They ran down the tunnel. It was wide and high, built for flying priests, should the Mission be besieged and captured by savage tribes. The air was close and heavy, but free from noxious gases. Bats whirred past and rats scampered before them. Roldan paused after a moment and lit his lantern. Its thin ray leaped but a few feet ahead, but would frighten away any wild beast of the forest that might have wandered in.

The tunnel was straight. It also appeared to be endless.

"We have walked twenty leagues," groaned Adan, at the end of an hour.

"Two," said Roldan. "Without doubt this tunnel ends at the mountains, and they are four leagues from the Mission. But you have taken longer walks than this, my friend. Do you remember that night in the mountains?"

"I had forgotten it for one blessed week. Rafael, to what have we brought you? Your poor muscles are soft, where ours are now as hard as a deserter's from an American barque—ay, yi!"

"If they have but the chance to become soft once more after they too are hard!" muttered Rafael, who was panting and lagging. "That priest! that priest!"

"It is true," said Roldan, pausing abruptly. "You will not dare to return home at present—nor we. It is flight once more—to Los Angeles. We will stay there—where he would not dare touch us if he came—until he repents or makes sure that we will have told if we intend to tell. Will you come?"

"Will I? I would go to Mexico if I could. I feel that there is not room in the Californias for those hands and myself."

"I will take care of you," said Roldan, proudly, anxious to rout the memory of his recent humiliation. "But come." And Rafael, too weary and bewildered to resent the authority of his erst-while rival, trudged obediently in the rear.

"It grows colder," said Adan, significantly.

"Yes," said Roldan. "We near the mountains."

Adan stopped. "Is it the mountains again?" he asked. "If it is, then I, for one, prefer the priest."

"The mountains never scared you half as badly as the priest did," said Roldan, cruelly. "And to say nothing of the fact that we need never get lost in the mountains again, the embrace of a grizzly would be no harder and more death-sure than one in the great arms of that fiend that wears a cassock."

"True. You are always right. But promise that whatever happens you will not lead us into the Sierras."

"I promise," said Roldan, much flattered by this unconscious tribute to his leadership.

"Do you think that priest is really a devil?" asked Rafael, in an awestruck voice.

"When a man has insulted you, you do not know what you think of him," said Roldan, flushing hotly. "If he only were not a priest I'd fight him, big as he is. But at least I can outwit him. It consoles me to think of his fury when he goes to the cave and finds us gone."

"We'd better get out of this tunnel before we talk about having the best of the priest," said Adan. "Suppose he returns to kill us himself—"

"He will not return until to-morrow. Then he will have repented. He will promise to let us go free if we keep his secret. But he will not have that satisfaction, my friends. Yesterday he had a friend in Roldan Castanada; I would have done anything for him, gladly kept his secret. But to-day he has an enemy that he will do well to fear. A Spaniard never forgets an insult."

"What shall you do?" asked Rafael, eagerly. "Expose him?"

"No, I do nothing mean. But I proclaim at Los Angeles that gold has been discovered in the Californias, and in six days the hills will swarm, and the priest in his cell will gnash his teeth."

"Ay!" exclaimed Adan. "Do you feel that?"

An icy blast swept down the tunnel, roughening skin and shortening breath. A few moments later the low rhythm as of distant water came to their ears. Roldan and Adan recognised that familiar music, and set their teeth.

"And I prayed that I might never see another redwood," muttered Adan, crossing himself.

The tunnel stopped abruptly. They stood before a mass of brushwood, piled thickly to keep out wild beasts and delude the searching eye of hostile Indians. Beyond, seen in patches, was a dazzle of white.

"Snow, of course," said Adan, with a groan.

The boys pulled the branches apart without much difficulty: the priests had studied facility of egress and had raised the barrier from within. In a few moments the boys stood in the sunlight; and the mountains hemmed them in.

Adan stamped his foot savagely on the hard snow. "We are where we started a week ago," he said. "No more, no less."

"No," said Roldan, who also had felt demoralised for a moment. "The priests were too clever for that. They would want to get into the shelter of the mountains, no more. I believe that from the top of that point above the tunnel we can see the valley."

"Well, we can at least look," said Rafael, who was bitterly weary and hungry, but determined not to be outdone by these hardened adventurers.

The boys made their way up the declivity as best they could through the heavy snowdrifts, pulling themselves up by clutching at young trees and scrub. They were thinly clad and very cold, and hunger was loud of speech. When after a half-hour's weary climb, they reached the summit, they drew a long sigh of relief, but their enthusiasm was too moderate for words in present physical conditions. The valley lay below. Far away, beyond leagues of low hills and wide valleys something white reflected the sun. It was the Mission.

"We have not a moment to rest, unless we can find a safe hiding-place," said Roldan. "If he should return and find us gone, he would follow at once."

"Where shall we go?" asked the others, who, however, felt a quickening of blood and muscle at the thought that the priest might be under their feet even then.

"How near is the next rancho, and whose is it?"

"A league beyond the Mission grant. It is Don Juan Ortega's."

"Very well, we go there and ask for horses."

The boys made their way rapidly down the slope, which after all was only that of a foot-hill. Beyond were other foot-hills, and they skirted among them, finally entering a canon. It was as dark and cold and damp as the last hour of the tunnel had been, but the narrow river, roaring through its middle, had caught all the snow, and there was scarce a fleck on the narrow tilted banks. The hill opposite was the last of the foot-hills; but how to reach it? The current was very swift, and boys knew naught of the art of swimming in that land of little water.

Suddenly Roldan raised his hand with an exclamation of surprise and pointed to a ledge overhanging the stream. A hut stood there, made of sections of the redwood and pine. From its chimney, smoke was curling upward.

The boys were too hungry to pause and reflect upon the possibility of a savage inmate; they scrambled up the bank and ran along the ledge to the hut. The door was of hide. They knocked. There was no response. They flung the door aside and entered. No one was in the solitary room of the hut, but over a fire in the deep chimney place hung a large pot, in which something of agreeable savour bubbled.

Roldan glanced about. "I'd rather be invited," he said doubtfully.

But Adan had gone straight for the pot. He lifted it off the fire, fetched three broken plates and battered knives and forks from a shelf, and helped his friends and himself. Then he piously crossed himself and fell to. It was not in human necessities to withstand the fragrance of that steaming mess of squirrel, and the boys had disposed of the entire potful before they raised their eyes again. When they did, Rafael, who sat opposite the door, made a slight exclamation, and the others turned about quickly. A man stood there.

He was quite unlike any one they had ever seen. A tall lank man with rounded shoulders, lean leather-like cheeks, a preternatural length of jaw, drab hair and chin whiskers, and deeply-set china-blue eyes, made up a type uncommon in the Californias, that land of priest, soldier, caballero, and Indian. He was clad in coyote skins, and carried a gun in his hand, a brace of rabbits slung over one shoulder. He did not speak for some seconds, and when he did, it was to make a remark that was not understood. He said: "Well, I'll be durned!"

His expression was not forbidding, and Roldan recovered himself at once. He stood up and bowed profoundly.

"Senor," he said, "I beg that you will pardon us. We would have craved your hospitality had you been here, but as it was, our hunger overcame us: we have not eaten for many hours. But I am Roldan Castanada of the Rancho de los Palos Verdes, senor, and I beg that you will one day let me repay your hospitality in the house of my fathers."

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed the man, "all that high-falutin' lingo for a potful of squirril. But you're welcome enough. I don't begrudge anybody sup." Then he broke into a laugh at the puzzled faces of his guests, and translated his reply into very lame Spanish. The boys, however, were delighted to be so hospitably received, and grinned at him, warm, replete, and sheltered.

The man began at once to skin a rabbit. "Seein' as how you haint left me nothin', I may as well turn to," he said. "And it ain't every day I'm entertainin' lords."

The boys did not understand the words, but they understood the act, and reddened.

"I myself will cook the rabbit for you, senor," said Adan.

