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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3501.U88I8 
 
 Isidro. 
 
 3 1924 022 241 677 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022241677 
 
^aakii &p iilarp 'S.uetin 
 
 ISIDRO. Illustrated by Eric Papc. i2mo, f 1.50. 
 THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN. California Sketches. 
 
 With illustrations by E. Boyd Smith. 8vo, $2.00, mi. 
 
 Postage, 24 cents. 
 
 THE BASKET WOMAN. Square i2mo, Ji. 50. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 Boston and New York. 
 
ISIDEO 
 
HE HAD COME UPON HIM SUDDENLY (,page I 
 
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 ISIDRO 
 
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 MARY AUSTIN 
 
 
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 ILLUSTRATED BY ERIC PARE 
 
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 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 TO! 
 
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 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS, CAMBRIDGE 
 1905 
 
 
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 TO 
 
 ^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ "i^ 
 
COPYRIGHT 1904 BY MAKY AUSTIN 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published April iqoi 
 
DEDICATED AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 TO MY BROTHER 
 
 JAMES MILO HUNTER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. In which Isidko seeks his Foetunb 1 
 
 II. No^ AisTD Reina Mabia ... 14 
 
 III. The Hut of the Grapevine . 27 
 
 IV. The Father President ... 43 
 V. Ysabel 59 
 
 VI. The Briar 73 
 
 VII. The Road to Cabmblo . . 87 
 
 VIII. Mascado 101 
 
 IX. In which Nothing in ParticuiiAr 
 
 Happens 113 
 
 X. The Arrest 127 
 
 XI. The Quest of Juan Ruiz . . 140 
 
 Xn. The Place of Wolates . . . 152 
 
 XIII. Dblfina 164 
 
 Xrv. Las Chimineas 179 
 
 XV. The Rescue 195 
 
 XVI. Isidbo comes to a Conclusion . . 215 
 
 XVII. A Wedding at San Antonio . 236 
 
 XVIII. A Cold Trail 251 
 
 XIX. The Capture 271 
 
 XX. In which jAcrtiTTA rides to Monterey 287 
 vii 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A Meeting 
 
 304 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A WOED FROM THE MOUNTAINS . 
 
 322 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Hidden Watees .... 
 
 336 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 The T/Apy's Second FlighI? 
 
 352 
 
 XXV. 
 
 In which Mascado hears News . 
 
 367 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 FOEEST FlEE .... 
 
 381 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Aeeoyo Seco 
 
 395 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 The End op the Teail 
 
 411 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGK 
 
 He had come upon him stnoDENXT (page 33) 
 
 Frontisjnece 
 
 " Go IN PEACE, MY SON " 136 
 
 " Mend tour fibe, Mascado " . . . . 190 
 "That I should serve God — and tou" . 422 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 I 
 
 IN WHICH ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FORTUNE 
 
 T was the year of our Lord 18 — , 
 and the spring coming on lustily, 
 when the younger son of Antonio 
 Escobar rode out to seek his fortune, 
 singing lightly to the jingle of his bit and 
 bridle rein, as if it were no great matter for 
 a man with good Castilian blood in him, and 
 his youth at high tide, to become a priest ; 
 rode merrily, in factj as if he already saw 
 the end of all that coil of mischief and mur- 
 der and love, as if he saw Padre Saavedra ap- 
 peased, Mascado dead, and himself happy in his 
 own chimney corner, no priest, but the head of 
 a great house. In truth, Isidro saw none of 
 these things, but it was a day to make a man 
 sing, whatever he saw. 
 
 Spring exhaled from the hills, and the valleys 
 were wells of mtoxicating balm. Radiant corol- 
 
 1 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 las lapped the trail and closed smoothly over 
 where the horse trod. A great body of warm air 
 moved fluently about him, nestling to the cheek 
 as he rode. The sun glinted warmly on the lu- 
 cent green of the wUd oats, on the burnt gold of 
 the poppies, on the thick silver-broidered rim of 
 his sombrero, the silver fringe of his cloak, the 
 silver mountings of his pistols, on the silver and 
 jewels of bridle and spurs. In fact, there was 
 more silver a-ghtter in his dress and harness than 
 he carried in his purse, for he rode only to Mon- 
 terey, and who on that road would ask toll of an 
 Escobar ? 
 
 Baggage he had next to none ; a change of 
 linen and such small matters; what should a 
 priest do with fine raiment? What, indeed; but 
 an Escobar, it seemed, might have much. His 
 ruffles were all of very fine needlework, his small- 
 clothes of Genoese velvet, his jacket ropy with 
 precious embroidery, none so fresh as it had 
 been ; the black silk kerchief knotted under his 
 sombrero was of the finest ; his saddle, of Mexi- 
 can leather work, cunningly carved. And this 
 fine sprig of an ancient house was to be a priest. 
 
 2 
 
ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FORTUNE 
 
 It was a matter practically determined upon 
 before he was born, and, being so settled, Isidro 
 was complaisant. The case was this : Mercedes 
 Venegas, a tender slip of a girl, as wan and lovely 
 as the rim of a new moon, being motherless and 
 left to herself too much, had vowed herself to 
 Holy Church and the Sisterhood of the Sacred 
 Heart. But before she had come through her 
 novitiate the eyes of Antonio Ossais Escobar, 
 roving eyes and keen for a maid, had spied her 
 out, and the matter falling in with some worldly 
 plans of her father, she had been drawn back 
 from being the bride of the Church to be bride 
 to the hot-hearted Escobar. Not without a price, 
 though. Don Antonio had been obliged to sur- 
 render a good lump of her dowry to Holy Church, 
 with the further promise, not certified to, but 
 spiritually binding, to give back of her issue as 
 much as in herself he had taken away. 
 
 So the promise ran, but being long gone by, 
 and himself come to a new country, it is doubt- 
 ful if the elder Escobar would have remembered 
 it if St. Francis, to whom he vowed, had not 
 mercifully sent him the gout as a hint on that 
 
 3 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 score. The subject had come up off and on for a 
 dozen years as the malady ran high or low, and 
 found Isidro in no wise unkindly disposed to- 
 ward it. He liked a red Up, and had an eye for 
 the turn of an ankle ; even so he liked the wind 
 in the sage and bloom of the almond ; they stirred 
 no deeper ardor than might be satisfied with 
 mere looking. He liked a horse, he Uked a cup 
 of wine, and had an ear for a tune. Well-a-day ! 
 A priest might look at God's world as well as 
 another, might drink wine for his stomach's sake, 
 and ride of necessity. As for music, it pleased 
 him well, so it were fairly executed, whether it 
 were a rondeau or a hymn. 
 
