his son, who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly
partitioned by relatives and lawsuits. The feminine Mulradys
attended the funeral, in expensive mourning from Sacramento; even
the gentle Alvin was forced into ready-made broadcloth, which
accented his good-natured but unmistakably common presence. Mrs.
Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss"; declared that the old families
were dying out; and impressed the wives of a few new arrivals at
Red Dog with the belief that her own family was contemporary with
the Alvarados, and that her husband's health was far from perfect.
She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned Don Caesar.
Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was still
more gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the
shyness of an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely
availed himself of her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he
carried out the intentions of his father by consenting to sell to
Mulrady, for a small sum, the property he had leased. The idea of
purchasing had originated with Mrs. Mulrady.

"It'll be all in the family," had observed that astute lady, "and
it's better for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his
tenants."

It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing her
husband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly
approached the house. Mamie was in her room putting on a new pink
cotton gown, in honor of an expected visit from young Don Caesar,
and Mrs. Mulrady was tidying the house in view of the same event.
Something in the tone of her good man's voice, and the unusual
circumstance of his return to the house before work was done,
caused her, however, to drop her dusting cloth, and run to the