SOUTHERN ARIZONA 249 



wealth for any lasting period can be enumerated 

 on the fingers of one hand. Fortune so easily 

 acquired seems endless, and its disbursement is 

 not heeded till accomplished. 



Castro was no exception. How long the fiesta 

 lasted I do not know. The " education " of the 

 children was completed with a rapidity that prob- 

 ably satisfied the recipients. In short, in a few 

 months Castro and his family returned to the 

 little cabin in the Sierra, perhaps wiser, and 

 certainly happy. They were always that. But 

 the gold found in the boulder had all vanished ; 

 and future efforts on the part of Castro and 

 others to find the ledge from which it had 

 " floated " proved unavailing. 



I have told these stories of this man, with 

 whom I was constantly thrown during three 

 years, for two purposes. First, that one may 

 get an idea of the general air of romance that 

 prevails among the people; for, while I am per- 

 suaded that the incident is substantially correct, 

 the glamour thrown over it by the description, 

 and the wealth of the language in which it was 

 expressed, adds greatly to the narrative, which 

 seems to me, as I have told it in English, to lack 

 the vitality and picturesqueness of the Spanish in 

 which it was recited by Castro. Second, to im- 

 press the fact that the vicissitudes of fortune are 

 borne by this people with fortitude and a good 