 And, on the other side, there was his father, 
 fond of a merry tune, liking wine very well, a 
 horse better, women more than all three, and 
 so beridden by gout that he could have small 
 enjoyment of any. All said, there were worse 
 things than being a priest. So Isidro Escobar, 
 being turned twenty, rode out to Monterey, sing^ 
 ing as he rode a very proper song for a young 
 man, all of love and high emprise, except that he 
 forgot most of the words, and went on making 
 
ISIDEO SEEKS HIS FOETUNE 
 
 merry noises in his throat in sheer delight of the 
 trail and the day. 
 
 As for Don Antonio, he thought his son very 
 well suited to be a priest, and was vexed with 
 him accordingly. It was a thing that could never 
 have been said of him in his younger days. Other 
 times, when his gout, which he misread for his 
 conscience, troubled him, he felt it a satisfaction 
 to make peace so handsomely with Holy Church. 
 If it had been Pascual now ! 
 
 Pascual, who had ridden as far as the home 
 inclosure with his brother, and, notwithstanding 
 Isidro's weaknesses, was very fond of him, was at 
 that moment riding back, looking complacently 
 at the tangle of vine and fig tree where the ranch 
 garden sloped down to the trail, and thinking 
 Isidro rather a fool to give it all up so easily, and 
 none so fit as himself to be lord of this good 
 demesne. 
 
 As for Isidro, he rode forward, looking not 
 once at the home where he had grown up, nor 
 to the hills that he had known, nor up the slope 
 to the tall white cross raised in memory of Mer- 
 cedes Venegas Escobar, whose body lay in Zaca- 
 
 5 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 tecas, and whose soul was no doubt in Paradise ; 
 nor thought if he should ever look on these again, 
 nor when, nor how. He was not of the nature 
 that looks back. He looked rather at the wild 
 oats, how they were tasseling ; at the blue of the 
 lupines in the swale; at the broods of the bur- 
 rowing owl blinking a-row in their burrows, and 
 caught up handfuls of over-sweet white forget- 
 me-nots, stooping lightly from the saddle. He 
 answered the pipe of the lark, and the nesting 
 call of the quail, gave good-morrow to the badger 
 who showed him his teeth for courtesy, and to 
 the lean coyote who paid him no heed whatever ; 
 and when he came by the wash where old Miguel 
 set his traps, turned out of the trail to see if they 
 had caught anything. He found a fox in one, 
 which he set free, very pitiful of its dangling 
 useless member as it made off limpingly, and 
 finding the others empty, snapped them one by 
 one, laughing softly to himself. 
 
 " Priest's work," he said. 
 
 That was Isidro all over. Miguel was accus- 
 tomed to say that the younger Escobar had more 
 thought for dumb beasts than for his own kind, 
 
 6 
 
ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FORTUNE 
 
 though the lad protested he would have helped 
 Miguel out of a trap as readily as a coyote. To 
 ■which the old man would say that that also was 
 Isidro. You could never make him angry however 
 you might try. He was quite as much amused 
 over his inaptness at young men's accomplish- 
 ments as you were, and he could not be dared to 
 try more than pleased him, but had always an 
 answer for you. There could be no doubt, said 
 the men at his father's hacienda, that Isidro was 
 cut out for a priest. 
 
 " Ah, no doubt," said the women, with an 
 accent that made the men understand that they 
 had somehow the worst of it. 
 
 For all this they were sorry to see him go ; 
 Margarita, who had nursed him, wept copiously 
 in the kitchen ; the old Don fretted in the patio, 
 and to hide his fretting swore heartily at Isidro's 
 dog chained in the kennel, and not to be stopped 
 of his grieving, as were the rest of them, by 
 thinking what a fine thing it would be to have 
 a priest in the family. 
 
 And all this time Isidro rode singing into the 
 noon of spring, and the high day of adventure. 
 
 7 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 He crossed the bad land, lifting his horse cau- 
 tiously from the pitfalls of badger and squirrel 
 holes, scaring the blue heron from his watch, and 
 when he had struck firmly into the foothill trail 
 laid his reiri on the horse's neck and fell into a 
 muse concerning the thing he would be. He had 
 sung of love, riding out from Las Plumas in the 
 blaze of morning, but when he came by the 
 place called The Dove in the evening glow, he 
 sang of the Virgin Mary. That, too, was Isidro. 
 His sympathies slipped oflE the coil of things 
 he had known, and shaped themselves to what 
 would be. He had the fine resonance of an old 
 violin that gives back the perfect tone ; you 
 could not strike a discord out of him unawares. 
 That was what made you love him when you 
 had sat an hour in his company, until you had 
 seen him so sitting with your dearest foe, and 
 then you had moments of exasperation with him. 
 You found him always in possession of your 
 point of view ; he understood at once what you 
 were driving at. It was only after reflection 
 that you perceived that he was not driven. One 
 felt convinced he would make an excellent con- 
 
 8 
 
ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FOETUNE 
 
 f essor. For all his quietness he had his way with 
 women, more even than Pascual, who swaggered 
 prodigiously, and was known to take his affairs 
 to heart. Under this complaisance of mood 
 there was a hint of something not quite grasped, 
 something foreign to an Escobar, like the brown 
 lights in his hair and the touch of Saxon rud- 
 diness that he had from some far-off strain of 
 his mother's. 
 
 He had a square chin, a little cleft, a level 
 eye, and a quick, collected demeanor like a wild 
 thing. His lower lip, all of his mouth not hidden 
 by a mustache, had a trick as if it had been 
 caught smiling unawares. He was courteous, — 
 never more so than when least your friend, but 
 seldom anything else. This was that Isidro who 
 rode out from Las Plumas to be a priest, and let 
 his cigarette die out between his fingers while 
 he sang a hymn to the Mother of God. 
 
 He rode all that day in the Escobar demesne, 
 having a late start, and slept the first night with 
 the vaqueros branding calves in the meadow of 
 Los Robles. The next day at noon he passed 
 out of the Escobar grant. The trail he took 
 
 9 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 kept still to the east slope of the coast range, 
 and ran northward through the spurs of the 
 Sierritas, by dip and angle working up toward 
 the summit, whence he would cross into the 
 Salinas. To the left he had always the leopard- 
 colored hills, and eastward the vast dim hollow of 
 the valley spreading softly into the spring haze. 
 As he traveled, the shy wild herds cleared out of 
 the wild oats before him. Jack rabbits ran by 
 droves like small deer in the chaparral. Isidro 
 sang less and smoked more, and fell gradually 
 into the carriage and motion of one who travels 
 far of a set purpose. The light, palpitating from 
 the hollow sky, beat down his eyelids. His 
 thoughts drew inward with his gaze ; he swayed 
 lightly to the jogging of his horse. He met 
 Indians — women and children and goods — 
 roving with the spring, for no reason but that 
 their blood prompted them, and gave them the 
 compliments of the road. 
 
