rode down the valley. "There's none of them would
look like that if I were dead, I warrant me! There," he exclaimed, "I
meant to have asked Alessandro who this wife of his is! I don't believe
she is a Temecula Indian. Next time I come, I will find out. She's had
some schooling somewhere, that's plain. She's quite superior to the
general run of them. Next time I come, I will find out about her."

"Next time!" In what calendar are kept the records of those next times
which never come? Long before Father Gaspara visited San Pasquale again,
Alessandro and Ramona were far away, and strangers were living in their
home.

It seemed to Ramona in after years, as she looked back over this life,
that the news of Father Salvierderra's death was the first note of
the knell of their happiness. It was but a few days afterward, when
Alessandro came in one noon with an expression on his face that
terrified her; seating himself in a chair, he buried his face in his
hands, and would neither look up nor speak; not until Ramona was near
crying from his silence, did he utter a word. Then, looking at her with
a ghastly face, he said in a hollow voice, "It has begun!" and buried
his face again. Finally Ramona's tears wrung from him the following
story:

Ysidro, it seemed, had the previous year rented a canon, at the head of
the valley, to one Doctor Morong. It was simply as bee-pasture that the
Doctor wanted it, he said. He put his hives there, and built a sort of
hut for the man whom he sent up to look after the honey. Ysidro did not
need the land, and thought it a good chance to make a little money. He
had taken every precaution to make the transaction a safe one; had gone
to San Diego, and got Father Gaspara to act as interpreter for him, in
the interview with Morong; it had been a written agreement, and the rent
agreed upon had been punctually paid. Now, the time of the lease having
expired, Ysidro had been to San Diego to ask the Doctor if he wished
to renew it for another year; and the Doctor had said that the land was
his, and he was coming out there to build a house, and live.

Ysidro had gone to Father Gaspara for help, and Father Gaspara had had
an angry interview with Doctor Morong; but it had done no good. The
Doctor said the land did not belong to Ysidro at all, but to the United
States Government; and that he had paid the money for it to the agents
in Los Angeles, and there would very soon come papers from Washington,
to show