The Girl of the Golden West | Page 8

acutely in the life that he intended him to live; but in
another moment he had taken himself to task for a weakness that he
considered must have been induced by his dying condition, and he
sternly banished the thought from his mind.
"My lad," he began, "you promise to carry out my wishes after I am
gone?"
"Ay, father, you know that I will. What do you wish me to do?"
The old man pointed to the crucifix.
"You swear it?"
"I swear it."
No sooner had the son uttered the wished-for words than his father fell
back on the couch and closed his eyes. The effort and excitement left
him as white as a sheet. It seemed to the boy as if his father might be
sinking into the last stupor, but after a while he opened his eyes and
called for a glass of aguardiente.
With difficulty he gulped it down; then he said feebly:
"My boy, the only American that ever was good was your mother. She

was an angel. All the rest of these cursed gringos are pigs;" and his
voice growing stronger, he repeated: "Ay, pigs, hogs, swine!"
The son made no reply; his father went on:
"What have not these devils done to our country ever since they came
here? At first we received them most hospitably; everything they
wanted was gladly supplied to them. And what did they do in return for
our kindness? Where now are our extensive ranchos--our large herds of
cattle? They have managed to rob us of our lands through clever laws
that we of California cannot understand; they have stolen from our
people thousands and thousands of cattle! There is no infamy that--"
The young man hastened to interrupt him.
"You must not excite yourself, father," he said with solicitude. "They
are unscrupulous--many of them, but all are not so."
"Bah!" ejaculated the old man; "the gringos are all alike. I hate them all,
I--" The old man was unable to finish. He gasped for breath. But
despite his son's entreaties to be calm, he presently cried out:
"Do you know who you are?" And not waiting for a reply he went on
with: "Our name is one of the proudest in Spain--none better! The curse
of a long line of ancestors will be upon you if you tamely submit--not
make these Americans suffer for their seizure of this, our rightful
land--our beautiful California!"
More anxiously than ever now the son regarded his father. His
inspection left no doubt in his mind that the end could not be far off.
With great earnestness he implored him to lie down; but the dying man
shook his head and continued to grow more and more excited.
"Do you know who I am?" he demanded. "No--you think you do, but
you don't. There was a time when I had plenty of money. It pleased me
greatly to pay all your expenses--to see that you received the best
education possible both at home and abroad. Then the gringos came.
Little by little these cursed Americanos have taken all that I had from

me. But as they have sown so shall they reap. I have taken my revenge,
and you shall take more!" He paused to get his breath; then in a terrible
voice he cried: "Yes, I have robbed--robbed! For the last three years,
almost, your father has been a bandit!"
The son sprang to his feet.
"A bandit? You, father, a Ramerrez, a bandit?"
"Ay, a bandit, an outlaw, as you also will be when I am no more, and
rob, rob, rob, these Americanos. It is my command and--you--have--
sworn . . ."
The son's eyes were rivetted upon his father's face as the old man fell
back, completely exhausted, upon his couch of rawhides. With a
strange conflict of emotions, the young man remained standing in
silence for a few brief seconds that seemed like hours, while the pallor
of death crept over the face before him, leaving no doubt that, in the
solemnity of the moment his father had spoken nothing but the literal
truth. It was a hideous avowal to hear from the dying lips of one whom
from earliest childhood he had been taught to revere as the pattern of
Spanish honour and nobility. And yet the thought now uppermost in
young Ramerrez's mind was that oddly enough he had not been taken
by surprise. Never by a single word had any one of his father's
followers given him a hint of the truth. So absolute, so feudal was the
old man's mastery over his men that not a whisper of his occupation
had ever reached his son's ears. Nevertheless, he now told himself that
in some curious, instinctive way, he had known,--or rather, had refused
to