The Hat Ranch still stands in the desert below San Pasqual. Bob McGraw
has secured title to it, and safe within the old adobe walls Sam Singer
and Soft Wind are rounding out their placid lives. Sam Singer is now
one of the solid citizens of San Pasqual. He has succeeded to the hat
business, and moreover he has money on deposit with Bob McGraw. It
appears that Sam Singer, in accordance with Mr. Hennage's dying request,
fell heir to the gambler's new gaiters. The first time he tried them
on Sam detected a slight obstruction in the toe of the right gaiter.
He removed this obstruction and discovered that it was a piece of paper
money. Like all Indians, Sam was suspicious of paper money, so he took
it to Bob McGraw, who gave him a thousand dollars for it. Sam Singer was
well pleased thereat. He considered he had driven an excellent bargain.
In the lonely sage-covered wind-swept cemetery at San Pasqual there
rises a black granite monument, severely, plain, eminently befitting one
who was not of the presuming kind. There is an epitaph on that monument
which is worth recording here:
WHO SEEKS FOR HEAVEN ALONE TO SAVE HIS SOUL,
MAY KEEP THE PATH BUT WILL NOT REACH THE GOAL;
WHILE HE WHO WALKS IN LOVE MAY WANDER FAR
YET GOD WILL BRING HIM WHERE THE BLESSED ARE.
BENEATH THIS STONE
HARLEY P. HENNAGE
RESTS FROM HIS WANDERINGS.
One day T. Morgan Carey dropped off the north-bound train at San
Pasqual, and learning that he had two hours to waste while waiting for
the stage to start up country, he was seized with a morbid desire to
wander through San Pasqual's queer cemetery. The only monument in
the cemetery attracted his attention, and presently he found himself
standing at the foot of Mr. Hennage's grave, reading the epitaph.
It impressed him so greatly that he copied the verse in a little
morocco-covered memorandum book.
“I wonder who was the genius that evolved that verse?” he muttered
aloud, and to his great surprise a voice at his side answered him. It
was a woman's voice.
“I do not know the author” she said, “but if you will read Henry Van
Dyke's book 'The Other Wise Man,' you will find that little verse on the
fly-leaf. Perhaps Van Dyke wrote it. I do not know.”
T. Morgan Carey turned and lifted his hat. “Thank you, madam” he said.
“I was particularly interested. I had a slight acquaintance with
Mr. Hennage, and it seemed to me that the lines were peculiarly
appropriate.”
“My husband and I thought so. And if you will pardon me for suggesting
it, Mr. Carey, it would be--better if you would please leave the
cemetery. An old enemy of yours, a Cahuilla Indian, comes here three
times a week by my orders, to bring water for the blue grass on this
grave. He is coming now.”
“Thank you. And you are--”
“I am Donna Corblay.”
Carey bowed and continued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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