“Are all the people who work for you unfortunate? I mean, was some misfortune that which made your father engage them?”
“Yes, just that. They are his ‘experiments.’ He said this valley was made for every sort of work there was to be done. All men can’t be the same thing, and every man was happiest at his own trade. Young men can get work anywhere, but dear Sobrante is a Home with a capital H, for anybody who needs one. My father said the more he trusted people the less they ever disappointed him. He’d proved his plan was right on his own single ranch and he was trying to make others do the same on theirs. Paraiso d’Oro–oh! you’re from that same New York. Do you know a–a Mr. Syndicate, I think he was, who owns Paraiso. Of course, I know in such a big city you might not, though maybe––”
The listener started, then looked keenly into the innocent face bending toward him from the broncho’s back.
“Suppose I do know a syndicate–a company–not an individual, which is interested in Paraiso? Can you tell me anything about such a place? Until last night I had no idea that I had come anywhere near to it, and then by accident, hearing Antonio Bernal mention it as his. Is it hereabouts?”
Jessica turned her horse about in a circle, rapidly swinging her pointing arm to indicate every direction of the compass.
“Know it? It is there, and there, and there–everywhere. The very richest tract of land in all the country, my father believed. Sobrante is the heart of it, he said, but the rest of the valley is even better than Sobrante. It is so big one can hardly believe. He said there was room in it, and a little ranch apiece, for every poor down-trodden man–not bad men, but poor gentlemen, like worn-out lawyers and doctors and–and nice folks–and make a new home in which to live at peace. He said there were plenty of people always ready to help the very poor and ignorant, but nobody so willing to help gentlefolks without money. That’s why he asked a lot of rich people he used to know in New York to buy Paraiso. He gave it its name, himself, and he believed that there might be really gold somewhere in it. There’s everything else, you see. But it was a name of ‘syndicate’ he talked about most and was most grieved by because the money to buy it had not been sent as it had been promised.”
“Poor child!”
“Beg pardon?”
“It was nothing. I was thinking. So this ‘Mr. Syndicate’ never sent the money your father hoped for?”
“No. It was a great disappointment. Antonio had charge of all the letters, only he; so there could have been nobody careless enough to lose them had any come. Father left all the writing to Antonio, for he was nearly blind, you know. That’s how he came to get hurt. He could not see and his horse stepped over the ledge and somebody brought him home that way. Poor mother!”