement and civilization, generally, would do for the human
race for