Page 396 - ramona-text

388 RAMON A
ties? And where, in what lonely, forever hidden spot, was
the grave of Ramona?
Now at last Felipe felt sure that she was dead. It was
useless searching farther. Yet, after he reached home, his rest-
less conjectures took one more turn, and he sat down and
wrote a letter to every priest between San Diego and
Monterey, asking if there were on his books a record of the
marriage of one Alessandro Assis and Ramona Ortegna.
It was not impossible that there might be, after all, an-
other Alessandro Assis. The old Fathers, in baptizing their
tens of thousands of Indian converts, were sore put to it to
make out names enough. There might have been another
Assis besides old Pablo, and of Alessandros there were dozens
everywhere.
This last faint hope also failed. No record anywhere of an
Alessandro Assis, except in Father Gaspara's book.
As Felipe was riding out of San Pasquale, he had seen an
Indian man and woman walking by the side of mules heavily
laden. Two little children, two young or too feeble to walk,
were so packed in among the bundles that their faces were
the only part of them in sight. The woman was crying
bitterly. "More of these exiles. God help the poor creatures!"
thought Felipe; and he pulled out his purse, and gave the
woman a piece of gold. She looked up in as great astonish-
ment as if the money had fallen from the skies. "Thanks!
Thanks, Seiior!" she exclaimed; and the man coming up to
Felipe said also, "God reward you, Sefior! That is more
money than I had in the world! Does the Sefior know of any
place where I could get work?"
Felipe longed to say, "Yes, come to my estate; there you
shall have work!" In the olden time he would have done
it without a second thought, for both the man and the
woman had good faces,—were young and strong. But the
pay-roll of the Moreno estate was even now too long for its
dwindled fortunes. "No, my man, I am sorry to say I do
not," he answered. "I live a long way from here. Where were
you thinking of going?"
"Somewhere in San Jacinto," said the man. "They say
the Americans have not come in there much yet. 1 have a