Early in the forenoon he started northward with the Brothertons and Estenegas. Reinaldo kissed him on both cheeks, much to his embarrassment; but Prudencia accepted his farewells with chilling dignity, and did not invite him to return.
The Rancho de los Pinos was some ten miles from Monterey. Behind the house was a pine forest whose outposts were scattered along the edge of the Pacific; facing it were some eight thousand acres of rolling land, cut with willowed creeks, studded with groves of oaks, dazzling, at this season, with the gold of June. Thousands of cattle wandered about in languid content; the air lay soft and heavy on unquiet pulses.
The Brothertons and their guests “horse-backed” in the morning, but spent the greater part of the day in the hammocks swung across the long cool
