t their sides
like wings in their flight.

CHAPTER IV.

After the chill of a dewless night the morning sun was apt to look
ardently upon the Robles Rancho, if so strong an expression could
describe the dry, oven-like heat of a Californian coast-range valley.
Before ten o'clock the adobe wall of the patio was warm enough to permit
lingering vacqueros and idle peons to lean against it, and the exposed
annexe was filled with sharp, resinous odors from the oozing sap of
unseasoned "redwood" boards, warped and drying in the hot sunshine. Even
at that early hour the climbing Castilian roses were drooping against
the wooden columns of the new veranda, scarcely older than themselves,
and mingling an already faded spice with the aroma of baking wood and
the more material fragrance of steaming coffee, that seemed dominant
everywhere.

In fact, the pretty breakfast-room, whose three broad windows, always
open to the veranda, gave an al fresco effect to every meal, was a
pathetic endeavor of the Southern-bred Peyton to emulate the soft,
luxurious, and open-air indolence of his native South, in a climate that
was not only not tropical, but even austere in its most fervid moments.
Yet, although cold draughts invaded it from the rear that morning, Judge
Peyton sat alone, between the open doors and windows, awaiting the
slow coming of his wife and the young ladies. He was not in an entirely
comfortable mood that morning. Things were not going on well at Robles.
That truculent vagabond, Pedro, had, the night before, taken himself off
with a curse that had frightened even the vacqueros, who most hated him
as a companion, but who now seemed inclined to regard his absence as an
injury done to their race. Peyton, uneasily conscious that his own anger
had been excited by an exaggerated conception of the accident, was
now, like most obstinate men, inclined to exaggerate the importance of
Pedro's insolence. He was well out of it to get rid of this quarrelsome
hanger-on, whose presumption and ill-humor threatened the discipline of
the rancho, yet he could not entirely forget that he had employed him
on account of his family claims, and from a desire to placate racial
jealousy and settle local differences. For the inferior Mexicans and
Indian half-breeds still regarded their old masters with affection;
were, in fact, more concerned for the integrity of their caste than
the masters were themselves, and the old Spanish families who had