"No, sir; we cannot loosen that _reata_ while you are sitting down. We will have to put you on your feet, Mr. Darrell, and you will be slimmer then. Thus by collapsing a little the loop will lose the tension that keeps it tight."

"Come on, Mr. Darrell, Retty and I will let you down nicely," said Victoriano.

"Lean on me, father," said Everett, but as he held up his arms towards his father, he became convulsed with laughter. Victoriano was laughing, too, so heartily, that Darrell was afraid to trust his weight into their hands.

"For shame, Victoriano, to be so discourteous," said Gabriel, reprovingly-his handsome features perfectly serious.

But Victoriano had suppressed his desire to laugh too long, and now his risibility was beyond control. Everett was overcome in the same manner, so that he hung on Victoriano's shoulder, shaking with ill-suppressed laughter.

"Mr. Darrell, be not afraid to trust to my strength, I am slender, but I am stronger than I look. Lean your weight on me slowly, and I'll take you off your horse while those boys laugh," Gabriel said, putting up his hands for Darrell to lean on them.

"I think we had better go home first," he said.

"No, sir. It will be painful for Mrs. Darrell to see you as you are, and then you ought to have that _reata_ off now, quickly. It will sicken you."

"Yes, I feel a very strange sort of cold feeling."

Gabriel was afraid that impeded circulation might make the old man faint, so he said:

"Come, Mr. Darrell, quick."

He slipped off one stirrup, then quickly went around slipped off the other, and pulled Darrell to him gently. Down like a felled tree came the old fighter, almost bearing Gabriel down to the ground. Everett and Victoriano, checking their laughter somewhat, lent their assistance to hold him up, and as he had begun to look bluish, they saw the necessity of establishing the old man's circulation. While Everett and Victoriano held him up, Gabriel loosened the coil, rubbing briskly and hard the benumbed arms to start circulation by friction, moving them up and down.

"Can you get on your horse now?" Gabriel asked, after Darrell had moved his arms several times.

"Yes, I think I can," he said, looking towards his house. A new shadow passed over his face.

Webster was coming back, leading his horse. Would he bring pistols? No.

His mother was walking with him. Mrs. Darrell saluted the Alamares, and they lifted their hats respectfully in response. Webster had told her all that had happened, and she understood everything, excepting the steeple-chase performance. She had seen all running behind her husband, but she did not know that the chase was most involuntary on his part.

Seeing them stop for so long a time in the hollow she thought he had fallen.

"What is the matter, William? Did you fall?"

"No. And if I had, you couldn't pick me up. What did you come out here for?" was the characteristic answer.

"Because, not seeing you when down in this hollow I feared you were hurt, but since it is only foolish anger that ails you, I need not waste my sympathy," she said in her sweet, low voice-which Clarence insisted always was like Mercedes' voice, having that same musical vibration, so pleasing to the ear and sure to go straight to the heart.

"Mrs. Darrell, allow me to assure you that all this trouble came most unexpectedly to us. We don't know what caused it, but no matter what the cause may be, I certainly could do nothing else than prevent anybody from striking my father," Gabriel said.

"Certainly, Don Gabriel, you did your duty. I do not blame you-no one of you-at all. Express my regrets to your father, please. I am grieved to the heart about this," she said, and there was a sad note in her tones, which plainly told that her expressions of regret were but too true.

"I will tell my father what you say, and let us hope that the cause of all this misunderstanding may be explained," Gabriel replied.

"I hope so," she said, offering her hand to him, which he took and pressed warmly.

When Darrell saw that friendly demonstration, he turned his back upon all, and muttering that he was "to be made the scape-goat of all,"

walked home.

Mrs. Darrell then asked Gabriel to explain everything to her, which he did, while she listened to him very attentively.

"If you only had heard what those squatters said, and prevented father from riding out," Everett exclaimed.

Mrs. Darrell sighed, shook hands with the Alamares, and, followed by her sons, walked home.

CHAPTER XXVI.-_Mrs. Darrell's View of Our Land Laws._

Of all the horrible tortures that the human mind is capable of conjuring up with which to torment itself, none was greater to William Darrell than the consciousness of being ridiculous-the conviction that people were laughing at him. He had seen Victoriano and his own Everett so convulsed with laughter, laughing at him, laughing in his presence, laughing so heartily that they could scarcely stand up. This laughter of the two boys was the most vivid picture in the panorama of living scenes which he himself had evoked. Surely if his own son laughed so heartily, everybody else would do the same. And when on his return home, Clementine had said to him most unceremoniously:

"Why, papa, what made you sit on your horse so stiff? Why did you want to keep that rope? You looked so funny." And Clementine laughed heartily.

