up." "And was there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady,
simply. "Ah, there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon,
sententiously. "Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good
ever came of it. There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had
mines of SILVER, and worked them with peons and mules, and lost
their money--a gold mine to work a silver one--like gentlemen! But
this grubbing in the dirt with one's fingers, that a little gold
may stick to them, is not for caballeros. And then, one says
nothing of the curse."

"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine
superstition. "What is that?"

"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to
my ancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse
upon any who should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the
three Americanos who founded yonder town, one was shot, another
died of a fever--poisoned, you understand, by the soil--and the
last got himself crazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,* who
came here years ago and spied into the trees and the herbs: he was
afterwards punished for his profanation, and died of an accident in
other lands. But," added Don Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this
touches not yourself. Through me, YOU are of the soil."


* Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas, who
visited California before the gold excitement, and died of an
accident in the Sandwich Islands.