"Well, you kin," and the man nodded acquiescence.

"You are American, no?" asked Roldan.

"I am, you bet."

"From Boston, I suppose?"

The man guffawed. "Boston ought to hear that. She'd faint. No, young 'un, I'm not from no such high-toned place as Boston. I'm a Yank though, and no mistake. Vermont."

"Is that in America?"

"In Meriky? Something's wrong with your geography, young man. It's one of the U. S. and no slouch, neither."

He spoke in a curious mixture of English and of Spanish that he adapted as freely as he did his native tongue. The boys stared at him, fascinated. They thought him the most picturesque person they had ever met.

"When did you come?" asked Roldan.

"I'll answer any more questions you've got when I've got this yere rabbit inside of me. P'r'aps as you've been hungry you know that it doesn't make the tongue ambitious that way. I'll have a pipe while it's cookin'."

He was shortly invisible under a rolling grey cloud. The tobacco was the rank stuff used by the Indians. The boys wanted to cough, but would have choked rather than be impolite, and finally stole out with a muttered remark about the scenery.

When they returned their host had eaten his breakfast and smoked his second pipe.

"Come in," he said heartily. "Come right in and make yourselves ter home. My name's Jim Hill. I won't ask yourn as I wouldn't remember them if I did. These long-winded Spanish names are beyond me. Set. Set. Boxes ain't none too comfortable, but it's the best I've got."

"Oh, this box is most comfortable," Roldan hastened to assure him. "And we are very thankful to have anything to sit on at all, senor. You could not guess the many terrible adventures we have had in the last few weeks."

"Indeed! Adventures? I want ter know! You look as if hammocks was more to your taste. Oh, no offence," as Roldan's eyes flashed. "But you are fine looking birds, and no mistake. Howsomever, we'll hear all about them presently. It's polite to answer questions first. You was asking me a while back how I come here. I come over those mountains, young man, and I don't put in the adjectives I applied to them in the process outer respect to your youth. But they'd make a man swear if he'd spent his life psalm singin' before."

"We know," said Roldan, grimly. "We've been in them. What did you eat? And did you get lost?"

"I ate red ants mor' 'n once, and I usually was lost. When I arrived at that Mission down yonder the amount of flesh I had between my bones and my skin wouldn't have filled a thimble. But that priest—he's a great man if ever there was one—soon fixed me up. I lived like a prince for a month, and I could be there yet if I liked, but I'd kinder got used to livin' alone and I liked it, so I come here. Besides, I found so much prayin' and bell ringin' wearin' on the nerves, to say nothin' of too many Indians. I ain't got no earthly use for Indians. Why priests or anybody else run after Indians beats me. Where I was brought up 't was the other way. They're after us with a scalpin' knife, and if we're after them at all it's with all the lead we kin git. If the murderin' dirty beasts is willin' to stay where they belong, well, I for one believe in lettin' 'em."

"Do you—ah—like the priest, Don Jim?"

"What? Well, that's better than 'Don Himy,' as they call me down there. You bet I like the priest. He's a gentleman, and as square as they make 'em, that is, with a poor devil like me; I guess he's one too much for your dons when he feels that way. But he's a man every inch of him, afraid of nothin' under God's heaven, and as kind and generous as a—as some women. What he rots in this God-forsaken place for I can't make out."

"What did you come to California for?"

"Well, that ain't bad. I come here, my son, because I was lookin' for a cold climate. My own was warm, accordin' to my taste, and somehow Californy seemed as if it ought to be fur enough away to be cool and nice."

"It's very hot in the valleys."

"So it is. So it is. But as you see, I prefer the mountains."

"Do you often go to the Mission?"

"Every month or so I go down and have a chin with Padre Osuna. It keeps my Spanish in, and I shouldn't like to lose sight of him. I got word from him the other day that he wanted to see me mighty particular, and I'm wonderin' what's in the wind. Maybe you heard him say."

"No," said Roldan; but he guessed.

"Now," said Hill, "spin your yarn. I'm just pinin' to hear those adventures."

Roldan appreciated the sarcasm, but was too secure in the wealth of the past month to resent it. He began at the beginning and told the story with his curious combination of reserve and dramatic fire. As he had already told it several times it ran glibly off his tongue and had several inevitable embellishments. The man, whose cold blue eyes had wandered at first, finally fixed themselves on Roldan; and his whole face gradually softened. When Roldan finished with his and Adan's rescue by Don Tiburcio's vaquero, he held out his hand and said solemnly,—

"Shake."

Roldan allowed his hand to be gripped by that hairy paw; he was too elated to resent it as a familiarity.

"You've got pluck," continued Hill, "and I respect pluck mor' 'n anything else on earth. You're a man and a gentleman, and Californy'll be proud of you yet. Got any more?"

Roldan related the tale of Rafael's prowess with the bull, his own encounter with the bear, and Adan's timely interference. Hill then shook the hands of the two other boys, and told them that as long as he had a roof above his head they could share it, and that he'd do anything to help them but steal horses, so help him Bob. Roldan then told the tale of the earthquake and stampede.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Hill, with a shudder. "That's one thing I can't abide—your earthquakes. I tell you it's enough to take the grit outen a grizzly to hear the land sliden on the mountain and the big redwoods that has got their roots about the bed-rock come roarin' down. When an earthquake comes I go and stand in the middle of the creek so as I can see what's comin' all round. Once I was on the side of the mountain when one of those shakes come and I slid down twenty feet before I could stop myself. It's just the one thing that has happened to me that I can't help thinkin' about. Well, what kin I do for you? You're welcome to stay here, but this hut ain't no great shakes for such as you. Be you goin' home, now that the conscription's over?"

"No!" said Roldan, emphatically, "we are not. There are other reasons why we must go to Los Angeles as quickly as we can. Could you get us three horses?"

"I could get them from the priest—"

"No! no!"

"Why, what's the row with the priest? Got in his black books? I shouldn't like to do that myself."

"You said just now that you would do anything for us. Would you even hide us from the priest if he came here?"

"I would. And I ain't the one to ask questions. If you don't want to see the priest, it's not Jim Hill that will assist him to find you. Been there myself."

"Couldn't you get us three horses from my father's corral—the Rancho Encarnacion?" asked Rafael.

"I could, if you'd go with me; but horse-stealing is just the one thing I agreed not to do."

"You might go with him, Rafael," said Roldan. "You would get there after dark if you started now; and even if the vaqueros were not asleep they would not call your father."

"And I could send a message to my parents," said Rafael, eagerly. "Then they would not worry. Yes, I will go. The priest would not dare to harm me while I was with the Senor Hill."

"Oh, the two of us would be a match for even him, if it came to that," said Hill. "Well, we'll start right now, there bein' no call for delay. We'll have to foot it, as my mustang's laid up. If the priest should turn up here—which ain't likely—jest run up that ladder inter the garret and pull it after yer. Well, hasta luego, as they say in these parts. Make yourselves ter home."



XX

"Now," said Roldan, as Rafael and Hill trudged into the perspective of the canon, "we must sleep, but by turns. That priest will surely go to the cave to-day, and when he finds us gone he'll come straight for the mountains; and not through the tunnel either; he'll come on that big brown horse of his. You sleep first, for two hours, and I'll watch—"

"You first, my friend—" Suppressing a mighty yawn.

"It is easier for me to keep awake. Lie down on that horrible bed. I do not so much mind waiting a little longer."

Adan lifted his nose at the bunk covered with a bearskin, then flung himself upon it, and was asleep in three minutes. Roldan sat with his eyes applied to a rift between the hide-door and the wall. It commanded a view of the opposite wall of the canon, over which wound a zig-zag horse trail.

The sun, which had hung directly above the canon when Hill and Rafael departed, had slid toward the west, leaving the canon cold and dark again, and Roldan was about to call Adan, when he sprang to his feet, and stood rigid, cold with fear.

