“Thank you, captain. I’ll be brief. I came to California, representing a company, a syndicate, which had advanced large sums of money to purchase, improve, and stock a vast tract of land called Paraiso d’Oro. Though for a time due receipts and reports had been returned to the syndicate for several months these had entirely ceased. Unfortunately, the company had implicit faith in their consignee, and Paraiso d’Oro was but one of their many enterprises. I had been their legal adviser in other matters, and when my health failed from overwork, they suggested that I should come here and investigate their affairs, while I could recuperate at the same time.
“I set out on horseback from Los Angeles, my temporary headquarters, without a guide and with many erroneous notions concerning both the State and its people. You see, though I’d lived at the center of our national civilization––”
“You’re forgettin’ Californy!” cried somebody.
“I’d led the narrow life of a man absorbed in one sort of business. I traveled out of my way, and lost it. Then I met your captain in the canyon and she courteously offered me the hospitality of Sobrante. Until I reached this spot I had no idea that it was part and parcel, so to speak, of that Paraiso I’d come to reclaim. Gradually this fact became clear to me and from that moment I have been anxious to get away from a hospitality I have no moral right to enjoy.”
“Spoke the truth for once, liar!” grumbled Cromarty.
“You cannot feel it more than I, sir, nor more profoundly regret that it is my misfortune to have undertaken a business which has now become obnoxious to me. But a lawyer must look at facts. One Cassius Trent––”
“Take care!”
“Be quiet, Marty! Go on, Mr. Hale,” ordered the little captain.
“Cassius Trent was the man whose hitherto probity and enthusiasm had enlisted the interest of his New York friends. He represented that his projected community would not only be an excellent investment for their money, but a benefaction to humanity. They believed him and–well, their money is gone, their community has not even a beginning, and the man is dead. He seems to have been a person––”
“A white gentleman, sir!”