"And you want to kill them, so as not to have funerals without dead bodies?" Mercedes asked.

"Be merciful! Remember your name is Mercedes," said poor, embarrassed Bob.

Whereupon Mercedes wafted a kiss to him, saying: "That goes as a peace offering."

"Ah, yes; I understand," said he, following her with his eyes. "A kiss to the empty air is all you will ever give me."

CHAPTER XXII.-_Perplexities at Alamar._

It has generally been the custom of biographers to treat their subject after he is resting peacefully in his grave, indifferent to the world's opinion. Seldom has a man "_been written_" (in a biography) until he is past knowing what is said of him in print. Epitaphs are non-committal, or laudatory only, and too brief; they are solely a charitable or affectionate tribute to the dead, intended to please the living.

Biographies-it is to be supposed-are intended, or should be, admonitory; to teach men by the example of the one held up to view-be this an example to be followed or to be avoided. But if no offense be intended by the biographer, why wait until a man is forevermore beyond hearing what is said of him, before his fellows are told in what and how he surpassed them so much as to be considered worthy of special notice? If he ought to be reproved, let him know it; and if we must worship him as a hero, let him know it also. Only such an irascible man-for instance-as Dr. Johnson was, could have received the homage of admiration and reverence such as Boswell's, so impatiently, almost ungratefully. It is more natural for man to receive incense at least passively, and endeavor to deserve it. Biographies, therefore, ought to be intended, not to mislead readers, but to instruct them. From this point of view, then, it would be difficult to say flattering things of Mr. Darrell, and more difficult yet to say them of the other squatters of Alamar, in a biographical sketch.

Mr. Darrell did not receive the news of the appeal being dismissed as Mrs. Darrell and Clarence had hoped. Mr. Darrell was evidently out of humor with the executive branch of the Government-with the Attorney General-and he discussed the matter with himself in many an animated soliloquy. High as his opinion of Congress was and had always been, he, in his ill humor, even went so far as to say-to himself-that this much respected body of legislators had been entirely too lenient with the conquered natives. Congress ought to have confiscated all their lands and "only allowed them one hundred and sixty acres _each_." The idea that they (the conquered) should be better off than the Americans! They should have been put on an equality with other settlers, and much honor to them, too, would have been thereby, for why should these _inferior_ people be more considered than the Americans?

"Inferior? What are you talking about? It is enough to see one of those Alamar ladies to learn that they are inferior to nobody," said Mrs.

Darrell, happening to overhear the last words of her lord's soliloquy.

"Neither are the Californians considered _better than Americans_ because the Government did not take _all_ their lands from them. I declare, William, you have gone back to your old unfortunate ideas which brought so many troubles to us in Napa and Sonoma. You forget those troubles, and you are ready to bring them back again."

"No, I ain't; but I always will maintain that the Spanish Californians should not have a right to any more land than Americans."

"And they have not. The Government does not give them any more land; all they ask and expect is that the Government may _not take away what they had_. You see this perfectly well, and you know that every time you have disregarded this truth, we have suffered. This time it might lead to worse suffering, since it is Clarence that might be made very miserable; and if he is, so must I. Then good-by happiness for me."

"Why should Clarence be made miserable?"

"Because he is devotedly attached to Miss Mercedes; and if you are to be the enemy of her family, perhaps she will not marry him."

"Marry him? Does Clarence think she will marry him? She marry a squatter?" He laughed derisively.

"Clarence is no squatter."

"He is the son of a squatter."

"You have been one, but if you keep your word, and this land is paid for, you will not be a squatter."

"I suppose Clarence followed the girl to New York, believing she'll marry him. I thought he would have more sense."

"If he did follow her, he would also be following his father's example."

Mr. Darrell blushed, but he smiled, for he was pleased. The recollection of that tender episode of loving devotion was always very sweet to him.

It had been a folly of which he was proud to cherish the memory.

But Mr. Darrell did not pursue the subject any further this time; he felt he would be defeated if he continued it; it was best to beat a masterly retreat before he was routed. He made an orderly march toward the stable, and Mrs. Darrell, remaining master of the field, busied herself with her flower garden, where Alice presently joined her.

"Mamma dear, I overheard your conversation with papa; I hope you won't let him quarrel with the Don."

"I shall do my best to prevent it, but you see, he has all the settlers at his heels all the time worrying him about their claims. Any one might suppose that he induced them to come here, instead of being induced by them. Since they heard that their appeal was dismissed, they have openly said to him that they rely entirely upon his assistance to retain their homes. This pleases him, it flatters him, but it is a piece of hypocrisy on their part, because the Don is too kind-hearted to eject them.

Clarence says that the Don will let them keep their homesteads, on the sole condition that they put up fences to keep his cattle off."

"Can anything be more kind and generous?"

"But all his kindness is thrown away."

"At all events, there is this much to be said, that if papa will insist upon wanting to be a squatter, and favor squatters, he will find that not one of his family approves it. No, not even the children."

"I know it; Jane and Lucy feel very badly about it."

"And so does Everett; Webster don't like it either. We all feel very badly to see papa so wrong, and the worst of it is, how it all might affect our darling Clarence, who is so sweet and so good to all of us-yes, to everybody. I do hope he will marry Mercedes. I know she loves him dearly. I am so afraid that papa will quarrel with the Don, and Clarence and Mercedes be separated. It would be awful."