On the brow of the wall opposite, three hundred feet above his head, stood a powerful brown horse. On him was a huge figure clad in a brown cassock, the hood drawn well over the face. It was impossible to distinguish features at that distance, but Roldan fancied that those terrible eyes were holding his own. He recovered himself and dragged Adan out of bed.

"The priest!" he said. "Help me to wash these dishes—quick. It will take him some time to get down."

Adan stumbled across the room, plunged the dishes into a pail of drinking water, then handed them to Roldan, who dried them hastily and piled them on the shelf. Then he flung the water across the clay floor of the hut.

"Get up the ladder," he commanded. Adan scrambled up. Roldan followed, and pulled the ladder after him. The garret was very low, and half full of skins. They could not stand upright. It was also bitterly cold. Each hastily wrapped a skin about his body, and lay full length, Roldan on his face, his eyes applied to a chink in the rough floor.

A few moments later the door was flung aside and the priest strode in.

Roldan shuddered, but not with personal fear. The priest looked like a man who had just left the rack of his native Spain. His hair—the hood had fallen back—stood on end, his face and tightened lips were livid, his eyes rolled wildly.

"Jim!" he said hoarsely. "Jim!"

He left the hut as abruptly as he had entered it.

"He has gone to look at the mouth of the tunnel," whispered Roldan. "What fools we were not to cover it up again. Then he would have walked its length to find us, and the horses might have come before he returned. Well, he cannot get us until he pulls the roof down."

"He could do it," whispered Adan, grimly. "Those hands! Dios de mi alma!"

"He will think we have gone somewhere with Don Jim."

The priest returned in less than half an hour. His face, if anything, was still more terrible to look upon. There was a touch of foam on his lips. His great hands were clinched. He strode over to the bunk and lifted the heaped-up bearskin. Suddenly he pressed his face into the fur.

"Perfume—Dona Martina's," he exclaimed. "They have been here."

He raised his face to the ceiling, and the boys held their mouths open that their teeth might not clack together. They closed their eyes: instinct bade them give heed to visual magnetism. Roldan immediately wanted to cough, Adan to scratch his nose. The next few moments were the most agonised of their lives. They felt the priest lift his hands and pass them slowly along the ceiling, they felt those eyes searching every crevice. Then they felt him grip the edge of the aperture and lift himself until his eyes were above the garret floor. But it was pitch dark. He could not even see the ladder, much less the boys under the bear skins.

The priest dropped to the floor and seated himself upon a box, dropping his face into his hands. There he sat, motionless, for hours. The boys buried their heads in the skins and went to sleep.

They were awakened by the sound of voices. A candle flared below. Hill had entered. He and the priest were alone.

"They were here, sir, that's true enough. I've just taken them to the Sennor Carriller's and pointed them fur home. They seemed in a hurry to vamos these parts."

The priest groaned and struck his fist on the table. "Then they are leagues away by this."

"They be, for a fact. Their horses was fresh and they was powerful keen. They was just sweaten' to git home."

"And Rafael Carillo? Did he go with them?"

"He didn't. He allowed to, but his father warnt agreeable. In fact he was—savin' your grace—cussed disagreeable. He corralled us as we was corrallen the horses; and although he was mighty mad at such French leave, he said, speakin' of the other two kids, that they could take the two horses and git, and the sooner the better, and if they never come lookin' for adventures in these parts agin the better he'd be pleased."

The priest did not appear to doubt him. He was looking through the doorway. Roldan could not see his face, but he saw the stare of wonder on Hill's.

"Very well," said the priest, after a moment, and his voice was hardly audible. "I shall return now. Can you come down to the Mission to-morrow—no, the day after. I have a secret to confide to you, and it will not be to your disadvantage to know it. I had no intention of telling any one, but I need help, and now more than ever. There is no time to be lost. Can you come early?"

"I'll be there between dawn and ten o'clock."

"That will do. Good night." And the priest went out.

No one spoke until the sound came up to them of a horse fording the creek. Then Hill said cautiously,—

"Hi, there, young uns."

"In the name of Mary let us come down, Don Jim," hissed Roldan, through the crack.

"Well, I guess you kin. He's climbin' the hill, and I don't see as there's anything to bring him back. I hope the fleas ain't et ye alive."

The boys lowered the ladder as rapidly as their stiff fingers would permit, and a moment later stood on the floor of the room, shaking themselves vigorously.

"Where's Rafael?" demanded Roldan.

"Tucked in his little warm bed with a warmer hide, I guess. The old man caught us in the very act of horse stealin'. Holy smoke, but he did cuss. I ain't got no pride in Yankee cussin' left."

"What did Rafael tell him?" interrupted Roldan, eagerly.

"He told him as how he had made up his mind to go home with you for a little paseo—"

"Did he say nothing about the priest?"

"Nothin'. Never opened his head about the priest—"

"When I'm governor I'll reward him," said Roldan, warmly.

"When you're President of the United States you might make him Secretary of State—"

"But the horses? the horses?"

"They're tethered just over the mountain. I suspicioned the priest might be here, seein' as you were expectin' him, more or less."

"Did Don Tiburcio say about me—us—what you told the priest?"

"He did, and more of it. He was as mad as a bear with a sore head. You see, he hadn't had no peace of mind for some hours, and as for the old lady I believe she's been havin' high strikes regular since breakfast. Now, I'm hospitable, but my advice to you is to git. Like as not the priest'll see old Carriller to-morrow, and then the cat'll come out. I kin git outen it all right enough—I'll say as how the old man didn't see you, that you were restin' on the other side of the wall. Like as not he'll believe me, but he thinks you're pointed fur home, and if he wants you badly, he'll follow. You'd better go South fur a month or so and go home by barque. I'll fetch the horses down now and put them in my shed. That'll rest 'em a bit and keep 'em warm, and then you kin start the minute it's daylight."

"You have been a friend to us in trouble, Don Jim, and I shall never forget it."

"Don't mention it, Rolly, don't mention it. I kinder like excitement, when I ain't the hero, so ter speak. There's only one thing I've got to ask in return: Have you got a grudge agin the priest?"

"I have."

"Be you meditatin' revenge?"

"A Spaniard never forgives an insult."

"Oh, . . . have you got it in yer power to injure Padre Osuna in the sight o' men?"

"I have, and worse—for him."

"Don't do it, young man," said Hill, solemnly. "Don't do it. It ain't worth shucks to ruin a man fur personal spite. You'll find that out the minute you've done it. You'll feel small and mean; and if you want to be a great man—and I kin see you're ambitious—that ain't the way to go to work. Padre Osuna has his faults, but he's a big man; there ain't none bigger in the Californies; and he ain't the man to ruin, without thinkin' a lot about it aforehand."

"He insulted me horribly," said Roldan, shutting his teeth. "I will never respect myself until I wipe out the memory of that moment."

"He lost his temper, I suspicion, and whacked ye, like as not. Well, I'll admit that is hard on a don of your size. But, take my word for it, you'll feel a sight better if you mount the high horse and forgive him, treat him with silent contempt. Nothin' makes you feel as good as that. Tried it myself."

"I must think about it, Don Jim."

"Well, do. And maybe you'll remember that I asked ye as a favour to let the priest off this time. He's been the best friend I ever had, and he's been the friend of many, young 'un."

Roldan stepped forward impulsively and grasped Hill's hand. "I will never speak," he said. "And you can say to Rafael that I wish him never to speak, either. Only, in return, Don Jim, I insist that you do not tell him that I promised you this. He shall not think that I fear him."

"Oh, I ain't goin' to have no conversation with him on the subject. Don't you worry about that. Now, I'll go after the mustangs. You lie down, and when I come back I'll cook that there rabbit for yer. You kin git dinner at the Ortegas', but don't stay there too long, for the priest's mighty sharp."