 He woke once out of a noontide drowse of 
 travel at what promised a touch of adventure. 
 In the glade of a shallow canon between the 
 oaks he came upon a red deer of those parts, a 
 
 10 
 
ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FORTUNE 
 
 buck well antlered and letting blood freely from 
 a wound in the throat, that bore a man to the 
 earth and trampled him. The man — a mother- 
 naked Indian — had the buck by the horns so 
 that they might do him no hurt, but at every 
 move he felt the cutting hooves. The buck put 
 his forehead against the man's chest and pressed 
 hard, lifting and dragging him with no sound 
 but the sobbing of hot breath and drip of his 
 wound. The man looked in the brute's eyes and 
 had a look back again, each thinking of death 
 not his own. Two ravens sat hard by on an oak, 
 expectant but indiEEerent which might be quarry. 
 Doubtless the struggle must have gone to the 
 man, for he of the two had lost least blood. 
 The Indian's knife lay on the grass within an 
 arm's length, but he dared not loose his hold to 
 reach it. Isidro picked up the blade and found 
 the buck's heart with it. Next moment the 
 Indian rose up, breathing short and drenched 
 with the warm flood. 
 
 " Body of Christ ! friend," said Isidro, " the 
 next deer you kill, make sure of it before you 
 come up with him." 
 
 11 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Red as he was, and covered with bruises, the 
 Indian, who, now that he was up, showed comely 
 in a dark, low-browed sort, and looked to have 
 some foreign blood in him, began to disembowel 
 his kill and make it ready for packing. 
 
 " I owe you thanks, senor," he said in good 
 enough Spanish, but with no thankfulness of 
 manner. When he had slung as much as he 
 could carry upon his shoulders, he made up the 
 trail, and Isidro, who felt himself entitled to 
 some entertainment, drew rein beside him. 
 
 "Where to, friend?" he said cheerily, since 
 two on the same road go better than one. 
 
 " I follow the trail, senor," said the man, and 
 so surlily that Isidro concluded there was nothing 
 to be looked for from that quarter. 
 
 " Priest's work again," he said, " to do a good 
 deed and get scant thanks for it. Truly I begin 
 well," and he rode laughing up the trail. 
 
 Toward evening he crossed a mesa, open and 
 faUing abruptly to the valley, of a mile's breadth 
 or more, very fragrant with sage and gilias 
 opening in the waning light. The sound of bells 
 came faintly up to him with the blether of sheep 
 
 12 
 
ISIDRO SEEKS HIS FORTUNE 
 
 from the mesa's edge that marked the progress 
 of a flock. Against the slanting light he made 
 out the forms of shepherds running, it seemed, 
 and in some commotion. They came together, 
 and one ran and the other drew up with him, 
 halting and parting as in flight and pursuit. 
 And across the clear space of evening something 
 reached him like an exhalation, a presage, a 
 sense of evil where no evil should be. He would 
 have turned out of the trail, being used to trust 
 his instinct, but he could not convince himself 
 that this matter was for his minding. How 
 should an Escobar concern himself with two 
 sheep-herders chasing coyotes? 
 
 Presently, looking back from a rise of land, 
 he saw the flock spread out across the mesa, and 
 one shepherd moving his accustomed round. 
 
 "Now on my Ufe," said Isidro, "I would 
 have sworn there were two," and again some 
 instinct pricked him vaguely. 
 
n 
 
 NOE AND REINA MA?,IA 
 
 >HE sheep which Isidro had seen 
 feeding at evening belonged to 
 Mariano, the Portuguese. His 
 house stood in a little open 
 plain having a pool in the 
 midst, treeless, and very lonely, called The 
 Reed ; his sheep fed thence into the free lands 
 as far as might be. The Portuguese was old, 
 he was rich, he was unspeakably dirty, and a 
 man of no blood. The Escobars, who knew 
 him slightly, used him considerately, because 
 manners were becoming to an Escobar, not be- 
 cause the old miser was in any wise worth con- 
 sidering. Mariano was not known to have any 
 one belonging to him ; his house was low and 
 mean, thatched with tules, having a floor of 
 stamped earth ; his dress and manners what 
 might have been expected. Those who wished to 
 say nothing evil of him could find nothing better 
 
 14 
 
NOE AND REINA MARIA 
 
 to say than that he was diligent ; those who 
 would speak of him only with contempt found 
 nothing worse. He was reputed to have at his 
 bed's head a great box full of gold and silver 
 pieces, — and yet he worked ! It was predicted 
 of him that because of his riches he would have 
 a foul ending, and as yet he had not. There you 
 have the time and the people. Mariano was openly 
 a hoarder of gold, and was not robbed ; he was 
 diligent without need, and therefore scorned. 
 
 His sheep were in three brands, and Mariano 
 kept the tale of them. He had with him, keeping 
 the home flock, one Juan Ruiz, a mongrel as 
 to breed, who spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and 
 French indifferently well, and believed himself a 
 very fine fellow. Mariano used toward him an 
 absence of surKness that amounted to kindliness, 
 therefore it was reported that Ruiz had some 
 claim upon him. The herder in his cups had 
 been known to hint broadly that there was more 
 likeness than liking between them. Whatever 
 the case, Ruiz bore him a deep-seated grudge. 
 Mariano, as I have said, was old, and growing 
 older, and boozy with drink was not a proper 
 
 15 
 
iSlDRO 
 
 spectacle to be the proprietor of fleeces and gold; 
 and Ruiz, who was a pretty fellow in his own 
 fashion, and loved frippery inordinately, was 
 poor. What more would you have? If ever 
 there was a man fitted to make ducks and drakes 
 of a fortune it was Ruiz, but in this case the 
 fortune lay in a strong box at the head of his 
 master's bed. 
 
 On the day that Isidro Escobar came riding 
 across the mesa where Ruiz fed the flock, Ma- 
 riano, who trusted no one very much, came down 
 to see how they fared, and to bring suppKes to 
 his shepherd. Among other things he brought 
 wine ; I have said there was the appearance of 
 kindliness on Mariano's side. It was the wine of 
 San Gabriel, heady and cordial to the blood. 
 They pieced out the noon siesta with a bottle, 
 and grew merry. Ruiz clapped Mariano on the 
 shoulder and called him kin ; the Portuguese ad- 
 mitted that he had known Ruiz's mother. They 
 sang together, they laughed, finally they wept. 
 That was when they were beginning the second 
 bottle. When they had no more than half done, 
 Ruiz remembered his grievance and brooded over 
 
 16 
 
NOE AND REINA MAEIA 
 
 it darkly, and in the third bottle he killed Mari- 
 ano, — not aU at once as you might say the word, 
 but provoked him, broiled with him, pricked him 
 blunderingly with his knife. Mariano, who was 
 leery with drink half his days, and had no hint 
 of the other's grievance, on which point Ruiz 
 himself was by now not quite clear, was in no 
 case to deal with the affair. At last, sobered a 
 Uttle by blood-letting, he became afraid and ran. 
 This with beasts of the Ruiz order was the worst 
 thing to do. Pursuit whetted him. So they ran 
 and wrestled futilely and struck blindly, for the 
 drink worked in them yet, but Ruiz's knife, be- 
 cause he was heaviest and longest of arm, bit of- 
 tenest and to the bone. It was the dust of their 
 running that Isidro saw across the evening glow. 
 Between drink and bleeding they fell headlong 
 into the scrub, panting like spent beasts. But 
 Mariano, having bled most, was most sobered, 
 and began to crawl away, and Ruiz, when he had 
 come to himself a little, began to work after him 
 on his wet trail with the knife between his teeth, 
 leering through a mist of rage and drink. If he 
 had no grievance before, that was enough. 
 
