When the last ruffle of Miss Starkweather's green "polonay" had disappeared around the corner of the adobe house, the senora drifted slowly across the dooryard in her voluminous pink drapery, and sat down beside her son. There was a thin stratum of curiosity away down in her Latin soul. What had Ricardo done to make the senorita so very angry? She was angry, was she not? Oh, yes, she was very angry, but Ricardo had done nothing. Senor Barden had sold her father ten acres of wine-grapes, and the old man did not like wine; he liked raisins. Santa Maria! Did he mean to eat ten acres of raisins? He need not drink his wine; he could sell it. But the senorita was very angry; she would probably kill Senor Barden. She had said she would kill him with a very long pole--ten feet. Ricardo would not care much if she did. Senor Barden had called him a greaser. But as for a man who did not like wine--caramba! II. Parker Lowe's government claim was a fractional section, triangular in shape, with its base on the grant line of Rancho la Laguna, and its apex high up on the mountain-side. Parker's cabin was perched upon the highest point, at the mouth of the canon, in a patch of unconquerable boulders. Other government settlers were wont to remark the remoteness of his residence from the tillable part of his claim, but Parker remained loyal to his own fireside. "It's a sightly place," he asserted, "and nigh to the water, and it ain't no furder goin' down to work than it would be comin' up fer a drink, besides bein' down-grade. I lay out to quit workin' some o' these days, but I don't never lay out to quit drinkin'."