XXI

The boys were once more adrift in the wilderness. It was with mixed emotions that they said good-bye to the hospitable American and rode forth to new experiences and dangers. They were now tried adventurers; they knew their mettle; they also had a far more definite idea of what danger and experience meant than when they had fled from home with the light heart of ignorance. Roldan felt several years older, and Adan had moments of reflection. Moreover, the fine point of novelty had worn toward bluntness. Nevertheless, they felt no immediate desire to return to leading strings, and were glad of an excuse to pursue their way south. Los Angeles was a famous city, the rival of Monterey,—which neither had seen,—and a fitting climax to an exciting volume. The exact arrangement of that climax was compassed by the imagination of neither.

For two miles they kept in line with the foot-hills, then rode rapidly toward the valley, impatient for its warmth. So far, barring their sojourn in the Sierras, they had been favoured with fine weather; but winter was growing older every day, and the sky was thick and grey this morning.

The Casa Ortega stood on the shores of a large lake. The banks were thickly wooded. On its southern curve was a high mountain. As the boys approached, a vaquero sprang upon a mustang and rode toward them rapidly. Roldan recognised one of the men that had been at the rodeo.

"At your feet, senores," said the vaquero. "The Senor Don is away, and all the family; but I am mayor domo, and in his absence I place the house at your disposal."

"My father will reward you," said Roldan, graciously. "We would ask that you give us dinner, a thick poncho each, for I fear that it will rain before we reach Los Angeles, and that you will direct us which way to go. The ponchos shall be replaced with fine new ones as soon as we have returned home."

"Don Carlos would not hear of the return of the ponchos, senor. But surely the senores will remain a few days, until the storm is over?"

"We dare not. But we will rest; and we have good appetites."

The mayor domo, still protesting, held the horses while the boys dismounted, then showed them to two bedrooms and bade them rest while dinner was preparing. "It will be an hour," he said. "I beg that the senores will sleep."

The boys did sleep, and it was two hours before they were called. Then they ate a steaming dinner, and forgot their fear of the priest: the meagre diet of squirrel and rabbit of the past thirty-six hours had lowered their spirits' temperature.

When they left the room the mayor domo awaited them with two thick woollen ponchos—large squares of cloth with a slit in the middle for the head.

"These will keep the rain out," he said, as he slipped them over the boys' heads. "And there is food for two days in the saddle-bags, and pistols in the holsters. Keep to the right of the lake, and enter the mountains by the horse trail. It winds over the lower ridges. The senores cannot lose themselves, for they should be on the other side before dark—that mountain is the meeting of the two ranges and beyond there are no more for many leagues. Then the senores must keep straight on, straight on—never turning to the left, for that way lies the terrible Mojave desert. By-and-by they will cross a river, and after that Los Angeles is not far. Between the mountain and the river is an hacienda, where they will find welcome for the night."

Roldan thanked him profusely, then said: "I have reasons for not wishing ANY ONE to know that I have not returned to my father's house. I beg that you will tell no one, not even a priest, that we have been here, for three days at least."

"The senor's wishes shall be obeyed. The Senor Don returns not for a week. No one shall know until then of the honour that has been done to his house."

The boys rode rapidly through the wood over a broad road that had evidently been traversed many times. The sky was leaden, but no rain fell. Nor was there any wind. The lake could not have been smoother were it frozen, although it reflected the grey above. Wild ducks and snipe broke its monotony at times, now and again a jungle of tules. In less than an hour the travellers were ascending the mountain by easy grades, a black forest of pines about them. It was darker here, but the road was clearly defined, and they talked gaily of adventures past and to come. In Los Angeles they had many relatives, and they knew that a royal welcome would be given them. They would see the gay life of which they had heard so much from their brothers; and they magnanimously resolved that after a week of it they would return to their anxious parents.

"Ay!" exclaimed Adan, interrupting these pleasant anticipations, "it rains at last."

A few drops fell; then the rain came with a rush. For some time the wind had been rising; suddenly it seemed to leap upward to meet the emptying clouds, then filled the pine-tops with a great roar, rattling the hard branches, bending the slender trunks. The boys were on the down grade, and there was no danger of losing the path, although the rain had put out the sallow flame of the sun. They pricked their horses and made the descent as rapidly as possible. But it was another hour before they were on level ground once more. The rain was still falling in torrents; the wind flung it in their eyes as fast as they dashed it from their lashes. They could not see a yard ahead. The light of the hacienda was nowhere visible. If its owner was away from home and his house in darkness, then was their plight a sorry one indeed.

"There is only one thing to do," said Roldan, putting his hand funnel-wise to Adan's ear. "We must keep due south until we come to the river. Then, at least, we cannot go wrong."

"And that river we must cross!" said Adan, with a groan. "Dios de mi alma!"

Roldan had great faith in his sense of locality, but in a blinding rain on a black night with a mighty wind roaring inside one's very skull, and whirling the heavy poncho about one's ears every few moments, it was difficult to preserve any sense at all. They galloped on, however, occasionally pausing to shout, straining their eyes into the darkness on every side. But nothing came back to eye or ear. Apparently they had the wilderness to themselves. There was no sign of even an Indian pueblo.

It was during one of these halts that the boys ejaculated simultaneously: "The river!"

"No," shouted Roldan, a moment later "it is only a creek."

"Are we lost?" demanded Adan; and even the loud tone had a note of pained resignation in it.

"No; I think this must be what he meant. Some of the low people say river for everything but the ocean. It is shallow, and we cannot turn back. Come."

They rode along the bank until they came to an easy slope, then crossed, and cantered on. In a very short time the storm was behind them and the stars burst out, but there was no sign of habitation. They kept on for an hour longer, hoping for a welcome twinkle below; but not even a coyote crossed their path. As far as they could see in the starlight they were on a plain of illimitable reach, bare but for low shrubs whose kind they could not determine, although once Adan's coat caught on a prickly surface. The atmosphere was warm and very dry.

Finally Roldan reined in.

"We must rest," he said, "and build a fire, or we shall be stiff to-morrow. And it is long past the hour for supper."

"The sooner we eat and sleep and dry, the better for me," said Adan.

The boys dismounted and tied their horses to a palm, then looked about for firewood. There was not a tree to be seen; they had not passed one since they left the creek. Nor could they see any sign of flint with which they might set fire to a clump of palms.

Adan, who had been on his knees, suddenly remarked: "There is not a blade of grass, Roldan. What will the mustangs do?"

"They are eating the palm, perhaps that will do them until to-morrow. But the poor things must be as hungry as twenty. Come, let us strip, hang our things up, and run. The water is in my bones."

The boys peeled off the clinging steaming garments and ran up and down until hunger sent them to the saddle bags. The mayor domo had provided them abundantly, and once more they looked upon the world with hopeful eyes.

"But we must sleep," said Roldan, "and it is not going to be easy for mind or body—if there are rattlers about—with no fire. We must take it in turns. It is warm; we do not need our clothes—ah!"—for Adan was snoring.

Roldan was very tired but not sleepy. His brain, indeed, seemed unusually alert, and he got up after a time and prowled about, pistol in hand. He had been in solitudes before, solitude of plain and valley and mountain; but there was something in his present surroundings that reminded him of nothing he had heard of or seen. It was not only the intense stillness, unbroken by so much as the flutter of a leaf, nor even the vast expanse. The place seemed to possess a character of its own, and its character was sinister and forbidding. Once or twice he had been in the cemetery of the Mission near his father's rancho, and the ugly feeling that he stood too close to death came back to him; why, he could not define. There was no sign of a cross anywhere; but he felt that he stood in a dead world, nevertheless. Once the ground quivered beneath his feet, and the horrible idea occurred to him that Southern California had been swallowed by an earthquake, and that only this desolation was left.

He went back to his comrade, who slept soundly beside the horses, also extended and breathing deeply. It was nearly morning when he woke Adan, so little aptitude had his brain for sleep. But when Adan sat up he fell asleep almost immediately, and when he awoke the sun was high.



