Reinaldo was not of the party.

Estenega lifted Chonita to her horse and stood beside her for a moment
while the others mounted. He touched her hand with his:

"We could not have a more beautiful night," he said, significantly.
"And I have often wished that my father had included this spot when he
applied for his grant. I should like to live with you here. Even when
the winds rage and hurl the rain through the very window pane, I know
of no more enchanting spot than Fort Ross. The Russians are going;
some day I will buy it for you."

She made no reply, but she did not withdraw her hand, and he held
it closely and glanced slowly about him. Always, despite his bitter
intimacy with life, in kinship with nature, perhaps in that moment it
had a deeper meaning, for he saw with double vision: She was there;
and, with him, sensible not only of the beauty of the night, but of
the indefinable mystery which broods over California the moment the
sun falls. Perhaps, too, he was troubled by a vague foreboding, such
as comes to mortals sometimes in spite of their limitations: he never
saw Fort Ross again.

On the horizon the fog crouched and moved; marched like a battalion of
ocean's ghosts; suddenly cohered and sent out light puffs of smoke, as
from the crater of a spectral volcano. The moon, full and bright and
cold, hung low in the dark sky: one hardly noted the stars. The vast
sweep of water was as calm as a lake, dark and metallic like the sky,
barely reflecting the silver light between. But although calm it was
not quiet. It greeted the forbidding rocks beyond the shore, the long
irregular line of stark, storm-beaten cliffs, with ominous mutter, now