gainst the
flour I have brought, and the peas, beans, tallow, butter, barley,
salt, and salted meats--in all to the value of twenty-four thousand
Spanish dollars."

The Chief-Manager's head nodded with the vigor and rapidity of a
mechanical toy. "It is a God-send, a God-send. If you did no more
than that you would have earned our everlasting gratitude. It will
make us over, give us renewed courage in this cursed existence. Are
you not going to get me out of it?"

Rezanov shook his head with a smile. "Literally you are the whole
Company. As long as I live here you stay--although when I reach St.
Petersburg I shall see that you receive every possible reward and
honor."

Baranhov lifted his shoulders to his ears in quizzical resignation. "I
suppose it matters little where the last few years left me are spent,
and I can hang the medals on the walls to console me when I have
rheumatism, and shout my titles from the top of the fort when the
Kolosh are yelling at the barricades."

"You must make yourself more comfortable," said Rezanov emphatically.
"You are wrong to carry your honesty and enthusiasm to the point of
living like the promuschleniki. Take enough of their time to build you
a comfortable dwelling, and I will send you, on my own account, far
more substantial rewards than orders and titles. Build a big house,
for that matter. I shall be here more or less--when I am not in
California." And he told Baranhov of his proposed marriage with the
daughter of Don Jose Arguello.

The Chief-Manager listened to this confidence with an even livelier
satisfaction than to the list of the Juno's cargo.

"We shall have California yet!" he cried, his eyes snapping like live
coals under the black thatch of wig. "Absorption or the bayonet. It
matters little. Ten years from now and we shall have a line of
settlements as far south as San Diego. My plan was to feel my way down
the northern coast of California with a colony, which should buy a
tract of land from the natives and engage immediately in otter
hunting--somewhere between Cape Mendocino and Drake's Bay. The Spanish
have no settlements above San Francisco and are too weak to drive us
out. They would rage and bluster and do nothing. Then quietly push
forward, building forts and ships. But you have taken hold in the
grand manner and will accomplish in ten years what would have taken me
fifty. Marry this girl, use your advantage over the entire
family--whos