ver. Much of this gentleness may have been that apology for his great
strength, common with large men; but his face was distinctly amiable,
and his very light blue eyes were at times wistful and doglike in their
kindliness. I was soon to learn, however, that placability was not
entirely his nature.

The garden was part of a fifty vara lot of land, on which I was
simultaneously erecting a house. But the garden was finished before the
house was, through certain circumstances very characteristic of that
epoch and civilization. I had purchased the Spanish title, the only
LEGAL one, to the land, which, however, had been in POSSESSION of a
"squatter." But he had been unable to hold that possession against a
"jumper,"--another kind of squatter who had entered upon it covertly,
fenced it in, and marked it out in building sites. Neither having legal
rights, they could not invoke the law; the last man held possession.
There was no doubt that in due course of litigation and time both these
ingenuous gentlemen would have been dispossessed in favor of the real
owner,--myself,--but that course would be a protracted one. Following
the usual custom of the locality, I paid a certain sum to the jumper to
yield up peaceably HIS possession of the land, and began to build upon
it. It might be reasonably supposed that the question was settled.
But it was not. The house was nearly finished when, one morning, I was
called out of my editorial sanctum by a pallid painter, looking even
more white-leaded than usual, who informed me that my house was in the
possession of five armed men! The entry had been made peaceably
during the painters' absence to dinner under a wayside tree. When they
returned, they had found their pots and brushes in the road, and an
intimation from the windows that their reentrance would be forcibly
resisted as a trespass.

I honestly believe that Rutli was more concerned than myself over
this dispossession. While he loyally believed that I would get back
my property, he was dreadfully grieved over the inevitable damage
that would be done to the garden during this interval of neglect and
carelessness. I even think he would have made a truce with my enemies,
if they would only have let him look after his beloved plants. As it
was, he kept a passing but melancholy surveillance of them, and was
indeed a better spy of the actions of the intruders than any I could
have employed. One day, to my astonishment, he brought me a moss-