"Get out of my way," said he, and went to the "colony" straight and banged the door; which meant that he wanted no one else within the precincts of that asylum. "So I looked funny and stiff; they were all laughing at me," he said, and with a groan of mental and physical pain, flung himself on the lounge.

Presently, Tisha came to say that supper was on the table. "I don't want any supper," said he in the gruff tones he used when he was angry, or pretended to be. Tisha retired, but in about ten minutes she returned, carrying a tray, which she deposited on a table, saying:

"Missus says that mayhap when you rested awhile you might feel a little hungry."

"Give me a cup of tea; I want nothing else," he said, and Tisha fixed his tea just as she knew he liked it with plenty of rich cream and four lumps of sugar, for Darrell's teacup held a pint; she placed the tea on a little table by the lounge and retired.

The tea seemed to refresh him in spite of himself, and he accepted the improvement with an inward protest as if setting down an exception (as lawyers call it) by which he renounced all obligation to be grateful.

Early the settlers began to arrive at the "colony" through the side door of the back hall. Everett joined the meeting, as Romeo came to request his company. Darrell gave his son a withering look, but did not speak to him. He kept his reclining position on the lounge and his satellites sat in a semi-circle around him. He soon told them he had nothing satisfactory to say, as the Don had refused to make any explanation, alleging that he had promised Clarence to say nothing. When Clarence returned he would clear the mystery. The settlers again recommenced their conjectures, and discussed the motives which must have actuated the Don to make a false entry, to record having received money which he never got. Land was the discussion, but there seemed no dissenting voice as to the Don's culpability, and the sinister motives which actuated him in acting in that underhand manner. When the altercation was at the highest, and could be heard all over the house, Mrs. Darrell walked in and, bowing to the astonished squatters, came slowly forward and stood about the middle of the semi-circle, though outside of it. Darrell sat up and all the others stood on their feet and stared as if they had seen some Banquo spectre or other terrible ghostly apparition.

"Be seated, gentlemen, I beg of you. I have but a few words to say.

Please sit down," she reiterated, seeing that every one remained standing.

Slowly all one by one dropped into their seats and all the faces were turned towards her. No one thought of offering her a chair, and she did not want one either. When all had resumed their seats, she said:

"All those amongst you, gentlemen, who think that Don Mariano Alamar induced my son Clarence to purchase land from him are much mistaken; and all those who think Don Mariano made a false entry of a land sale, do him an injustice."

"Who made the entry then?" Darrell asked, sharply.

"That is what I came to say. The land was bought and paid for at _my_ request. If there is any blame, or crime, or guilt in the matter, _I_ am the criminal-_I_ am the guilty one. I told my son, Clarence Darrell, that if he did not pay for the land which his father had located, I would never, _never_ come to live upon it. Moreover, I told my son not to mention the fact of having paid for the land, because his father would think we were interfering in his business, and I did not wish him to know that the land was paid for until the question of the Don's title was settled. Then we would have avoided painful discussions, and the eloquence of facts (I trusted) would clearly show to my husband that his wife and son had acted right, when we had paid the legitimate owner for his property."

"And now, gentlemen, let me add this, only this, that I do not mean to criticise anybody's actions or opinions, but, from my point of view, I say, those laws which authorize you to locate homesteads upon lands claimed as Mexican grants, those laws are wrong, and good, just, moral citizens should not be guided by them. Settlers should wait until the titles are finally approved or rejected. See! look back and see all the miseries that so many innocent families have suffered by locating in good faith, their humble homes upon lands that they were forced to abandon. Our law-givers doubtless mean well, but they have-through lack of matured reflection, I think, or lack of unbiased thought-legislated curses upon this land of God's blessings. I love my country, as every true-hearted American woman should, but, with shame and sorrow, I acknowledge that we have treated the conquered Spaniards most cruelly, and our law-givers have been most unjust to them. Those poor, defenseless ones whom our Government pledged its faith to protect, have been sadly despoiled and reduced to poverty.

"I have only expressed my opinion, gentlemen; I mean no slur upon yours.

I hope you see now that I alone, _I am_ the one to blame for the purchase of the land which has given so much offence. Good night, gentlemen."

So profound was the silence following Mrs. Darrell's exit, that a pin could have been heard drop. Romeo Hancock was the first to find utterance to his amazement.

"By George," he said, "but ain't she superb! I see now where Clarence gets his good sense and correct ideas."

At any other time, Darrell would have been proud of this tribute paid to the wife he adored, with passionate, secret, unrevealed tenderness, but now he was too angry. He even felt angry at the longing to take to his heart that darling so resolute and yet so gentle. This longing, when his pride clamored that she was wrong and should be reproved, was an additional torture to him. He remained silent.

"Well, I suppose that-in the language of the poets-'this settles our hash,'" Gasbang said, and laughed at his witticism, as it was his habit to do.