shut the door on them both forthwith. So off they come to
Californy and pitch their tent right here in the spot."

"They couldn't have chosen a lovelier place," their daughter answered,
with a sweeping glance over the fair land which formed her home.

"That's true enough. Then him getting that New York company to buy
Paraiso d'Oro Valley, so's a lot of folks that was down in the world
could come out here and live in it. Poor Cass'us dying, just as he'd
got things to his liking; the losing of the title deed and your
journeying to Los Angeles to get it back."

"Not 'lost,' Aunt Sally. Poor Antonio hid it at El Desierto, in the
cave of the Three Rocks. He--"

"Cat's foot! Don't you go to 'pooring' that snaky sneak, or you and
me'll fall out. I should hate that."

"So should I. But you've set me thinking, too. How wonderful that Mr.
Ninian Sharp was, the newspaper man. If it hadn't been for him, we'd
never have won that battle. What could I have done, with Ephraim Marsh
in the hospital, and I knowing nothing about the city? That Mr. Hale
was another splendid man. I can understand how he had to keep his word
and do his best for the company which thought father had wronged it;
and I can also understand that he was as glad as we to find their
money safe with the poor banker who was killed, Luis Garcia's
father."

"'Pooring' again are you? Another scamp, too."

"Oh, Aunt Sally! He's--dead!" remonstrated Jessica, in awestruck
tones.

"And a fine job he is. There's plenty of good-for-noughts still
living. A man that's been wicked all his life ain't apt to turn saint
at the end of it. I like folks that do their duty as they go along. If
the robber, Garcia, had got well he'd likely claimed our Luis and
reared him to be as bad as himself."

"Aunt Sally, you're uncharitable this morning. What's made you so?"

"The plumb meanness of human natur'."

"Your own?" asked the girl teasingly.

"No, saucebox. My boy, John's. His, and all the rest of 'em."

"Toward whom?"

"Oh! 'tisn't toward anybody, out and out. If it was I'd roll up my
sleeves and switch the lot of 'em, just as if they were the little
tackers they act like. It's them pesky hints and shrugged shoulders,
every time the Dutch Winklers or 'Forty-niner' is spoke of. I wish to
goodness that man'd come home and clear his name, or give me a chance
to do it. He no more stole that knitting-woman's money than I did."

"Aunt Sally! Stole? Stole! My Ephraim! Why, you