If sweet Alice had said all she held in her dear heart, and which might be affected by the course that her father would pursue between the settlers and the Don, she would have revealed other anxieties besides those she felt on Clarence's account. The thought that Victoriano, too, might be estranged from her, had made that dear heart of hers very heavy with forebodings. Gentle and loving though she was, she could not help feeling exasperated to foresee how miserable she and Clarence, and Mercedes and Victoriano might all be, all on account of this squatter quarrel, which might so easily be avoided if those people were not so perverse, and her father upholding them, which was perversity, also.

Thus ran Alice's thoughts as she helped her mother to trim the fuschias and train them up the posts of the porch, beside the honeysuckle and roses, which already formed an arbor over the front steps. Occasionally she would look up the valley; it was time that Victoriano should be riding out with Gabriel or his father, superintending the gathering of their cattle, to be sent to the Sierra.

Strange as it may appear, now that the Government, by the dismissal of the appeal, acknowledged that Don Mariano's title was good, now, when by this decision, the settlers should have made up their minds to leave the premises or purchase their homesteads from the owner of the land, now their disgraceful destruction of dumb animals was renewed with obvious virulence, and every night the firing of rifles and shot-guns was heard all over the rancho. Don Mariano saw that this devastation was a malicious revenge, which he could not avert, so he began to collect his stock to take them all to the mountains. About that time he received the letter in which Clarence proposed to buy all of his cattle, advising him to restock the rancho afterwards, when cleared of all trespassers. He liked the proposition, and immediately gave orders to drive all the cattle to his sister's rancho as they were got together; there to be put in a valley and kept in a sort of depot, as they were gathered and brought in bands of any number, to wait until Clarence returned. But as afterwards Don Mariano feared that by the time Clarence came back, there would be no cattle left to sell, he now hastened their gathering and decided to send them off as soon as possible. Patiently, and without a word of complaint, Don Mariano and his two sons would ride out every day to superintend personally the collecting of the cattle and sending them off to his sister's rancho to the valley, where the rendezvous or depot had been established. Victoriano named this valley the "_rodeo triste_,"

insisting that the cattle knew it was a "_rodeo triste_," and walked to it sadly, guessing that they were to be exiled and butchered. "Just like ourselves, the poor natives," he said, "tossed from one cruelty to another still worse, and then crushed out." "_Rodeo triste_" was a very appropriate name, considering the fact of its being different from the gay and boisterous gatherings of other years, when "the boys" of the surrounding ranchos all assembled at Alamar to separate their cattle and have a grand time marking and branding the calves; twisting the tails of stubborn ones by way of a logical demonstration, a convincing argument conveyed in that persuasive form, which was to a calf always unanswerable and irresistible. Then the day's work and fun would wind up with a hilarious barbecue. But this was all in the past, which had been happy, and was now a fading tableau.

Alice, watching from behind the honeysuckle, saw Don Mariano, his two sons and three _vaqueros_ ride down the valley. There they separated, each followed by a _vaquero_, going in different directions.

But Alice was not the only one watching the riders going out to gather stray cattle. Though with very different sentiments from those which agitated her loving heart, the entire population of the rancho had been attentive, though unseen, spectators of the Don's proceedings. In the evenings the neighbors would come to relate to Darrell how many head of cattle and horses they had seen pass by their farms, and renew their comments thereon.

Thus six weeks passed. The remittitur from the Supreme Court to the United States District Court at San Francisco came. This caused a ripple of excitement among the settlers. Then a bigger one-a perfect tidal wave-was expected with the surveyors that would come to make the survey of the rancho; and when this should be finished, then the grandest and last effort must be made by the settlers to prevent the approval of it.

Thus, at least, they would have more litigation, and while the case was in the courts, they would still be on the rancho raising crops, and paying no taxes and no rent, as they knew perfectly well that the Don would never sue them for "rents and profits."

Everett had gone to town for the mail that day; letters from Clarence were expected. The neighbors knew it, for by dint of asking questions they had learned to time the arrival of his letters, and would drop in quite accidentally, but unerringly, and in an off-hand manner ask if there was "any news from Mr. Clarence?" The Don, with his two sons and three _vaqueros_, had gone out in search of his cattle, as usual, just as if no _remittitur_ had come. The settlers thought this was a most excellent subject to ventilate with their neighbor, Darrell; they came in goodly numbers, "to _revolve_ the matter, and talk it over in a _neighborly_ way," Mr. Hughes had said, with his perennial smile.

"Just so; sit down, sit down," Mr. Darrell replied; and when all having dragged chairs and pulled them forward from between their knees, had dropped upon them, he added, "What may happen to be the matter we are to revolve?"

"Why, the remittitur, of course," Hughes replied, in his oiliest tones.

"Oh, I thought something new," Darrell remarked.

"That is a clincher, you know," Hughes replied.

"Yes, but we knew it was coming."

"Don't you think it queer that the Don be hurrying off his cattle, now that he's won his suit? Don't that look as if he don't put much trust in his victory?"

"He trusts his victory, but he knows that more stock has been shot for the last six weeks than for six months previous. He wants to save _a few_ head," said Romeo Hancock, smiling.

"Roper told me," said Hughes, ignoring what Romeo said, "that, if the settlers wish it, this case might be kept in the courts for fifty years."

"After the land is surveyed?" Darrell asked.

"Yes, after the survey."