The Third Act takes place upon the roof of the ranch house. Dawn is coming, and no help has arrived. _Kearney_ makes _Kinkaid_ a prisoner as a hostage to protect the women. Unfortunately, _Don Luis_, jealous of the American lover of _Juanita_, in an effort to compel him to fight a duel, lets _Kinkaid_ go. The latter joins his men and an attack is imminent. The old Franciscan, _Father Antonio_, assembles “his children” in prayer for delivery, the sunrise hymn of the Californians. This delivery comes in the shape of the long-awaited militia from Monterey. The rancho is saved, but the mother will not see her daughter go to an American. She forces her daughter to choose, and this she does--in favor of the gringo. * * * * * That is a simple, almost trite, story; but Belasco contrived to tell it in _action_ more than in words, and his telling of it proceeds from one sensation to another with cumulative effect. Divested of all outward flourishes, it is seen to be the portrayal of a conflict between virtue, animated by love, and villany, impelled by cupidity and brutal license. The vulgarian would seize the estate of the old Spanish family. The hero, who loves its young mistress, would save it for her; and in order to accomplish that object he is compelled to pretend fraternity with her oppressor,--for which reason she temporarily mistrusts him; but his purpose is accomplished, his fidelity is proved, and his love is rewarded. In all this, happily, there is no examination of the remote causes of the universal passion; no philosophic essay on masculine strength as opposed to feminine weakness; no treatise on elective affinities. The play, in short, is an old-fashioned melodrama in a new-fashioned dress; one of those plays that the spectator observes with an interested desire to ascertain how it will turn out. No new type of character is presented, nor is a special attempt made to variegate the old types. _Kearney_, of Washington, is the handsome, gallant, expeditious young cavalier who has loved and rescued the endangered maiden in a hundred plays of the past. _Kinkaid_, of Beaver, is the same old blackguard and bully who seems victorious for a moment, but is always finally discomfited, in the chronic story of the Far West. _Don Luis_ is the debonair but disappointed suitor, from whom the _Bride of Netherby_ always rides away. _Father Antonio_ is the good and gentle priest who cheers the drooping spirit and bestows ecclesiastical benediction. The only persons who savor of exceptional quality are _Señora Kenton_ and her daughter _Juanita_, _the Rose_,--the one a stern and formidable woman, vital with Spanish hatred of the invading American; the other, a passionate, capricious, wilful girl, who can be sweet and tender, but who is customarily piquant, independent, and resolute in her own course: characters strongly reminiscent of the matron and the heroine in “Ramona.” But, all the same, the old tale of