XXII

Roldan raised himself on his elbow and looked about him. Adan was some quarter of a mile away, approaching him, leading the mustangs. Cleaving the horizon on four sides was a vast plain. On it was not a tree, nor even a hut. Here and there were clumps of palms and cacti, as stark as if cut from pale green stone. At vast intervals were short, isolated mountains, known in the vernacular as "buttes." On the ground was not the withered remnant of a blade of grass; but there were many fissures, and some of them were deep and wide. Of the things that crawl and scamper and fly there was no sign, not even a hole in the ground; for even reptiles must have food to eat, and there was nothing here to sustain man nor beast. The fleckless sky was a deep, hot blue; a blood-red sun toiled heavily toward the zenith.

"Adan!" shouted Roldan; he was suddenly mad for sound of any sort. A discouraged "Halloa!" came promptly back.

Roldan dressed himself rapidly. His clothes were quite dry; indeed the very atmosphere of this strange beautiful place was so dry that it seemed to crumble in the nostrils. As he finished dressing Adan reached him. The horses' heads were hanging listlessly. Adan's face had lost its ruddy colour.

"Roldan," he said, "where are we?"

"I know not," said Roldan, setting his lips.

"I left you to look for water, and there are not even tarantulas in this accursed place. There is no water, not a drop. Nor a handful of stubble for the horses."

"We must go back the way we came, and start once more from the foot of the mountain."

"Can you remember from which point we entered this place? This soil might be rock; there is not a hoof-print anywhere."

"We should have gone south and we came east. On the northwestern horizon is something which looks like mountains—a long range—almost buried in mist. There is no sign of a range anywhere else; so the only thing to do is to go back to them; they are our mountains; I feel sure of that."

"If the horses do not give out. They are empty and choking, poor things. Well, there is no reason we should not eat, and, thanks be to that good mayor domo, we still have a bottle of wine. But I would give something for a gourd of water. However, we have not been girls yet, and we will not begin now, my friend."

The boys ate their breakfast, but their spirits felt little lighter, even after a long draught of wine. The awful quiet of the place, broken only by an occasional whinny from the mustangs, seemed to press hard about them, thickening the blood in their veins. Roldan was filled with forebodings he could not analyse, and strove to coax forth from its remote brain-cell something that had wandered in, he could not recall when nor where.

They saddled the mustangs, mounted, and were about to make for the northwest when Adan gave a hoarse gurgle, caught Roldan's arm, pulled him about, and pointed with shaking hand to the south.

"Dios de mi alma!" exclaimed Roldan. "It is Los Angeles. We were right, after all. But why were we never told that it was so beautiful?"

On the southern horizon, half veiled in pale blue mist, showed a stately city, with domes and turrets and spires and many lofty cathedrals. It was a white city; there were no red tiles to break those pure and lovely lines, to blotch that radiant whiteness; even the red sun withheld its angry shafts.

Roldan gazed, his lips parting, his breath coming quickly. If his imagination had ever attempted to picture heaven, its wildest flight would have resembled but fallen short of that living beauty before him. It was mystifying, exalting. It was worth the dangers and discomforts of the past month multiplied by twelve, just to have one moment's glimpse of such perfection. And it was Los Angeles! A city of the Californias, built by Indian hands! No wonder his family had been careful to leave its wonders out of the table talk; had he known, he would have been at its feet long since.

"It isn't the wine?" asked Adan, feebly.

"No. There must have been a fog before; Los Angeles is near the sea."

"Shall we start?"

"Yes, but slowly. The poor mustangs! But it will not be long now. We cannot be more than two leagues from there. See, it grows plainer every moment; the fog must have been very heavy."

They cantered on slowly, the mustangs responding automatically to the light prick of the spur. The beautiful alluring city looked to be floating in cloud; it smiled and beckoned, inciting even the weary famished brutes to effort. But at the end of an hour Roldan reined in with a puzzled expression. "I do not understand," he said. "It seemed not two leagues away when we started, and we have come that far and more, and still it seems exactly the same distance beyond."

"The atmosphere is so clear," suggested Adan. "But I wish we were there. My mouth is parched, my tongue is dry—and the horses, Roldan. Soon they will be as limp as sails in a calm."

"True, but we could easily walk the distance now. We could return for them at once with water and food." But he was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy once more. The odd sensation of death, of a buried world, had returned. Could it be that that fair city beyond was heaven? Surely, he thought with unconscious humour, it was very un-Californian.

They passed the lonely buttes, the parched beds of lakes, salt-coated. Still they saw not a living thing; still the city seemed to recede with the horizon, its sharp beautiful outlines unchanged. For some time the horses had been trotting unevenly. Gradually they relaxed into a dogged amble, their heads down, their tongues out. Every now and again they half paused, with quivering knees.

Adan's was the first to collapse; it fell to its knees, then rolled over, Adan scrambling from under, unhurt.

Roldan also dismounted, and both boys, without a word, unsaddled the poor brutes, thrust the pistols into their belts and what was left of the provisions into their pockets. They cast off their ponchos, then once more turned their faces to the south. But they did not advance. They stood with distended eyes and suspended breath. The city had disappeared.

Adan was the first to find speech. "A fog?" he asked. "A rain storm?"

"There is neither. The horizon is as blue and clear as it is on the north and east and west. It is a miracle. Let me think a moment."

He sat down and took his head between his hands. After a while he looked up. "For hours I have been trying to remember something," he said. "Do you remember what that mayor domo said to us?—Keep straight on, straight on, never turning to the left, for that way lies the terrible Mojave desert, I barely heard his last words at the time; that is the reason I have had such a time remembering. We are in the Mojave desert, my friend."

Adan, whose mouth was still wide open, sat down and rolled his eyes from east to west. "Caramba!" he ejaculated finally.

"I could say a good deal more than Caramba. All that I have heard of this Mojave comes back to me. There is no water on it, no living thing but half choked cacti and stunted palms. Men who are lost on it go mad and die of thirst—"

"Ay, yi, yi!"

"Si, senor. However, it might be much worse. It is winter, not summer,—when the heat kills in a day; we have food and a little wine; we are young and very strong; we have not come so many leagues that we cannot walk back. And we have each other. Think, were we alone!"

"Yes, it might be worse," said Adan, "but all the same it might be six or eight leagues to the northwest better. And that city? What was it? Where has it gone?"

"I do not know." Privately he believed that it had been a glimpse of heaven, and was disturbed lest it might have been a portent of death. But his mind was too active, his nature too independent to sit down under superstition. If he died on the desert, it would not be through lack of effort to get out of it.

He stood up, setting his lips. "Come," he said. "We gain nothing by sitting here, and we are both fresh; we can walk many leagues before night."

"Do you know which way to go?" asked Adan.

Roldan swept the horizon with his eyes. The buttes they had passed had displaced the solitary landmark of the morning. There was not a hoof-beat on the hard split ground. Roldan shrugged his shoulders.

"We can at least follow the sun. Los Angeles must be due west. Come."

The sun was past the zenith and sloping to the west. The boys turned their backs upon it and trudged on, only pausing once for a half-hour to divide the meagre remains of their store. Evening came; the sun leaned his elbows on the horizon in front of them, leered at the contracted visages and blinking eyes resolutely facing him, then slid leisurely down; and night came suddenly. The boys flung themselves on the ground and slept.

They awoke consumed with hunger and thirst. Their mouths and nostrils were coated with the fine irritating dust of the desert, scarcely visible but always felt. But their smarting eyes were greeted by a refreshing sight: not a half-league before them, directly in their course, was a lake, a lake as blue as the metallic sky above, and lightly fringed with palms and orange-trees. Beyond was a forest of silver leaves—an olive orchard.

"A Mission!" exclaimed Roldan, and even Adan sprang to his feet and marched westward with some enthusiasm. But alas! although they trudged with dogged persistence for fully a league, striving to forget the gnawing at their vitals in the exquisite prospect filling the eye, the lake seemed to march ahead of them, in perfect time with their weary feet. Suddenly the two boys paused and faced each other.

