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And to her little son she showed the portrait of Francisco Garvez, who had ridden with Ortega and d'Anza in the days of Spanish glory. Lithographs of President Lincoln appeared in household and office. Flags flew from many staffs and windows. News was eagerly awaited from the battle-front. Adrian had been rejected by a recruiting board because of a slight limp.
For his service as soldado of old Spain he had been granted many acres near the Mission of Dolores and his son, through marriage, had combined this with another large estate. There a second generation of the Garvez family had looked down from a palatial hacienda upon spreading grain-fields, wide-reaching pastures and corrals of blooded stock.
"Done," agreed the Governor, hastily. On the Garvez ranch, at sunset, the 17th of May, David Broderick found a gracious interval of peace. It seemed almost incredible to be dining in the patio with Benito and Alice against a background of fragrant honeysuckle and early roses.
Thus the Garvez rancho, at his death became the Windham ranch and there dwelt Dona Anita with her children Inez and Benito, for her husband, "Don Roberto" Windham lingered with an engineering expedition in the wilds of Oregon. Just nineteen was young Benito, straight and slim, combining in his fledgling soul the austere heritage of Anglo-Saxons with the leaping fires of Castile.
It was a prophecy," his tone grew dreamy, "a prophecy that he and his the Garvez blood should always stir in San Francisco's heart." Swiftly he rose and, standing very straight before the picture, raised his right hand to salute. "You are right," he said. "He would have wanted me to be a soldier." But Alice shook her head. "The conquest is over," she told him.
And his right is unquestioned, for the property came to him direct from his uncle, who was Francisco Garvez' only son." "But " began Adrian hotly. "Yes, yes, I know," Hyde interrupted. "The man is a rascal. But what of that? It does not help us; I have no power to aid you, gentlemen." It was the morning of July 20.
It was 1845. Three quarters of a century had passed since young Francisco Garvez, as he rode beside Portola's chief of Scouts, glimpsed the mystic vision of a city rising from the sandy shores of San Francisco Bay. Garvez, so tradition held, had taken for his spouse an Indian maiden educated by the mission padres of far San Diego.
They had seen the Mission era wax and wane and Mexico cast off the governmental shackles of Madrid. They had looked askance upon the coming of the "Gringo" and Francisco Garvez II, in the feebleness of age, had railed against the destiny that gave his youngest daughter to a Yankee engineer.
This was the painting of Francisco Garvez of hidalgo lineage, who had stood beside Ortega, the Pathfinder, when that honored scout of Portola had found the bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. "Carissima, how he would have loved you, that old man!" Benito's tone was dreamy. Alice Windham turned. "You are like him, Benito," she said fondly. "There is the same flash in your eye.
"No, no," she nestled closer. "It isn't money that I crave. We are happy here. But" she looked up at the portrait of Francisco Garvez, and Benito followed her glance. "What would he have you do?" "I promised him in thought," her husband said, "that I would help to build the city he loved.
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