When dreams come true

by Ritter Brown

But this modern young Crœsus was not unworthy of the fortune that had been showered upon him so bountifully as the majority of men who acquire great wealth invariably become. He not only constantly strove to improve his mind, but maintained a pension-roll and list of public charities and beneficiaries that would have done credit to a small European Principality. In short, he thoroughly realized what the responsibility of great wealth entailed.

True to his supersensitive nature and fastidious taste, he always dressed in the height of fashion. This was the only extravagance he allowed himself which, considering his fortune, was reasonable enough.

Experience had taught him that the majority of men and women were fakirs pure and simple, whose chief motives were prompted solely by self-interest; and any suggestion to reform the world he invariably greeted with laughter. In fact, the world in his opinion, was not worth reforming; yet, in spite of this melancholy truth, he had remained human to the core, and took a live interest in that world of men which he knew to be nothing more nor less than a great gamble. And therein lay the chief distinction between him and Captain Forest, for they were otherwise strangely alike. Dick was still more or less interested in molding the clay—the Captain had done with it. Possibly because the latter had fallen heir to that which Dick had acquired through effort and, therefore, set less store upon it.

There were few countries which he had not visited. After making his first rich strike, he attempted to settle in New York, but was unable to do so. To use his own words, "he was only able to sit down, but there wasn't room enough for him to stretch his arms and legs."

During his travels he had collected numerous works of art; tapestries, paintings, marbles and bronzes by the best modern masters, which he placed in a beautiful Spanish hacienda especially designed by one of the foremost architects of the day. The house occupied the site of an old Spanish rancho situated in a beautiful valley about ten miles from Santa Fé and was generally conceded to be the most attractive estate in Chihuahua, though not the largest and most valuable; Don Felipe Ramirez possessed that. Both house and garden were a living monument to Dick's natural refinement and good taste. There were no jarring notes or lavish, tawdry display, the pitfalls into which the parvenue and petit bourgeois invariably fall. This was his only hobby, and just why he indulged it, he himself would have found it difficult to answer, for in reality, he cared but little for it.

He regarded it chiefly as a precaution against old age. He would continue to improve and beautify the place until the day arrived when he would retire from the world to pass the few remaining years of life amid the quiet and seclusion which the country afforded. And he often pictured himself when alone and musing over his cigar, as a lonely, white-haired patriarch, without offspring to perpetuate his name, seated in the center of his patio, smiling benignly upon the frolicsome little brown children of his Indian retainers as they laughed and disported themselves about him.

"Ah!" cries the world. "Mr. Yankton has a history!" Of course. What man or woman has not, even though they dare not admit it? Had he loved too much or too little? There were even some who attributed that exquisite vein of melancholy in his nature to the shadow of a married woman. Was he haunted by the fear that some fair, false one might marry him for his fortune, not for himself? Or, was his aversion to marriage due solely to the fact that the right woman had not yet arrived?

These and many other questions had been asked and thoroughly discussed by the matrons and daughters of Santa Fé, especially by the latter, to all of whom he had made love and sent flowers and serenaded in turn until, out of sheer desperation, they called alternately upon God and the devil to keep or punish this gay Lothario who loved all and yet none, and who gave such exquisite fiestas in his beautiful hacienda.

Now it so chanced that, at the same hour Don Felipe was conducting Blanch and Bessie to the cañon, Dick was returning to Santa Fé on horseback from his hacienda where he had passed the night. As there was no particular reason why he should reach the Posada before noon, he decided to indulge his fancy by lingering in the cooling shade of the cañon close to the river's edge, where he might listen to the voices of the waters as they went singing by him on their way to the old town and thence to the sea.

He accordingly dismounted, and after lighting a fresh cigar, stretched himself at full length upon the grass which grew on the river's bank, allowing his horse to graze at will. Just behind him rose the abrupt wall of the cañon some thirty or forty feet in height which, at this hour of the morning, cast a deep shadow over the spot where he lay and halfway across the river in front of him. It was just the sort of place for an Indian or one of Dick's nature to linger in and dream and muse. The tips of the tall grass and reeds which grew close to the water's edge, swayed gently in the fresh morning breeze. The song of the finch and linnet issued from the thick, low willow copse growing along the river's banks.