in the
distance, and Aunt Sally sighed:

"That George Cromarty is as likely a youth as ever I knew. He's that
good to his old mother, back in the East, I tell my own son John, he
ought to profit by such an example. I should hate to have anything
happen to him. Yes, indeedy, I should hate to have a single bad thing
happen to poor George Cromarty."

A little nervous shiver ran through Mrs. Trent's slender frame, yet
she turned upon her companion, as she threaded her needle, with a
laugh, exclaiming:

"Oh! you dear old croaker! Why can't you let well enough alone,
without mentioning more evil? You know the old saying that to speak
of trouble is to invite its visitation. Surely, there was nothing
about to-day's postman to suggest disaster. George is a typical
ranchman, and my husband used to point him out to visitors as what a
man might be, who grew up, or old, where 'there was room enough.'
Big-hearted, full of fun, tender as a woman, but intolerant of
meanness and evil doing. It would be a dark day for Sobrante if ill
befell our 'Marty.'"

"Well, I don't know. Something's going to go wrong somewhere. I feel
it in my bones, seems if. There, I told you so! Yonder comes that lazy
boy of mine and Jessie. There's more things needing him here on this
place than you could shake a stick at, yet off he'll go traipsing just
at a nod from his captain."

"Don't begrudge them their happiness, Aunt Sally. Certainly, after
grief, it is their due. Well, John, will you act escort for the little
lady of Sobrante?" asked its mistress.

"Will I not? And do me proud. She ain't to be trusted with any of the
flighty ones, Samson now, or----"

Mrs. Trent's laughter--that morning as heart-whole and free as a
girl's--interrupted the ranchman's disparaging comments on his
fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she
understood the universal devotion of all to their darling captain.

"Oh, John, I can scarcely associate the idea of frivolity or
carelessness with our big Samson; but wait a moment, please, before
you start. There's such a store of good things left, though in
fragments, that I'd like to pack a basket for Pedro. I wish he did
not insist upon living so alone. He is so old and I feel, as the
native Californians used, that the older a person grew the more
precious. I wish you'd try to persuade him to let somebody else take
his place with the sheep, and to arrange his small affairs so that
when he comes down for h