“Quite a farm? I should say! You musn’t confound our Californian ranchos with Eastern farms, old man. Why, this rancho of San Antonio covers over four hundred square miles of territory.” “You astonish me.” “La Siesta Rancho adjoins the great San Antonio possession and contains comparatively few acres, just under three thousand. But it surely is a beautiful little place, fixed up like a nobleman’s park in the old world. And then the ladies—” “Aha, the ladies,” repeated Munson, doffing his hat in courtly fashion and smiling audaciously. Dick touched the flank of his pony with his spur, and for a few miles they rode on at a quicker pace and in silence. Soon they were approaching the ranch buildings. On the outer edge was a little cottage, covered with vines and surrounded by fruit trees, the place which Dick Willoughby, the cattle foreman, had called “home” for the past five years. After turning their horses into a corral, they passed by way of a broad verandah into a big room, roughly but comfortably furnished. Some logs were smouldering in the fireplace, and quickly started into a bright blaze when Dick kicked them together. The warmth was grateful, for while out of doors everything was now bathed in genial sunshine, here the morning air was still keen. A Chinaman appeared from the back quarters, and smiled expectantly. “Breakfast, Sing Ling,” called out Dick, “and just as quick as you can serve it.” Sing Ling departed as noiselessly as he had come. “These are certainly great quarters,” observed Munson, settling himself in a big Old Mission rocker and glancing around. The walls, curiously enough, were pretty well covered with pen-and-ink sketches and designs of buildings that might have adorned an architect’s office, while there was a partly completed landscape painting in oils standing on a rudely fashioned easel. “And you’ve certainly stuck to the old line of work, Dick,” the lieutenant went on. “Of course one must have something to think about when he is all alone in a new country,” replied Willoughby. “But most of that stuff I did in my first year here,” he added, following the other’s survey of the walls. “You still paint, however,” remarked Munson, his eyes resting on the unfinished canvas. “Or try to,” was the laughing response. “Oh, that’s a modest way of putting it. Do you know, old man,” Munson went on, “since I came here I have often thought what a marvelous change has been wrought in you—what a transplanting has taken place? You were a chronic New Yorker, except for that one year you spent in the Latin Quarter of gay Paree. You thought then you were going to make a great painter. And, by gad, I almost believe so myself,” he added, bending forward to make a more critical scrutiny of the work on the easel. “By jove, that’s really fine, Dick.”