 17 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Ha, you will leave me, hell litter? " he said ; 
 and so, voiding curses, he reeled and came up to 
 him, plunging his knife in Mariano's back. The 
 Portuguese fell forward with a wet cough, and 
 the poppies, drowned in blood, shrank all away 
 from him. 
 
 Ruiz, for his part, went back to find the dregs 
 of the bottle. He was very merry with himself 
 about Mariano lying out in the sage Hke a stuck 
 pig. " Ah, ah ! but it served him right, setting 
 up for a rich man, who had neither manners nor 
 wit, nor looks, — no, certainly not looks." Then 
 he observed his own wounds, and grew fright- 
 ened to see them bleed; grew very pitiful of 
 himself, washing and binding them; blubbered 
 over them, thinking new grievances of Mariano, 
 who would so misuse him. So he wept, sitting on 
 a hummock waist deep in bloom, until the day 
 drew into dusk, and the dogs and the flock clam- 
 ored for their evening care. 
 
 " Eh ? — Oh, — go to Mariano out there," he 
 said; "he is master," and laughed, thinking it 
 a very fine jest, and afterwards wept again, and 
 so fell into a mindless sleep. 
 
 18 
 
NOE AND REINA MARIA 
 
 It was in the hope and promise of dawn when 
 he awoke. The sky paled slowly ; here and there 
 peaks swam into rosy glow above the cool dark. 
 He felt the stiffness of his wounds, and groaned, 
 remembering — what? — that Mariano lay out 
 there in the scrub. It was a deep sleep he kept 
 out there between the poppies and the sage ; he 
 looked not to have stirred all night. It was a 
 joke between them that Mariano would play out 
 to the end. Ruiz went about the morning meal 
 f umblingly. The sky filled and filled ; pale slits 
 of light between the rifts began to streak the 
 floor of the plain. By the spring a mourning 
 dove began to call. The dogs shrank uneasily ; 
 they looked at the figure of Mariano, and now it 
 seemed to stir, and now did not. Noe put his 
 nose to the air and moaned with a hushed noise 
 in his throat. Ruiz wished to make haste, but 
 seemed intolerably slow. He strayed out toward 
 the stiU body as the day warmed him and cleared 
 the mists of drink. " Get up, Mariano," he be- 
 gan to say, but fell off into whispering ; a patch 
 of sun lit the blackened poppies, and his ear 
 caught the burr-r-r of flies. 
 
 19 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 , Without doubt the habit of a man's work 
 stands him in good stead ; whatever had come to 
 Mariano there was still the flock. They were 
 scattering northward, and Noe and Reina Maria 
 had, it appeared, little mind for their work, but 
 they heard the shepherd's voice and answered it. 
 To bring the sheep together in good form took 
 them a flock's length farther from Mariano. It 
 is probable Juan Buiz had not thought till then 
 what he should do, but now this was the thing, 
 — to get away ; to get shut of the sight and 
 nearness of the dead. 
 
 He began to push the sheep into the hills, 
 crossed the trail, and struck up over a sharp 
 ridge. His progress grew into hurry, his hurry 
 to a fever of flight. He pressed the sheep un- 
 mercifully ; bells jangled up the steeps and down 
 into hollows by paths that only sheep could have 
 taken, by places where were no paths, and at last 
 he wearied them beyond going. He was by this 
 time beside himself. They came to an open hill- 
 slope above a stream, thick and slippery with new 
 grass. The shepherd instinct told him the sheep 
 must rest and feed, but his mind gave him no 
 
 20 
 
NOE AND EEINA MARIA 
 
 rest. He killed a lamb and fed the dogs, and 
 since he had eaten nothing that day, ate also, 
 and made out to spend the night. He was be- 
 yond the country of the burrowing owls ; there 
 was no sound other than the eager cropping of 
 the sheep. There came a .wind walking across 
 the grasses that made the shadows stir, and in 
 every patch of shadow were dead men trembling 
 to arise, struggling and twisting so they might 
 come at him. So it seemed to Ruiz. He got his 
 back to a rock and shuddered into sleep. He 
 woke after an hour or two and began to think. 
 He was neither clear nor quick in his mind, but 
 by and by he thrashed the matter out somewhat 
 in this fashion. 
 
 It was not likely Mariano would be missed, 
 or, i£ missed, found again ; by now the coyotes 
 should be at him. And i£ found, what then? 
 There was no witness. The dogs ? Ah, yes ! 
 They had carried themselves strangely toward 
 him that day. All through his sleep he had 
 heard No^ keening the dead master with a 
 mournful howl. The faith a shepherd grows to 
 have in the understanding of his dogs passes 
 
 21 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 belief. It is equal to his assurance of their ability 
 to make themselves understood. Kuiz was afraid 
 of No6 and Reina Maria. The sheep also had 
 Mariano's mark ; but if he got shut of all these, 
 what was there to accuse him ? Above all, his 
 desire moved him to, get away and away, and to 
 mix with his own kind. There was a very dull 
 sort of cunning in this that did not at first profit 
 him. He had to battle with the shepherd habit 
 to stay by the flock. Unconsciously he had worked 
 all day against it, but the fear of dead men 
 walking in the dark also held him still. With all 
 this he gave no thought to the great box of 
 reals lying unguarded in the hut of Mariano. 
 About the hour the night breeze fell off before 
 dawn he left the flock on the hill, and began to 
 strike along the ridge by ways he knew, to come 
 into Monterey from the north, which he hoped to 
 do in four days. He left the dead and the wit- 
 nesses, and carried his guilt openly in his face. 
 
