The Don was a man of proud and irascible temper, but kindly when not crossed. He had been known to kill a _peon_ in a fit of anger, and then afterward to bestow all sorts of benefits upon the man’s wife and children. The life of his home, like that of all the other Mexican gentlemen in his time, was an easy and pleasant one. He owned a great _adobe_ house, built about a square courtyard like a fort, and shaded pleasantly by cottonwood trees. There he dwelt with his numerous family, his _peones_ and his slaves. In the spring and summer every one worked in the fields, though not too hard. In the fall the men went east to the great plains to kill a supply of buffalo meat for the winter, and often after the hunt they travelled south into Sonora and Chihuahua to trade mustangs and buffalo hides for woven goods and luxuries. There was a pleasant social life among the aristocrats of dances and visits. Marriages, funerals and christenings were occasions of great ceremony and social importance. Indeed everything done by the Dons was characterized by much formality and ceremony, the custom of which had been brought over from Spain. But they were no longer really in touch with Spanish civilization. They never went back to the mother country. They had no books save the Bible and a few other religious works, and many of them never learned to read these. Their lives were made up of fighting, with the Indians and also among themselves, for there were many feuds; of hunting and primitive trade; and of venery upon a generous and patriarchal scale. They were Spanish gentlemen by descent, all for honour and tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords, and their lives were full of lust and blood. Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood, too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children of their sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children were eventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats called themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasar family, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was weakened by much marrying of cousins.