This was the evening of the fourth day since Henderson's escape. The mystery of his complete vanishment troubled Don Abrahan, not so much because his son had failed in the search which he headed, as that it seemed to show that his hitherto dependable machinery had failed and broken down. This would seem to indicate that the peon class was growing in defiance of the privileged few who had held them in subjugation so completely and so long. It was a state of affairs to cause a man to wrinkle his brow and consider, with beard bent upon his breast. And so Don Abrahan sat in what would have been called his library in an American house, but in this place termed office. Here the records of his business transactions were kept, here such books as the family owned, which were neither many nor important. Don Abrahan's father had occupied the room for the same purpose, contriving it when he built the house. This was a room of two tall, narrow Venetian windows set in the deep adobe wall. There were dark beams of cedar overhead, a dark door of broad panels and great thickness shutting off the rest of the house. There was a picture of a cavalier in a ruff and pointed beard, a sword at his side, his hand on the hilt, hanging in a dark deep frame between the windows. In the center of the room Don Abrahan's strong oak table stood, two silver candlesticks flanking the great inkstand. [Illustration] There was more to trouble Don Abrahan than the thought of peon defiance in concealing a fugitive, or the revolution in the peon mind and conscience which would no longer permit one to seize and deliver an unhappy human chattel for the reward of five dollars. The greater thought that rose in the mind of Don Abrahan like a cloud out of season upon the eye, was nothing less than that of American plotting and contriving to lay hold of California and add it to their domain. That such plotting was going on, Don Abrahan and others of his estate had proof; that it was being furthered and supported by men of his own nation who hoped to profit through it, and by Spaniards who had lost their lands, was more than suspected. Proof was wanting there, but proof Don Abrahan hoped to secure, to the happy hanging of some of his neighbors, the exile and expatriation of others. Then there would be land to divide as a reward among the patriots. The thought brought a smile to Don Abrahan's face; it stood in twinkling reflection in his eyes long after its ripple had passed through his beard.