 What happened to Noe and Reina Maria with 
 the flock is a matter of record. Mascado, the In- 
 dian renegade, for purposes of his own tracked 
 them from the day they struck the rancheria of 
 
 22 
 
NOE AND REINA MARIA 
 
 Peter Lebecque, backward to where he found the 
 body of Mariano, big and overblown by flies. 
 There was nothing to tell from it except that it 
 had been a man. The flock, it seemed, must 
 have stayed upon the hill that day, or near it, 
 forging forward a little by the trail Ruiz had 
 taken. The dogs ate of the lamb that he had 
 killed, and kept the flock close. They went on 
 a little from there doubtfully, but presently, it 
 seemed, they made certain, by what gift God 
 knows, that the shepherd would not return. 
 They headed the flock toward the place of The 
 Reed, where they had been bred. It is not 
 known if they had any food after the first day ; 
 they had not been taught killi ng. The second 
 night brought them — for they made pace slowly 
 — to a very close-grown and woody stretch of 
 country all a-tumble of great boulders among 
 the trees. They found themselves brought up 
 against a crisis. Through the middle of this 
 copse ran a stream full and roaring from the 
 rains. What urgency they used — Reina Maria 
 who was old in the wisdom of herding and Noe 
 who was young — could not be guessed. Suffi- 
 
 23 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 cient that they got the flock so near the crossing 
 that some two or three were drowned. But they 
 could do no more ; they went, perforce, upstream. 
 Here is a matter for wonder, and made talk in 
 sheep camps wherever the dogs of Del Mar — 
 for they were of that breed — were known. The 
 Reed lay nearest as the crow flies going down- 
 stream ; the only hope of crossing lay upstream, 
 where there might be shallows, and that way they 
 took. Here it seems was a disagreement. They 
 were hungry, no doubt, overwrought, and one of 
 them loved himself more than the flock. It was 
 a question of saving the sheep who did very well, 
 or saving their own skins. Noe would and Eeina 
 Maria would not. So they fought, faint and 
 a-hungered, one for himself and the other for the 
 flock, and the silly sheep strayed bleating through 
 the scrub. The battle went to Eeina Maria ; it 
 was Noe, when succor found them, that showed 
 most wounds. So they worked the flock up the 
 waterside, which here ran parallel to a foot trail, 
 toward the traveled roads. They had been four 
 days from Mariano, two of them without food, 
 and had come twenty mUes. 
 
 24 
 
NOE AND KEINA MAEIA 
 
 In the mean time Isidro Escobar had hardly 
 come more. From the oak shelter where he had 
 slept the second night of his journey he had set 
 out leisurely to Los Alamos, which he made by 
 noon. That was the day Ruiz was hurrying his 
 flock across country by steeper ways than the 
 accustomed trail. Between the Escobars and the 
 family at Los Alamos there was amnesty and 
 observance. It lay out of the trail somewhat, but 
 not too far for the courtesy of an Escobar. By 
 all the laws of hospitality Isidro should have 
 stayed a month, but contented himself with three 
 days, pleading his appointment with Padre Saa- 
 vedra, and the urgence of his new caUing, which 
 now began to sit becomingly upon him. 
 
 He was, therefore, pushing merrily along the 
 trail that rounded a barren hill running like a 
 cape into a lake of woods that gave off a contin- 
 uous murmuring. He was riding fast, not certain 
 where he should rest, or if, in fact, he would 
 have any shelter but his cloak, and gave no atten- 
 tion to the way. Toward mid-afternoon he heard 
 afar the slow, incessant jangle of bells that be- 
 spoke a moving flock. It promised him other 
 
 25 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 things, — a meal and company, at least. The 
 wood "was scattered more, and marked by an ab- 
 sence of underbrush. Between the boles o£ oak 
 were grassy plats, in one of which he looked to 
 find the sheep camp. By the rising of the ground 
 whereon the wood stood, and the dipping of the 
 trail, he could not see very far into it, but the 
 sound lay still ahead of him ; so, with no other 
 warning, when the ridge of westward hills began 
 to make a twilight gloom in the guUy, he came 
 suddenly upon the flock, Noe, and Beina Maria. 
 
in 
 
 THE HUT OF THE GEAPEVINE 
 
 i^s5ccz«pSIDR0 was an owner of sheep, one 
 iKJ ■ lyi bred to an open life, and no fool. 
 
 li 
 
 He made sure on the instant that 
 C^S5^^U| there was no shepherd about. Want- 
 ing other witness, the behavior of the dogs 
 would have told hini that. To make doubly 
 sure he raised a shout that rang and rang 
 among the tree boles and the rocks, and 
 brought no answer. 
 T He looked the flock over and found them 
 sleek ; the brand he thought he had seen, but 
 could not be sure. Then he came to the dogs ; 
 here was evidence. They looked gaunt and wolf- 
 ish-eyed ; they had wounds, — Noe was caked 
 with blood about the throat. Isidro thought 
 they bore the marks of wolf's teeth or coyote's. 
 They fawned upon him with short, gulping 
 barks and throaty whines, glad and wishful at 
 once in an intolerable speechlessness. Properly 
 
 27 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 they should have stood off from him and left 
 parleying to the shepherd. The absence of such 
 reserve was the best evidence that they under- 
 stood the fact, if not the reason, of their deser- 
 tion. Something of what they had suffered they 
 told Isidro in their dumb way, which was a very 
 good way, since it touched him. His first move, 
 done quickly to take advantage of the waning 
 day, was to cast a wide circle about the flock, to 
 pick up the trail of the vanished shepherd. He 
 found the way the sheep had come with Noe and 
 Eeina Maria, but found nothing more. At the 
 first motion of riding away Noe had set up a thin 
 howl, but Eeina Maria had the faith of her sex. 
 She waited the event. 
 
 " So," said Isidro, " it seems there is no com- 
 pany where I looked to find it, and no fire, 
 though a fire would be a comfort, and no food, 
 but great need of feeding." It was quite dusk in 
 the wood, where the earth was all a litter of rot- 
 ten leaves. The ripples of the stream, which at 
 this point ran shallowly in a rocky bed, began to 
 climb above the hushed noises of the day ; the 
 air had a feel of dampness. Isidro made his 
 
 28 
 
THE HUT OF THE GRAPEVINE 
 
 horse comfortable by the stream border, where 
 there was a cropping of fresh grass, and lit a fire 
 of twigs. He thought of supper and then of the 
 dogs, for they looked to have suffered much. 
 He killed a lamb for them bunglingly, as not be- 
 ing used to such work, spattering his ruffles with 
 blood, and was pleased to see them feed. They 
 were in a fair way to get a taste for new mutton. 
 
 " My faith ! " said he, watching their raven- 
 ing, " is it so long as that ? " 
 
 Isidro set to work to piece out the circum- 
 stance. Whatever had befallen the shepherd it 
 could not be Indians, since these would hardly 
 have spared the flock ; nor wild beasts, though 
 the wounds of Noe hinted at that. It was not 
 possible that a beast which could carry off a man 
 would let the dogs go free. Besides, the sheep 
 were too sleek, too Httle uneasy ; they had had 
 no fright, as would have shown in the case of an 
 attack by wolves or bears. The only thing that 
 was clear was the devotion of Noe and Reina 
 Maria. 
 
 " Good dogs," said Isidro, and praised them 
 to their fill, though in an unfamiliar speech. 
 
 29 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The bells o£ the sheep made a friendly tinkle ; 
 the flock drowsed ; the dogs dressed their wounds 
 by the fire. Isidro heaped him a bed of dried 
 fern and slept deep. 
 