"This accursed desert is bewitched," said Roldan. His face was white, but more with anger than fear; for the first time in his life he realised the helplessness of man when at the mercy of nature, and he did not like the sensation. He had a strong, and by this time, well developed instinct to govern, to bend others to his will, and he swore now that he would walk out of this desert unharmed if only for the pleasure of cheating a force mightier than himself. He turned and looked at the sun.

"We have been going in a wrong direction," he said. "That lake has been shifting gradually toward the southwest, and taken us nearly a league out of our course. The first thing we know we will be in Baja California, where there is nothing but deserts, and they are all on mountain tops. We must strike north again. I am sure that last night we were due west of Los Angeles."

"But the lake? the Mission?"

"I do not believe there is any lake. There are things you and I do not understand in this world—although we are learning—and I believe that this strange desert has the power to make scenes like the theatres they who have travelled tell us of. Be sure that lake will disappear like the city."

They turned north in order to get in line with the sun; and out of the tail of their eyes they saw the lake march with them. When they finally turned to the west again it faced them once more. They linked arms suddenly and trudged on, hungry, parched, beset by superstitious fears, but not forgetting to turn every half hour and glance at the sun until he passed the meridian and pointed for the west. And suddenly the lake seemed to slip behind a wall.

"There is really something there this time," said Roldan, closing one eye and curving his hand about the other. "It is ugly enough to be real. It is no use to say how far anything is in this place, but I should think we would reach it before long."

And long before they did reach it they knew what it was—a thicket of cacti some two miles long and of unknown depth. The plants were eight or ten feet high, and the broad thick leaves, spiked, as only the leaves of the cactus are, looked to be welded together. But that was from a distance. When the boys reached the thicket they saw that the plants in reality were some feet apart, although there appeared to be no end to them. The boys sat down suddenly, their strength deserting them. They threw their arms forward on their knees and dropped their heads. For a half hour or more they sat motionless, then Roldan looked up and fixed his glassy eyes on the forbidding wall, which at close proximity seemed to girt the horizon.

"If we tried to go round it," he said, "there is no knowing where we should find ourselves. We had better go straight ahead, if possible. If it is too thick we can turn back."

"At least we could not see this horrible desert for a while," said Adan. "I am willing."

"And, who knows? Los Angeles may be just on the other side."

Their utterance was thick. Their veins felt as if packed with lead, not so much from need of food as need of drink. But they stumbled to their feet and entered the cactus forest. They were obliged to pursue their way in single file; the spikes were long, and many of the larger leaves abutted so obstructively that they were obliged to go down on their hands and knees and crawl. Nor could they maintain a straight course, but zig-zagged among the great plants as nature permitted. More than once they heard the rip of silk, more than once blood sprang through their skin. Their progress was slow and fraught with peril, their only consolation that the end must come sooner or later.

Night came suddenly. They were near an open a few feet in circumference. They lay down side by side, knowing that a step at night might mean instant blindness.

The cactus never moves, not even in a storm. There was not a breath of wind to-night. The thick dull green plant-trees looked as solid as stone, a petrified forest. The sky had never seemed so high above, the stars so hard and bright.

Adan moistened his lips with his tongue. "Do you feel that you can last another day?" he asked.

"I expect to die of old age."

"Well, if you do, it won't be the fault of the Mojave desert. You have courage, and so have I; but this is worse than all—Do you feel that?"

"I have felt it many times before, to-day. It is said that parts of the Mojave shake all the time."

"We can swear to that. Supposing a great shake came, how could we get out of this?"

"We are as well here as anywhere. Let us sleep, and rise with the sun."

But although he spoke confidently, almost contemptuously, he was possessed with a wild desire to spring to his feet and fight his way out of this terrible prison. He had seen a huge fish flounder in a net, and looked on callously. He should never witness such another sight without a responsive thrill of horror. Were he paralysed from crown to heel he could not be more helpless in this thicket of needles. The vast unpeopled desert had been bad enough, but it had been intoxicating liberty to this. Tired as he was, he moved his hands and feet constantly; supineness was impossible. He wondered how men felt when in prison, and vowed that when he held the law in his hands he would invent some other way of punishment. For his part he would rather be shot at once.

Being young and healthy, he fell asleep after a time. When he awoke the sky was grey, the stars had gone. He shook Adan.

"There is no sunrise to be seen from this place," he said, "but I am sure of the direction now. I took note of that big cactus ahead, last night—Hist!"

"Dios de mi alma!" whispered Adan, his tongue rolling out. "In this place! It is worse than earthquake."

Nothing was to be seen from where they stood, but from no great distance came the faint hollow rattle which strikes terror to man in the wilderness. The volume of sound was suddenly augmented: there appeared to be a duet. Immediately it was supplemented by a loud furious hissing; a moment later by a whirr and impact.

"There are two, and they are fighting," whispered Adan, his eyes bulging.

Roldan advanced softly to an aperture between two leaves of a cactus, then lifted his finger to his shoulder and beckoned. Adan turned mechanically in the opposite direction; but curiosity overcame him, and he joined Roldan.

Between two plants not three feet apart two rattlesnakes were engaged in mortal combat. They coiled with incredible rapidity, flew at each other with burning eyes and darting tongues, burying a fang somewhere in the tense bristling armours. The lashing tails struck the spiked surface of the cactus and augmented their fury; occasionally they whipped about, hissing deliriously, then returning as swiftly to the only enemy in sight. They had coiled and struck some four or five times, whipping all over their narrow arena, when as if by common consent, they retreated to extreme opposite points, coiled as lightning strikes, and leapt at each other. Even Roldan gave a hoarse cry of surprise, and as for Adan, he fell into vocabulary: one serpent had darted straight down the throat of the other. For a moment there was a fearful lashing. The choking serpent, with protruding eyes, like small green coals, and jaws distended in agony, strove to dislodge his suffocating enemy, and the other humped his back and leapt backward in frantic efforts to reach the air again. But suddenly their struggles ceased; they flattened to the ground, only the tails moving automatically. What was left looked like a monster of some unknown species; a creature with no head, a huge belly, and two tails.

"Caramba!" exclaimed Adan, "I could not eat that even if we had anything to cook it with. It looks like a mass of poison."

"I should like to know where that poison was last night. It may be a good sign, however: as they are the first living things we have seen, we may be near to the edge of the desert."

Adan crossed himself.

"Come," continued Roldan, "let us move on, before hunger tempts us too far."

Once more they started on their tortuous way. They walked very slowly, both from necessity and inclination: the excitement of the fight over, their physical necessities pressed heavily; they kept as close together as they could, but rarely spoke: they were too hungry. Both were oppressed by the fear that at any minute they would come upon a solid wall of cacti and be obliged to retrace their steps, and both knew that might mean a stunning blow to courage. At times the constant zig-zagging, the unalterable, smooth, grey-green surface of the cacti, made them halt dizzily, for both brain and body were sick for want of food. But by degrees the wood grew thinner and thinner; and when the sun was half way between the zenith and the western horizon, they left behind the last straggling outpost and found themselves on the edge of a creek, the same doubtless that they had crossed three nights before. They gave each other a feeble simultaneous slap on the back, gathered their energies, ran down the bank, and took a long draught of the running water.

"I feel better," said Roldan, finally, "but hungrier than ever. There are quail in that chaparral over there. I'll go after them, and do you hunt for flint and build a fire."

He crossed the creek and entered the brush beyond. Almost simultaneously there was a loud whirr of wings, and a large flock of quail rose from the chaparral a few feet ahead of him. He had only his pistols, but he was a good shot, and he decapitated two of the birds in rapid succession. Then he reloaded and killed a squirrel. When he returned, Adan was on his knees, with his large cheeks distended, coaxing a handful of dried leaves and twigs into flame. It was a half hour before the pyre was large enough for the sacrifice, but after that the birds and squirrel, which meanwhile had been skinned and washed in the creek, were but a short time singeing. It was an ill-cooked meal, but when it was over Roldan said solemnly,—

"I have eaten of all the delicious dishes of the Californias, including many dulces, but nothing ever tasted as good as this; no, not even the first breakfast at Casa Encarnacion."

