tant mouths for some delicious morsel of refuse
to be thrown to them--all assumed, in bearing and manner, a vested right
of proprietorship in their agreeable environment.

To this motley group, always under his feet, as it were, Maxwell was
ever passively gracious, although they were battening in idleness on his
prodigal bounty from year to year.

His retinue of servants, necessarily large, was made up of a
heterogeneous mixture of Indians, Mexicans, and half-breeds. The
kitchens were presided over by dusky maidens under the tutelage of
experienced old crones, and its precincts were sacred to them; but the
dining-rooms were forbidden to women during the hours of meals, which
were served by boys.

Maxwell was rarely, as far as my observation extended, without a large
amount of money in his possession. He had no safe, however, his only
place of temporary deposit for the accumulated cash being the bottom
drawer of the old bureau in the large room to which I have referred,
which was the most antiquated concern of common pine imaginable. There
were only two other drawers in this old-fashioned piece of furniture,
and neither of them possessed a lock. The third, or lower, the one that
contained the money, did, but it was absolutely worthless, being one of
the cheapest pattern and affording not the slightest security; besides,
the drawers above it could be pulled out, exposing the treasure
immediately beneath to the cupidity of any one.

I have frequently seen as much as thirty thousand dollars--gold, silver,
greenbacks, and government checks--at one time in that novel depository.
Occasionally these large sums remained there for several days, yet there
was never any extra precaution taken to prevent its abstraction; doors
were always open and the room free of access to every one, as usual.

I once suggested to Maxwell the propriety of purchasing a safe for
the better security of his money, but he only smiled, while a strange,
resolute look flashed from his dark eyes, as he said: "God help the man
who attempted to rob me and I knew him!"

The sources of his wealth were his cattle, sheep, and the products of
his area of cultivated acres--barley, oats, and corn principally--which
he disposed of to the quartermaster and commissary departments of the
army, in the large military district of New Mexico. His wool-clip must
have been enormous, too; but I doubt whether he could have told the
number of animals that furnished it or t