 He awoke in the morning twilight; all the 
 wood was astir with wild pigeons, — soft, slaty 
 blue like the sky. The flock was out and feed- 
 ing up the stream ; Noe and Beina Maria stood 
 for orders. Here was a bother. There was no 
 mistaking the attitude of the dogs, — they had 
 shifted their responsibihty. 
 
 Caramba ! Was an Escobar to turn herder, 
 and go straggling into the Presidio of Monterey 
 with a flock not his own at his heels? It was 
 a pity, of course, but clearly not a case for his 
 intervention. So Isidro ; not so Noe and Reina 
 Maria. When the man put his horse to the ford 
 they brought up the flock that, also reassured 
 by the man's presence, began to get over in a 
 silly fashion. Directly they had a hint of a new 
 desertion. It went hard with the dogs at first 
 in the shock to a free-given faith. They were 
 checked, bewildered. Noe yelped dismally, and 
 then frankly deserted the flock for the man. 
 
 30 
 
THE HUT OF THE GKAPEVINE 
 
 But Reina Maria ran to and fro between him 
 and her charge, back and forth with tongue 
 wagging out and red, wearied eyes, harrying the 
 flock and fawning on the man, not daunted, but 
 persisting until she had won his understanding 
 and rested the case upon the facts. She was fit 
 to burst with running and eagerness. A hundred 
 rods or so of this, and Isidro wheeled back in a 
 kind of comical dismay. 
 
 " Your way, my lady ! " he cried. " Jesus ! but 
 I will make poor work of being a priest if I re- 
 fuse such begging. Thou art a faithful beast." 
 
 " A priest is a shepherd in some sort," he said 
 later, moving with the flock slowly in the morn- 
 ing freshness, " but I doubt the herder has the 
 easier time of it." The difficulties of the work 
 came home to him presently. Thus far he had 
 followed the trail, which grew steep and stony in 
 a great tangle of brush. The light lay level with 
 the hills and too warm. The sheep scattered in 
 the brush, and the dogs were plainly fagged. 
 
 To keep the trail grew nearly impossible ; be- 
 sides, it seemed little likely to afEord pasture. 
 
 "My friends," said Isidro, "it is clear we 
 31 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 shall get nowhere at this rate, and seeing I am 
 new to the business and likely to make a mess 
 of it, do you be so kind as to lead the way." 
 
 No doubt communication between man and 
 beast is helped by speech, but it is not indispen- 
 sable. Noe and Reina Maria knew only Portu- 
 guese and a little French, Isidro only Castilian, 
 but somehow there passed from each to each 
 some assurance, sense of understanding. Gradu- 
 ally the dogs assumed the responsibility of the 
 flocks, growing assured as they felt themselves 
 free and Isidro following. They passed out of 
 the thickets, turned north along an open ridge, 
 and by noon made a little grassy swale, through 
 which the rill of a spring ran unseen, though you 
 heard it talking in the grass. Beyond that was 
 rolling country, nearly treeless, lush with wild 
 oats, bordered with poppies, holding little lakes 
 of white forget-me-nots in coves of the hills. 
 
 The grass grew up tall, and muffled the bells 
 of the sheep. Then began trees again, — buck- 
 eyes bursting into bloom, water oaks strung with 
 long, pendulous vines misty with bloom. Deer 
 stood up in the open places ; a band of antelope 
 
 32 
 
THE HUT OF THE GRAPEVINE 
 
 flashed by them, three coyotes behind them in 
 full chase ; they came upon two tawny cats at 
 their mating in the clear warm space before a 
 rocky wall. They saw no man, neither shepherd 
 nor Indian, nor any trace of one. Those were 
 the days when men shifted for themselves with- 
 out finiken. So long as the flock lasted and he 
 had the means of a fire — it was still the time 
 of flint and tinder — they would not lack food, 
 and for shelter Isidro had his cloak. But by 
 the time the light had got a yellow tinge from 
 shining slantwise on the poppy fires, they came 
 upon a better shift. Under an oak, mocking the 
 jays with as shrill a voice, sat a slim, dark lad, 
 pillowed on a great sheaf of plucked bloom. 
 
 For excuse of his being, a small flock, lacking 
 a brand, fed thereabout, minded by a mongrel 
 cur that looked more for kiUing than herding, 
 but nevertheless came and went obediently at 
 the lad's word. So much Isidro perceived at the 
 first onset ; for the rest, since he had come upon 
 him suddenly, Isidro found himself enough to 
 do to turn aside his own sheep so that the two 
 bands might not mix, — a matter in which the 
 
 33 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 lad spent no pains. He stood up, though, and 
 seeing him not Hkely to begin, Isidro fetched a 
 very courteous bow. 
 
 " Seiior," he said, " will you do me the favor 
 to tell me whose sheep I have, and whither they 
 would go ? " 
 
 " That," said the lad, " you should know better 
 than I. Keep back your sheep, sir ; if they mis, 
 the parting out will be no sport." 
 
 " Your pardon, seifior ; so I should judge, but 
 I am newly come into the business, and the dogs 
 do not understand Castilian." 
 
 The herd-boy spoke some words of diverse 
 tongues, mongrel speech of the mixed peoples 
 that come together in a new land, and lighted 
 upon those that the dogs understood, for they 
 went at their work with quickened apprehension. 
 The lad got his own band behind him, and 
 started them moving. 
 
 " As for the flock, senor," he said, " whose 
 should they be if not yours, unless you have 
 stolen them?" 
 
 " My faith, you have a tongue ! " cried Isidro ; 
 " but as for stealing, it appears that they have 
 
 34 
 
THE HUT OF THE GEAPEVINE 
 
 stolen me, since they have taken me out of my 
 way so that I know not how I shall come at it, 
 nor what to do with them." 
 
 " You speak riddles, senor." 
 
 " Then I will speak more to the point ; " where- 
 upon he told him straightly how he came upon 
 the flock and what followed. 
 
 " The brand is Mariano's," said the boy, " and 
 the dogs I think I have seen. Noe ? " he ques- 
 tioned, and the dog fawned upon him. " They 
 are Mariano's sheep, and the dogs belonged to 
 JuanBuiz. They passed a fortnight since. Strange 
 work." 
 
 "I know none stranger," said Isidro with 
 much gravity ; " and since you know their owner, 
 who is no doubt much distressed on their ac- 
 count, will you do me the favor to restore them ? 
 I will give you two reals for your trouble, and 
 the Portuguese will scarcely do less." 
 
 The boy knit his brows with quick darting 
 scorn. " The senor does not understand these 
 things. Juan Ruiz has doubtless come to some 
 hurt. Suppose the Portuguese comes upon me 
 unawares with his dogs and his sheep. Will he 
 
 36 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 believe me if I say I had them from a fine gen- 
 tleman in the woods ? " 
 
 "As well your story as mine," said Isidro, 
 beginning to be vastly amused. He rolled a 
 cigarette and leaned against his horse, waiting. 
 The boy frowned, and thought. When he spoke 
 again it was with a curious apathy, as if he had 
 somehow come free of the whole affair. 
 