"Nor to me," said Adan, emphatically, and he crossed himself.



XXIII

"Hallo!" shouted a peremptory voice. "Hallo! Hallo!"

"It's the Senor Jim," gasped Adan.

Roldan sprang to his feet. "Hallo!" he cried.

There was a heavy trampling in the chaparral, and a moment later Hill rode into view. He took off his sombrero and waved it at the boys, but did not speak until he had crossed the creek and dismounted. Then he turned and regarded them with his keen hard eyes.

"Well!" he exclaimed, "I never calkilated to see you alive agin, and that's a fact. Hed some more adventures, I presume. Look as if ye'd hed more adventures than grub."

"Indeed we have, Don Jim," said Roldan, solemnly. "Should you like to hear them?"

"Should I? Well, I guess. You and your adventures have kinder made me feel young once more."

Roldan told the painful story.

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Hill, in conclusion, "you are tough! And two mirages in the bargain. I was lost on Mojave once, and to my mind the mirages was the wust part of the hull game."

"What do you mean?" asked Roldan. "What are mirages?"

"Mirages, Rolly, are what ought to be and ain't, what you want and can't git, and they bear a hell-fired resemblance to life. I see you don't quite understand. Well, that there beautiful city and that there beautiful lake was what we call mirage for want of better name!" And he explained to them the meaning of the phenomenon, as far as he understood it.

"We have certainly learned a good deal since we left home," said Roldan, thoughtfully.

"There's room for more. There's room for more. Now, I suppose you'd like to know how I come here. Wall, I've got a confession to make fust, and seein' as you've been so nigh to death in the last few days, p'r'aps you'll furgive me. The day after you left I went down to see the priest, as agreed. I found him—well, I don't know as I'll tell everything, not even to excuse myself. It's enough to say that he was half luny between fear and remorse. He told me—I suppose he'd got to that state where he had to tell somebody or bust—about leavin' you in the tunnel to die, and bein' willin' after to kill you with his own hands—he was that mad. But he felt terrible sorry, and said that if you told on him it would serve him right; only that would mean ruin—ruin—ruin—a terrible word, young man. And he's not a day over forty and calkilates to git out of Californy with that there gold and be a big-bug in his native land. I hesitated some time, fur I ain't no slouch at keepin' a promise; but in the end I had to tell him. Why, a man's a criminal if he don't put another man out of misery when he kin—"

"You did quite right," interrupted Roldan. "I am glad that he was punished, but I would not have any one punished for ever."

"Well, I'm glad you feel that way. He felt good, I kin tell you that. He looked ten years younger in five minutes, for he said as how he knew you'd keep your word. I went straight off and managed to have a word with young Carrillo. It warnt no trouble to make him promise to keep his mouth shet; he's more afraid of the priest than he is of his father's green-hide lariat, and that's sayin' a heap. When I went back to the Mission I told the priest that I thought as how I'd go on to Ortega's, and see if you got there all right. When I got there and heard as how you hed crossed the mountains in a terrible storm I just hed to go on. I made straight for old Sanchez', who has a hacienda and raises grapes just this side of the river. He was drunk as usual, but his servants hedn't seen nothin' of you, and then I was seriously alarmed. That was at night, and I couldn't do nothin' until daylight, so I got a good sleep and the next mornin' I started for Mojave. I know it pretty well, and there was no danger of gittin' lost. At nightfall I found your horses and ponchos—the horses was dead, poor things. I slept on the desert that night, and the next mornin' rode back as hard as I could put, suspicionin' that you would have sense enough to strike west. I went round the corner of that there cactus wood, never thinkin' ye were in it, and I expect I got well to this side before you was out. When I got to this creek I rode up and down it, then crossed over, thinkin' ye might hev gone on. It was only when I saw smoke that I said to myself for the fust time: 'There they be.' And you bet it did me good, for I was powerful worried."

"Don Jim," said Roldan, "you are a kind and good man. I love you, and I will always be your friend."

"So. Well, I'm powerful glad to hear that. You ain't much like 'Merican kids, but you're pretty clever all the same, and I like ye better 'n any boy I ever know'd, hanged if I don't. Don't be jealous, sonny"—to Adan—"I like ye too—but Rolly—well!"

"You would not like Roldan half so well if it were not for me," said Adan, whose face expressed nothing.

"So. Well. Now, be ye rested? We want to git to old Sanchez' fur a good supper and a soft bed to-night."

The boys rose with alacrity. Hill bade them mount his powerful horse, and walked beside them.

Sanchez' house was only three miles away, but the road lay through chaparral which sprang across in many places. It was heavy dusk when they emerged. For some time past they had heard wild eccentric cries, and their three pistols were cocked. As they rode through a grove of trees beyond the chaparral, they saw a dark something rolling toward them. In an instant Hill had snatched the boys from the horse and swung them to the limb of a tree.

"Hide yourselves among the leaves," he said, "and don't even breathe mor' 'n you kin help."

He gave the horse a sharp cut with his switch and it galloped on; then he climbed a neighbouring tree with the agility of a wildcat, and crouched.

The boys gazed into the dusk with distended eyes. The cloud came on with inconceivable rapidity. In a moment it outlined itself. Those were living creatures, fleeing. A stampede? No, men. . . . What? Indians?

They were within a hundred yards now, and their lithe naked forms, the tomahawks and bows and arrows gripped in their clenched hands, could plainly be seen; a moment later, their evil faces, distorted with fear. In the middle distance behind them was a huge column of fire. A strange figure seemed leaping among the flames. It was from this scarlet column that the strange noises came. The Indians made no sound beyond their impact with the atmosphere.

They deflected suddenly and passed to the right of the grove; a moment later the three in ambush heard them crashing through the brush. Hill waited until the sound had grown faint in the distance before he swung himself down and helped the boys to the ground.

"That was a close shave," he said. "Them was murderin' savages, no weak-kneed Mission variety. I'd give two cents to know what scared 'em and what's goin' on over yonder. They were on the rampage, which same means thievin' and killin', or my name ain't Jim Hill."

"We're used to Indians," said Adan, with gentle pride.

"Oh, be ye? Well, if them Indians had caught you fryin' your supper, you'd have got as well acquainted with the next world in just about three quarters of an hour. Well, we've all got to foot it now; but it ain't far. I'm powerful anxious to know what's goin' on over to Sanchez'! Mebbe two tribes met and them's the victors offerin' up the tail end of that there valiant army. Golly Moroo, but they did look scared."

They walked on rapidly, but without further conversation; they were all hungry, and the boys were still very fagged. As they approached the blazing mass, the figure seemed to leap more wildly still among the flames, the cries to grow hoarser and more grotesque. All about was heavy blackness. The slender branches of the burning pine writhed and hissed; they might have been a pyramid of rattlesnakes caught in spouting flame. Overhead the stars had disappeared beyond a heavy cloud of smoke. It was a sight to strike terror to the heart of civilised man; small wonder that the superstitious children of the mountain and desert had fled in panic.

They had advanced a few yards farther when suddenly Hill flung himself on the ground and gave vent to a series of hysterical yells, at the same time rolling over and over, clutching at the grass. Roldan, seriously alarmed, and wondering if any other boys in the history of the Californias had ever had so much to try their nerves, ran to his assistance; he caught him by his lean shoulders, and shook him soundly.

"Don Jim! Don Jim!" he exclaimed. "Are you ill, my friend? You have some whisky in your flask, no?"

At this Hill burst into a loud guffaw. Roldan and Adan looked at each other helplessly. The Spanish do not laugh often, and although the boys dimly realised that Hill's explosion resembled—remotely—the dignified concession of their race to the ridiculous, yet they feared that this was a diseased and possibly fatal variety.

But in a moment Hill sat up. He wiped his eyes, and with some difficulty controlled his voice.

