The claims and title of
Norway to the island have long since been made good and conceded--even
by the State Department at Washington--and I understand that Captain
Petersen has made a very pretty fortune out of the affair.
THE RIDING OF FELIPE
I. FELIPE
As young Felipe Arillaga guided his pony out of the last intricacies of
Pacheco Pass, he was thinking of Rubia Ytuerate and of the scene he had
had with her a few days before. He reconstructed it now very vividly.
Rubia had been royally angry, and as she had stood before him, her arms
folded and her teeth set, he was forced to admit that she was as
handsome a woman as could be found through all California.
There had been a time, three months past, when Felipe found no
compulsion in the admission, for though betrothed to Buelna Martiarena
he had abruptly conceived a violent infatuation for Rubia, and had
remained a guest upon her rancho many weeks longer than he had intended.
For three months he had forgotten Buelna entirely. At the end of that
time he had remembered her--had awakened to the fact that his
infatuation for Rubia _was_ infatuation, and had resolved to end the
affair and go back to Buelna as soon as it was possible.
But Rubia was quick to notice the cooling of his passion. First she
fixed him with oblique suspicion from under her long lashes, then
avoided him, then kept him at her side for days together.
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