“That is true. I wish some one had reminded me of that fact last evening. I'll let the steamer go, and if I do not decide to go with you, I'll take the next boat. But now, as to our drive, I think I would rather have it after I had some breakfast, because I begin to feel faint, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours.”
Clarence sat down to a very nice breakfast, but did not succeed in eating it. He had no appetite. All food was distasteful to him. They had their drive and dinner, and he managed to get some sleep. This, however, did not refresh him, and he felt no better. Still, he decided to go to see his “bonanza,” and talk with the men who wished to buy the mines. If he did not sell them, Fred thought stamp mills ought to be put up, as the ore heaps were getting to be too high and too numerous and very rich.
Clarence devoted that day to writing letters. He wrote to his mother, Alice and Everett, to George, Gabriel and Victoriano; but his longest letters were to Mercedes and Don Mariano.
On the following day he and Fred took the stage for Yuma. When they reached that point, the river boat was about to start, thus Clarence and Fred lost no time in going up the river to their mines. But as the navigation up the Colorado River, above Fort Yuma, was rather slow, having to steam against the current following the tortuous channel of that crooked, narrow stream, and the mines were more than three hundred miles from Yuma (about thirty from Fort Mojave), they did not arrive as soon as they would have wished, and Clarence had been stricken down with typhoid fever before they reached their camp.
CHAPTER XXX.—Effect of Bad Precept and Worse Example.
The whir of threshing machines was heard in the valleys of the Alamar rancho, and wagons loaded with baled hay went from the fields like moving hills. The season had been good, and the settlers, forgetting their past conduct, were beginning to calculate on the well-known good nature and kind heart of the Don, to get their lands by purchasing them from him at a low price and easy terms when he got his patent.
Gasbang and Mathews were the only ones who still slandered the entire Alamar family, in the vilest language, having for their instigator and legal adviser the little lawyer, Peter Roper, protegé of Judge Lawlack and partner of Colonel Hornblower.
Everybody in San Diego knew that Roper had made for himself a most discreditable record, unblushingly vaunting of his degradation, but because he managed first to become a partner to the pompous Colonel Hornblower, and then—“for some secret service unexpressed”—to be a special favorite of Judge Gryllus Lawlack, Roper was not only tolerated but well treated. Even among the respectable people of San Diego Roper had clients who, when he was intoxicated, or when he was obliged to keep his bed because, as it often happened, he had been too severely whipped in some drunken brawl, would patiently wait for him to get sober and on his feet again. Why did those respectable people employ such a low, disreputable character? strangers in town asked. The answer was: “Because Roper says he has so much influence with the Judge?” And verily Roper, intoxicated or sober, won his cases, for when in ignorance of the law, he made any mistakes, which he generally did, being only an amateur lawyer, the Judge, with his rulings, would remedy the harm done, thus unwittingly, or not, assisting Roper, giving him a seemingly good cause to boast that he had retained the Judge, and by so boasting get clients. Of course, many of Judge Lawlack's decisions were constantly reversed, but the serene majesty of the law in his Honor's breast was not in the least disturbed by this; on the contrary, he spoke jestingly about being constantly reversed, and said jokingly to lawyers that if they desired to win their suits they should not wish him to decide in their favor, as the Supreme Court was sure to reverse him.
Nevertheless, on the strength of his vaunted influence with the Judge, Roper had gone to the Alamar rancho to solicit the patronage of the settlers. He was willing to take contingent fees, he said, as he was sure to win.
“But what if your friend, the Judge, is reversed, as he always is?” Roper would be asked.