as real.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} Hell was a dream.

He saw now the folly of his fears about Archulera, too. Archulera never
went to church. There was no danger that he would ever confess to any one.
And even if he did, he could scarcely injure Ramon. For Ramon had done no
wrong. He had but promised an old man his due, righted an ancient wrong.{~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~}
He smiled.

Slowly he mounted and rode home, filled with thoughts of the girl, to put
on his mourning clothes and take his decorous place in the circle that
watched his uncle's bier.

CHAPTER XIV

All the ceremonies and procedures, religious and legal, which had been
made necessary by the death of Don Diego Delcasar, were done. The body of
the Don had been taken to the church in Old Town and placed before the
altar, the casket covered with black cloth and surrounded by candles in
tall silver candlesticks which stood upon the floor. A Mass of impressive
length had been spoken over it by Father Lugaria assisted by numerous
priests and altar boys, and at the end of the ceremony the hundreds of
friends and relatives of the Don, who filled the church, had lifted up
their voices in one of the loudest and most prolonged choruses of wailing
ever heard in that country, where wailing at a funeral is as much a matter
of formal custom as is cheering at a political convention. Afterwards a
cortege nearly a mile in length, headed by a long string of carriages and
tailed by a crowd of poor Mexicans trudging hatless in the dust, had made
the hot and wearisome journey to the cemetery in the sandhills.

Then the will had been read and had revealed that Ramon Delcasar was heir
to the bulk of his uncle's estate, and that he was thereby placed in
possession of money, lands and sheep to the value of about two hundred
thousand dollars. It was said by those who knew that the Don's estate had
once been at least twice that large, and there were some who irreverently
remarked that he had been taken off none too soon for the best interests
of his heirs.

Shortly after the reading of the will, Ramon rode to the Archulera ranch,
starting before daylight and returning after dark. He exchanged greetings
with the old man, just as he had always done.

"Accept my sympathy, _amigo_," Archulera said in his formal, polite way,
"that you have lost your uncle, the head of your great family."

"I thank you, friend," Ramon replied. "A man must bear thes