the first chapter."

X.

Casa Grande,[A] the mansion of the Iturbi y Moncadas in Santa Barbara,
stood at the right of the Presidio, facing the channel. A mile behind,
under the shadow of the gaunt rocky hills curving about the valley,
was the long white Mission, with its double towers, corridor of many
arches, and sloping roof covered with red tiles. Between was the wild
valley where cattle grazed among the trees and the massive bowlders.
The red-tiled white adobe houses of the Presidio and of the little
town clustered under its wing, the brown mud huts of the Indians, were
grouped in the foreground of the deep valley.

The great house of the Iturbi y Moncadas, erected in the first years
of the century, was built about three sides of a court, measuring one
hundred feet each way. Like most of the adobes of its time, it had
but one story. A wide pillared corridor, protected by a sloping
roof, faced the court, which was as bare and hard as the floor of a
ball-room. Behind the dwelling were the manufactories and huts of the
Indian retainers. Don Guillermo Iturbi y Moncada was the magnate of
the South. His ranchos covered four hundred thousand acres; his
horses and cattle were unnumbered. His Indians, carpenters, coopers,
saddlers, shoemakers, weavers, manufacturers of household staples,
supplied the garrison and town with the necessaries of life; he also
did a large trading business in hides and tallow. Rumor had it that in
the wooden tower built against the back of the house he kept gold by
the bushel-basketful; but no one called him miser, for he gave the
poor of the town all they ate and wore, and kept a supply of drugs for
their sick. So beloved and revered was he that when earthquakes shook
the town, or fires threatened it from the hills, the poor ran in a
body to the court-yard of Casa Grande and besought his protection.
They never passed him without saluting to the ground, nor his house
without bending their heads. And yet they feared him, for he was an
irascible old gentleman at times, and thumped unmercifully when in a
temper. Chonita, alone, could manage him always.

When I returned to Santa Barbara with Chonita after her visit to
Monterey, the yellow fruit hung in the padres' orchard, the grass was
burning brown, sky and water were the hard blue of metal.

The afternoon of our arrival, Don Guillermo, Chonita, and I were on
the long middle corridor of the house: in Santa Barbara one lived in
the air