"Suppose I do know a syndicate--a company--not an individual, which is
interested in Paraiso? Can you tell me anything about such a place? Until
last night I had no idea that I had come anywhere near to it, and then
by accident, hearing Antonio Bernal mention it as his. Is it hereabouts?"

Jessica turned her horse about in a circle, rapidly swinging her pointing
arm to indicate every direction of the compass.

"Know it? It is there, and there, and there--everywhere. The very
richest tract of land in all the country, my father believed. Sobrante
is the heart of it, he said, but the rest of the valley is even better
than Sobrante. It is so big one can hardly believe. He said there was
room in it, and a little ranch apiece, for every poor down-trodden
man--not bad men, but poor gentlemen, like worn-out lawyers and doctors
and--and nice folks--and make a new home in which to live at peace.
He said there were plenty of people always ready to help the very poor
and ignorant, but nobody so willing to help gentlefolks without money.
That's why he asked a lot of rich people he used to know in New York
to buy Paraiso. He gave it its name, himself, and he believed that
there might be really gold somewhere in it. There's everything else,
you see. But it was a name of 'syndicate' he talked about most and
was most grieved by because the money to buy it had not been sent as it
had been promised."

"Poor child!"

"Beg pardon?"

"It was nothing. I was thinking. So this 'Mr. Syndicate' never sent
the money your father hoped for?"

"No. It was a great disappointment. Antonio had charge of all the
letters, only he; so there could have been nobody careless enough to
lose them had any come. Father left all the writing to Antonio, for he
was nearly blind, you know. That's how he came to get hurt. He could
not see and his horse stepped over the ledge and somebody brought him
home that way. Poor mother!"

"Poor mother, indeed!" echoed Mr. Hale, with something like a groan.

"Thank you for caring about it," said Jessica, quickly touched by
his ready sympathy. "But she says her life now must be to carry on all
father's work, and I shall help her. In that way it will be always as if
he were still with us. Oh! see! That's Stiffleg's track! Ephraim Marsh
has passed this way! Maybe I shall find him at the Winklers' cabin!
Would you mind hurrying, just a little bit?"

"I'll do my best, little lady. But I'm a wretched horseman, I fear."

"