 " If the seSor wdl but come with me," he said. 
 
 "As well with you as anywhere," cried Isidro 
 with the greatest cheerfulness. Seeing the boy 
 moving before him with the flock, Isidro took 
 thought of him. He was slightly built for his 
 age, which looked to be fifteen, and was clothed 
 for the most part in very good woven stuff, cut 
 after no fashion but convenience, wore moccasins, 
 and about his calves strips of buckskin wrapped 
 many times, Indian fashion. He had black hair 
 cropped at the shoulders, and falling so as to 
 leave visible only a thin disk of face, dark and 
 ruddy-colored. He stood straightly, and had the 
 fine, level-looking eyes of an Indian, though no 
 Indian, as was plain to see. About his brows he 
 wore a rag of red silk, in which were tucked vine 
 
 36 
 
THE HUT OP THE GRAPEVINE 
 
 leaves for coolness ; under this penthouse his 
 eyes were alert and unfrightened as a bird's. 
 
 They went sidelong on a ridge, avoiding a 
 deep canon, and came clear of trees. Presently 
 they reached the head of a long, winding shal- 
 low that should have held a stream, but flowed 
 only a river of grass and bloom. Down this the 
 sheep poured steadily as if it had been a lane, 
 and Isidro found space for conversation. 
 
 " Your sheep ? " said he. 
 
 " Peter Lebecque's." 
 
 " And who may Peter Lebecque be ? I have 
 not heard of him, and I thought to know these 
 hills." 
 
 " And who may you be that should know such 
 humble folk?" quoth the shepherd lad. 
 
 "My faith," thought Isidro, "but this is a 
 sharp one ! " Nevertheless, he took off his hat 
 with a very low sweep, being now beside his com- 
 panion. " Isidro Rodrigo Escobar, your servant, 
 senor. 
 
 The boy eyed him a moment through narrowing 
 lids, and then, as if appeased, replied in kind, — 
 
 " Peter Lebecque is a trapper ; he lives by the 
 37 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Grapevine where the water of that creek comes 
 out of the Gap." 
 
 " And where may that be ? " 
 
 " It is near by, senor." 
 
 "And you, what are you called?" 
 
 "ElZarzo."^ 
 
 " El Zarzo ? Nothing else ? " 
 
 " Nothing else, senor." 
 
 " But that is no name for a Christian. Had 
 you never another ? " 
 
 " El Zarzo I am called, senor, or Zarzito." 
 
 " Well, well, a good name enough ; one might 
 guess how you came by it." 
 
 The way began to narrow and wind down ; 
 presently they heard the barking of dogs. The 
 gully widened abruptly to a little meadow front- 
 ing a canon wall, looking from above to have a 
 close green thicket in its midst. Isidro, when 
 they had come down to the level, perceived it to 
 be a group of tree trunks overgrown by wild 
 vines that had come up by the help of the trees 
 and afterward strangled them. The twisted stems 
 rose up like pillars, and overhead ran stringers of 
 
 1 The Briar. 
 38 
 
THE HUT OP THE GRAPEVINE 
 
 vine thatched with leaves. Alcoves and galleries 
 of shade lay between the tree boles under thick 
 rainproof roofs. The outer walls were cunningly 
 pieced out by willow withes, to which the vines 
 had taken kindly ; a rod away it looked to be all 
 nature. It was as safe and dark as a lair ; the 
 floor of stamped earth had a musty dampness ; 
 it smelt like a fox's earth. Bearskins drying in 
 the sun stank very vilely, and dogs lolled hunting 
 fleas on the floor. 
 
 Peter Lebecque, who was shaping a trap, stood 
 up as they came, but found no words ; aU man- 
 ner of threats, questionings, resentments, played 
 across his eyes. El Zarzo slid away from Isidro 
 and stood in low-toned foreign talk a long time 
 with the trapper, with many a quick-flung look 
 and dropped inflection. They need not, however, 
 have concerned themselves so much ; an Escobar 
 had the manners not to hear what was not intended 
 for his ears. Isidro stood by his horse and smoked 
 cigarettes until the sun was quite down. 
 
 By that the old rascal, for so he looked, came 
 forward to take his horse. " WiU you eat, senor ? " 
 he said. 
 
 39 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "With the best will in the world," said Isi- 
 dro. 
 
 The old trapper took a pot of very savory stew 
 from the fire, added bread and wine and a dish 
 of beans. They three sat upon stools about a table 
 contrived of hewn slabs, and dipped in the dish, 
 every man with his own knife and his fingers. 
 The day went out in a flare of crimson clouds 
 trumpeted by a sea wind ; there was promise of 
 rain. 
 
 It appeared that Peter Lebecque knew some- 
 thing of fine manners, though Isidro confessed 
 to himself that he could not get to like the look 
 of him. There was a great deal of polite indirec- 
 tion before they came to the pith of their busi- 
 ness. 
 
 The sheep, it was agreed, were Mariano's; 
 further agreed that Isidro and the lad should 
 deliver them to-morrow to the shepherds of Ma- 
 riano, who might be met with about the place 
 called Pasteria. This, you can imagine, was no 
 comfortable news for Isidro, since it took him 
 still further out of his course ; but, in fact, there 
 was no help for it. 
 
 40 
 
THE HUT OF THE GRAPEVINE 
 
 " It would go hard," said the trapper, " if the 
 flock were found with us. An Escobar is above 
 suspicion, but we, senor, are poor folk." He leered 
 wickedly with beady eyes. Isidro had washed his 
 hands before meat, and the old villain had noted 
 blood upon his wrists. 
 
 " As you vrill," said Isidro, vrishing to be rid 
 of the matter, "and then you will tell me how 
 I shall come. by the trail to the Presidio of Mon- 
 terey again." 
 
 " Ah, Monterey ; it is a very fine town, I have 
 heard." 
 
 " I have never been there." 
 
 " Nor I, but I have heard, a gay town, and 
 many gay ladies, eh, senor?" 
 
 " Oh, as to that I cannot say ; I go to Padre 
 Saavedra at Carmelo." Isidro let a prodigious 
 yawn ; he was tired of the day's work, and tired 
 of the company. When he had got to bed at last 
 on a heap of skins he had .his saddle for pillow, 
 and his pistols ready to hand. " I am not a priest 
 yet," he said, " and the old fellow looks to be the 
 devil or of his brood." 
 
 By this the rain had begun, and drummed 
 41 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 softly on the thatch of vines. The old man and 
 the lad had their heads together, talking in a 
 foreign tongue, droning and incessant as the 
 drip of the rain ; the sound of it ran on into the 
 night, and mixed strangely with Isidro's dreams. 
 
