ater for his shrub-tea to boiling on the hearth, and the old
man would wonder confusedly if she were his daughter. Another, fifteen
years old, would offer him a gourd filled with the bitter liquid and a
silver pipe with which to sip it. . . . A grandchild, perhaps--he wasn't
sure. And so he passed the afternoons, silent and sluggish, drinking
gourd after gourd of shrub tea, surrounded by families who stared at him
with admiration and fear.

Every time he mounted his horse for these excursions, his older daughter
would protest. "At eighty-four years! Would it not be better for him to
remain quietly at home. . . ." Some day something terrible would happen.
. . . And the terrible thing did happen. One evening the Patron's
horse came slowly home without its rider. The old man had fallen on the
sloping highway, and when they found him, he was dead. Thus died the
centaur as he had lived, with the lash hanging from his wrist, with his
legs bowed by the saddle.

A Spanish notary, almost as old as he, produced the will. The family
was somewhat alarmed at seeing what a voluminous document it was. What
terrible bequests had Madariaga dictated? The reading of the first part
tranquilized Karl and Elena. The old father had left considerable more
to the wife of Desnoyers, but there still remained an enormous share for
the Romantica and her children. "I do this," he said, "in memory of my
poor dead wife, and so that people won't talk."

After this, came eighty-six legacies. Eighty-five dark-hued individuals
(women and men), who had lived on the ranch for many years as tenants
and retainers, were to receive the last paternal munificence of the old
patriarch. At the head of these was Celedonio whom Madariaga had greatly
enriched in his lifetime for no heavier work than listening to him and
repeating, "That's so, Patron, that's true!" More than a million dollars
were represented by these bequests in lands and herds. The one who
completed the list of beneficiaries was Julio Desnoyers. The grandfather
had made special mention of this namesake, leaving him a plantation "to
meet his private expenses, making up for that which his father would not
give him."

"But that represents hundreds of thousands of dollars!" protested Karl,
who had been making himself almost obnoxious in his efforts to assure
himself that his wife had not been overlooked in the will.

The days following the reading of this will were very trying ones for
the family. E