“Well, I don’t reckon it was published none,” replied mine host, facetiously. “That writer feller tumbled off the foot-bridge into the Tuolumne Canyon about a week after that, an’ I’m afraid he didn’t go to press. “But I’m runnin’ a hotel, such as it is, an’ hain’t got much time for fairy tales, an’ still less time for Greasers, which the same I don’t like nohow.” Needless to say, my conversation with the landlord had only served to increase my curiosity. As I bade him good-night I resolved to seek for Chiquita and Ramon in the morning. I had scented a romance; which meant with me that I must take the trail and run the story to earth. * * * * * I found the fortune teller and her companion in the cabin of a Mexican sheep herder, among the hills a little way out of town. This is the story that Ramon told me: “Our story, _Señor_? It is not much, our story. What you have seen, that is all it is to tell. It is the story of Chiquita, my Chiquita, there, that you should hear. I, Ramon, know the story. Alas! too well do I know it. Listen, _Señor_: “Many, many years ago, in the days when _los Americanos_--the _mineros_--were by hundreds here in Calaveras and in the valley of Tuolumne, a great _hacienda_ there was, and a great mansion, near Sonora, just by the road that now runs to Vallecito. When the _Señor_ rides to Sonora, at the right hand of the road will he yet see the stones of the crumbling walls of the house. He cannot mistake, for all along the road is there none other like it. “Don Pedro Salvia, the name was, of the owner of the _hacienda_. Many broad acres of the hills and valleys were his, and over those acres by the thousands grazed his cattle. All the land it was black with his droves of the long-horned breed of _la España_. Horses too, there were in vast herds. Never were seen mustangs so many and so fine and swift as those of Don Pedro. Many cattle and many mustangs mean always much money, and Don Pedro was _muy rico_--of great riches. “The old Don was proud, oh, so proud, but not his great wealth was it that made him so. Of a famous and haughty race he was. None older was there in all Castile. His blood was what the _Americano_ would call--what is it that they call the blood of the grandee? Ah, I remember--he was of the blue blood. None was there in all Spain so blue. “In Sonora for many years had the Salvias been--so long that no _Americano_ could remember when the family was not there. Before Don Pedro came, many, many generations of the Salvias had lived and died on the _rancheria_. “Fate had laid its hand heavy on the blood of the Salvias, for the Don was of his race the last man. He had one child only--a daughter. La Doña Teresa, her poor mother, had died when she came--the little one.