WHO CLAIMED IT The fog had already closed in on Monterey, and was now rolling, a white, billowy sea above, that soon shut out the blue breakers below.

Once or twice in descending the mountain Concho had overhung the cliff and looked down upon the curving horse-shoe of a bay below him,--distant yet many miles.

Earlier in the afternoon he had seen the gilt cross on the white-faced Mission flare in the sunlight, but now all was gone.

By the time he reached the highway of the town it was quite dark, and he plunged into the first fonda at the wayside, and endeavored to forget his woes and his weariness in aguardiente.

But Concho's head ached, and his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that he bethought him of a medico,--an American doctor,--lately come into the town, who had once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and after the same heroic fashion.