Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXV A PREHISTORIC HEARTH WHEN Stephens took his way through the moonlight, carrying the spade before him on the saddle, his heart was lighter than it had been for days. He was so used to living alone that this novel experience of being constantly in the company of others, night and day, without interruption, ever since the hour when he had rescued Josefa from the cacique, had tired him out. Also he disliked the sense of having others dependent on him, and during the whole of that time he had been burdened with responsibility, first for Josefa and then for the Mexican girl. At last, thank goodness, that was all over and done with. Josefa was secure in Reyna's keeping, and Manuelita was safe at home, while Mahletonkwa had been paid his money and dismissed; now John Stephens was his own man again, and not bound to see after other people's affairs any longer. He could go about his proper business by himself in his own independent way, and that was precisely what he liked better than anything else in the world. As for this matter of finding and burying the dead man's bones, it was one for which he was answerable to nobody but himself. Of his own free will and pleasure he had decided that it should be done, and, accordingly, here he was doing it. And what a useful pretext it had supplied him with for getting away from the fuss and flummery at San Remo. When he thought of those two stout, elderly dames falling upon him like a pair of animated feather-beds, and giving him their blessing, he felt weak; what a mercy he had this excuse of the burial to help him escape from it all! And then his mind reverted to Manuelita sitting there in the midst of the fuss, her eyes bright as ever in spite of fatigue and of the tears of joy she had shed...
