I can get the lumber and a loan."

"Put her there, pard."

Their hands met with a smack.

"That's the spirit of San Francisco," Ridley remarked. "Well we've
learned a lesson. Next time we'll be ready for this sort of thing.
Broderick's planning already for an engine company."

"I reckon," Adrian commented as he joined the group, "a vigilance
committee is what we need even more."

To this Benito made no answer. Into his mind flashed a memory of the
trio that had left Thieves' Hollow at daybreak.

CHAPTER XXVII

POLITICS AND A WARNING

Benito Windham rose reluctantly and stretched himself. It was very
comfortable in the living-room of the ranch house, where a fire crackled
in the huge stone grate built by his grandfather's Indian artisans. Many
of the valuable tapestries imported from Spain had been removed by
McTurpin during his tenure, but even bare adobe walls were cheerful in
the light of blazing logs, and rugs of native weave accorded well with
the simple mission furniture. In a great chair that almost swallowed her
sat Alice, gazing dreamily into the embers. Family portraits hung upon
the wall, and one of these, stiff and haughty in the regimentals of a
soldado de cuero, seemed to look down upon the domestic picture with a
certain austere benignity. This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of
hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that
honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco and the
Golden Gate.

"Carissima, how he would have loved you, that old man!" Benito's tone
was dreamy.

Alice Windham turned. "You are like him, Benito," she said fondly.
"There is the same flash in your eye. Come, sit for awhile by the fire.
It's so cosy when it storms."

Benito kissed her. "I would that I might, but today there is an election
in the city," he reminded. "I must go to vote. Perhaps I can persuade
the good Broderick to dine with us this evening; or Brannan--though he
is so busy nowadays. Often I look about unconsciously for Nathan Spear.
It seems impossible that he is dead."

"He was 47, but he seemed so young," commented Alice. She rose hastily.
"You must be very careful, dear," she cautioned, with a swift anxiety,
"of the cold and wet--and of the hoodlums. They tell me there are many.
Every week one reads in the _Alta_ that So-and-So was killed at the
Eldorado or the Verandah. Never more than that. In my home in the East
they would call it murder. There would