a strange satisfaction in familiarly pouring out his confidences to this superior woman, whom he had always held in awe.  There was a new delight in her womanly interest in his trials and adventures, and a subtle pleasure even in her half-motherly criticism and admonition of some passages.  I am afraid he forgot Susy, who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor; Mary, whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the performer and deprecation of Mrs. Peyton’s critical glances; and Peyton, who, however, seemed lost in thought, and preoccupied.  Clarence was happy.  The softly shaded lights in the broad, spacious, comfortably furnished drawing-room shone on the group before him.  It was a picture of refined domesticity which the homeless Clarence had never known except as a vague, half-painful, boyish remembrance; it was a realization of welcome that far exceeded his wildest boyish vision of the preceding night.  With that recollection came another,—­a more uneasy one.  He remembered how that vision had been interrupted by the strange voices in the road, and their vague but ominous import to his host.  A feeling of self-reproach came over him.  The threats had impressed him as only mere braggadocio,—­he knew the characteristic exaggeration of the race,—­but perhaps he ought to privately tell Peyton of the incident at once.

The opportunity came later, when the ladies had retired, and Peyton, wrapped in a poncho in a rocking-chair, on the now chilly veranda, looked up from his reverie and a cigar.  Clarence casually introduced the incident, as if only for the sake of describing the supernatural effect of the hidden voices, but he was concerned to see that Peyton was considerably disturbed by their more material import.  After questioning him as to the appearance of the two men, his host said:  “I don’t mind telling you, Clarence, that as far as that fellow’s intentions go he is quite sincere, although his threats are only borrowed thunder.  He is a man whom I have just dismissed for carelessness and insolence,—­two things that run in double harness in this country,—­but I should be more afraid to find him at my back on a dark night, alone on the plains; than to confront him in daylight, in the witness box, against me.  He was only repeating a silly rumor that the title to this rancho and the nine square leagues beyond would be attacked by some speculators.”

“But I thought your title was confirmed two years ago,” said Clarence.

“The grant was confirmed,” returned Peyton, “which means that the conveyance of the Mexican government of these lands to the ancestor of Victor Robles was held to be legally proven by the United States Land Commission, and a patent issued to all those who held under it.  I and my neighbors hold under it by purchase from Victor Robles, subject to the confirmation of the Land Commission.  But that confirmation was only of Victor’s great-grandfather’s title, and it is now alleged that as Victor’s