"No, I ain't ill, young 'uns," he said. "But them Indians 'ud be pretty sick if they knowed what they run from. That there object cavortin' round that there bonfire is old Sanchez, and he's drunk. Oh, Lord!" And once more Hill gave way to mirth.

"He did more good than harm to get drunk this time," said Roldan, smiling sympathetically.

"You're right, Rolly. You've got a long head. If old Sanchez had set down to supper sober to-night, there'd be a war-dance round another bonfire this minute, and his scalp 'ud be bobbin' bravely. I don't approve of liquor," he added cautiously, remembering the young ideas shooting before him. "I only said that there be exceptions to all rules, and this is one of them."

"I understand," said Roldan, drily. "I am not thinking of following the Senor Sanchez' example. But do you suppose that was really what frightened the Indians?"

"Just. Well, I guess! They've probably got some idee of the devil, and they thought that was him, sure 's fate."

He sprang to his feet, ran forward, caught the bacchanalian about the shoulders, and rushed him in the direction of the dimly-looming house, throwing one of his own long legs into the air every now and again. The boys ran after. When they reached the house its master was extended on a settee in the living-room, and Hill was telling the tale of their narrow escape to the frightened household.

"I don't think they'll come back," he said in conclusion. "But it's jest as well to have your guns ready, and for one or two of ye to set up all night. We three'd like grub and beds as quick as you kin git 'em ready."

Never had beds felt so sweet as they did that night. The boys awoke refreshed, themselves again; and no Indians had returned to disturb their slumbers.



XXIV

Hill met them as they entered the living-room. His eyes were full of news.

"Well, boys," he said, "I don't know that you're in fur another adventure, but ye kin call it by that name when you git home if you like; leastways there ain't no doubt about it's bein' an experience."

The boys forgot the waiting breakfast. "What is it?" they demanded simultaneously. "Quick! quick!"

"It's this. I don't suppose you know more about the history of your country 'n most kids do. Well, Alvarado and General Castro are your two big men—"

"We know that," interrupted Roldan, scornfully.

"Oh, you do? Then mebbe you know who'se govenor at the present moment."

"Micheltorena. He was sent from Mexico. People don't like him, and they despise the men he brought with him, still more."

"So. Well, I allus did say you was a remarkable kid, Rolly. However, this is the way the case stands now. Alvarado's mad as hops to be ousted for a furriner, so to speak, and Castro's been bilin' fur some time, because General Vallejo's been promoted ahead of him. So the two on 'em determined on a revolution. They had a skirmish on Salinas plains that didn't decide much, and then Alvarado and Castro marched south, from ranch to ranch,—you just levanted in time,—persuadin' the rancheros to uphold their cause and give 'em their sons. As they have a way with 'em, of course they got all the recruits they wanted, to say nothin' of the finest horses in stock—caponara after caponara. They say the sight when they marched into Los Angeles was somethin' to go hungry for. Of course all Los Angeles went over to such triumphant lookin' rebels, and to-day or to-morrow there's goin' to be a big battle. I only heard this mornin'. Old Sanchez' brother come post haste about two hours ago fur his gun and as many men and horses as he could drum up. Of course Alvarado marched down the coast valleys, so old Carillo and his neighbours are eatin' their breakfast in blissful ignorance."

"And shall we really see a great battle?" demanded Roldan, faintly. He was pale, his nostrils were twitching, "Alvarado! Castro! Micheltorena!"

"Well, you kin, if you bolt that there breakfast. The horses'll be here in about twenty minutes, and a battle's somethin' I'm pinin' to see, too."

The boys ate their breakfast rapidly and in silence. A half hour later they were galloping furiously for Los Angeles, escorted by the equally enthusiastic Hill. The river was low and quiet. The horses swam it without let from tide or snag. Even Adan forgot to cross himself. Beyond was the high hill that lies directly to the north of Los Angeles. Its surface seemed in motion; it looked like a huge ant-hill.

"Them's women," said Hill, a few moments after they had left the river behind them. "Women and children. The fight must be on. Hist! Do you hear that?"

All three reined in. The sound of cannonading, distant but distinct, came to their ears. Without a word they lashed their mustangs and made for the city. They entered it in a few moments. It looked like a necropolis. Not a human being was to be seen. They spurred back to the hill and began the ascent, then paused for a few moments. It was a wild and tragic scene. Hundreds of women and children, their hair streaming in the high wind, were kneeling with uplifted crosses, praying aloud, when they were not weeping. A few men, Americans, were passing to and fro among them, administering encouragement; but their gaze also was directed anxiously to the north.

Hill dismounted and approached one of the Americans, conferred with him a moment, then returned to the impatient boys.

"They are fightin' in the San Fernando valley, three leagues to the north," he said. "We've got no time to lose."

They were less than an hour reaching the battlefield. During that hour Roldan scarcely knew how he felt. When he left the hacienda he was possessed by an intense curiosity only; but with that first dull boom something new and fierce had leapt to life within him. Every few moments his fingers moved round to the hip-pocket that held his pistols. The weeping women and children had made him quiver from head to foot. As they approached the battlefield, and powder-smoke mingled with the green fragrance of winter, he thought that his nostrils would burst. His ear-drums were splitting with the thunder of cannon. Suddenly Hill caught him by the arm.

"Look!" he cried. "There be Alvarado and Castro over there, and Micheltorena on t' other side. Ain't they magnificent specimens? Why, what's the matter?"

"Let me go!" said Roldan. His face was deeply flushed, his eyes blazed. "Come, Adan! come, Adan!" he shouted. "An Alvarado! an Alvarado!"

"Holy smoke!" cried Hill. "You don't say you're meanin' to fight after sweatin' fur a month to git clear of the hull business?"

But Roldan, grasping the bridle of the less enthusiastic Adan, was already far ahead. The boys rode straight into the melee, firing through the smoke until their ammunition was exhausted. Even Adan after the first few moments lost all sense of fear, and following Roldan's example, snatched the gun from a fallen soldier and fired and reloaded until his hands were blistered, and his eyes half sightless with smoke.

Roldan, obeying his dominant instinct, pushed his way rapidly to the front, attracting much attention. Some one recognised him, and during one of the many pauses of this not very systematic and furious battle some one cheered the little don. The cheer was taken up vociferously. It boomed across the battlefield. A moment later a man came dashing across with a flag of truce: the cheering was supposed by the enemy to herald the advance of reinforcements. The truce was accepted without explanations, and Roldan was hurried into the presence of Alvarado. That famous governor was sitting on a magnificent charger, caparisoned with carved leather, red velvet, silver, and gold. His black eyes were smiling, although the rest of his pale stern face was composed.

"So this is the runaway," he said. "I demanded you from your father, and he was much embarrassed to confess that you had fled to escape the conscription. Well, I am glad you did, for you have saved the day for me. But it is time you were in Monterey, for you've got the face of the leader of men, and the sooner your education begins the better. Will you come with me? Your father will not refuse."

The blood was pounding in Roldan's ears, but he managed to reply calmly that he would go.

He was then presented to General Castro, a man of fine military bearing, with classic features, but dark and stern. His eyes were as sombre as Alvarado's: doubtless both knew that their day would be short, their great gifts wasted in this far-away land, as remote from the great civilisations where lasting reputations are made as had it been on another planet.

He shook Roldan warmly by the hand, but he did not smile.

"Yes," he said, "it will be a pleasure to train you; and as you are young and malleable you will adapt yourself to the new order of things when it comes. Both Alvarado and I will write to your father; I am sure he will send you to us in Monterey."

And then they graciously dismissed him.

As the boys left the battlefield they came upon Hill, who was sitting on a hillock eating a sandwich. When Roldan had told his story the American replied:

"Shake! Rolly, you've got a heap o' genius, but you've got a durned sight more luck. You'll git there—one way or nother—if the skies fall. And I wish ye luck, I do for a fact."

"Don Jim," said Roldan, gravely, "have you another sandwich? We are very hungry."

THE END