IV 
 
 THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 i^N a cove of quietness back from the 
 bay, between tbe mountains and the 
 Point of Pines, stands Carmel, oth- 
 
 erwise the Mission of San Carlos 
 
 Borromeo, second of the strongholds of Holy 
 Church estabUshed by that great saint and greater 
 man. Fray Junipero Serra, for the salvation of 
 souls and the increasing glory of God. Where 
 the river winds through the mission purUeus 
 shallowly to the sea, rise the towers and chimes 
 of San Carlos, overlooking the alcoves of the 
 Mission and the wattled huts of the neophytes. 
 It looks beyond to the strips of tillage, the wink- 
 ing weirs that head up the river for the irrigating 
 ditches, to the sloping fields of the Mission, 
 browsed over by clean-limbed cattle. Over this 
 clearing and over some miles of oak forest and 
 birch-fringed waters, over rolling pine lands and 
 blossomy meadows, the Padres of San Carlos had 
 
 43 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 right of usufruct and disposition, over field and 
 flock and folk, rights temporal and spiritual under 
 the hand of the Father President of Missions. 
 
 It was, at the time Isidro Escobar set out to be 
 a priest for his own good and the better ease of 
 his father's conscience, a very goodly demesne, a 
 flowery land full of golden-throated larks lilting 
 in the barley, of doves moaning in the blossom- 
 ing pears, of jays shouting in the sombre oaks. 
 The cattle lowed from the hills, the Indian women 
 crooned at their weaving in the sun. 
 
 Upon a day when Peter Lebecque sat knitting 
 his fierce brows in his hut over an Escobar who, 
 with blood upon his wrists, drove Mariano's shep- 
 herdless sheep to no purpose, it happened that 
 Padre Vicente Saavedra, Father President of 
 Missions of Alta California, Brother of St. 
 Francis, together with Fray Demetrio Fages, his 
 almoner and secretary, set out to walk from San 
 Carlos to the Presidio on business of the Co- 
 mandante. Of this business and whom it mig-ht 
 concern he knew nothing, but surmised much. 
 At sundown on the previous day an orderly rode 
 out to San Carlos desiring the Father President's 
 
 44 
 
THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 presence with all possible convenience ; nothing 
 more from that source, but from Demetrio Fages, 
 a comfortable gossip, he had gathered that a ship 
 of a build such as seldom put into that port had 
 anchored off Monterey. Padre Saavedra had spent 
 much of the time thereafter walking up and down 
 in the corridor. 
 
 These were tight times for the Father President. 
 He knew from his college of San Fernando that 
 this new strumpet RepubUc contrived evQ against 
 the Brothers of St. Francis; nothing less than 
 the reinoval of the mission demesne from under 
 the cure of his order. He knew also that the 
 brotherhood was primed against that attempt, 
 and his faith was great, but of late his mind mis- 
 gave him. Communication with his college was 
 slow. Whispers reached him from the outside, 
 rumors, veiled intimations. 
 
 From Soledad, from Santa Inez, from La Puri- 
 sima, there were reports of restlessness and lack 
 of reverence among the neophytes. The fact was, 
 the reverend Father President hardly glimpsed 
 the breadth of the disaster. Liberty was awake 
 and crying in the land. The secularization of 
 
 45 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 the Missions was an accomplished fact while the 
 Padre still hoped to avert it. 
 
 Father Saavedra was less shrewd than saintly. 
 In the management of the Missions difficulties 
 arose ; if there was a way out he took it ; if 
 not, it was indubitably so ordered of God, hence 
 bearable. He looked for the ultimate triumph of 
 St. Francis, but what he could contrive by way 
 of betterment he did. His night's muse had 
 been rather of his own affairs than this business 
 of the Comandante's, which he supposed might 
 be pertinent to the matter. 
 
 Notwithstanding his afternoon of years and 
 the heaviness of his concerns, the Padre walked 
 springily toward the Presidio of Monterey. A 
 wet fog that hung in shreds and patches about 
 the pines had left the fields dewy and glorious. 
 Blossoms lapped the trail, birds sang in the 
 woods, Padre Vicente was in tune. He must 
 needs talk, and since this was clearly no time to 
 let vapors, he talked with Fages upon another 
 matter which lay close to his heart, and con- 
 cerned the good of the order. Said he : — 
 
 " You should know something of the family 
 46 
 
THE FATHEE PRESIDENT 
 
 o£ Escobar, brother, a very ancient house and a 
 noble one, well set up by marriages on either 
 side. Don Antonio, who has the estates of Las 
 Plumas and La Liebre, you have met. Know, 
 then, that his younger son, called Isidro, is dedi- 
 cated, vowed, given over to Mother Church and 
 our Holy Order of St. Francis. Him I look to 
 have with me in three days at the farthest. To 
 that end I have had the room made ready next 
 to mine at Carmelo." 
 
 This was straight news. If the secretary's 
 eyes had not been cast down as their custom was 
 he would have seen the Uttle flicker of pride 
 with which it was deUvered ; but then the 
 drooped Uds hid also a little prick of alert dis- 
 mayedness behind them. The good Padre was 
 big with his plan, which was now ripe for deliv- 
 ery. He went on : — 
 
 " You win know, of course, that this scion of 
 a goodly house cannot be made a priest here in 
 California, as one might say the word, — that he 
 must needs go to our college of San Fernando, 
 perhaps also to Rome, but in good time, brother, 
 in good time. 
 
 47 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " You have heard me speak, Fray Demetrio, 
 of the danger that threatens our great founda- 
 tion, the work of our brother in Christ and St. 
 Francis, Padre Junipero Serra, whom God as- 
 soil, and how that by prayer and the works of 
 the Superior of our order and the intervention of 
 Holy Church it may yet be turned aside." This 
 was as far as the Father President would admit 
 the imminence of that dissolution of the Missions 
 which was so soon to be accomplished, lest by 
 admitting he should make it sure. Anything 
 more implied a doubt of the sovereign powers 
 of St. Francis ; St. Francis, it appeared, had other 
 affairs. 
 
 " Yet," said Padre Vicente, " in times like 
 these even the least of God's servants, of whom 
 we are, may do somewhat. The coming of this 
 young man into our order at this time should 
 mean much for the Missions, much, Demetrio, 
 and was no doubt so ordered aforetime, as you 
 shall hear." Upon this the good Padre out with 
 the story of Mercedes Venegas and the elder 
 Escobar, and a very pretty story he made of it 
 down to the ruin of Don Antonio's fortune and 
 
 48 
 
THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 the grant to him of the twin estates of Las Plu- 
 mas and La Liebre. Yet there remained in Mexico 
 members of both mother's and father's houses, 
 men of affairs and good fortime, well friended 
 of the state, who might serve St. Francis a turn. 
 " So," concluded the Padre, " we have here in 
 this young man, whom I . have seen and found 
 well inclined toward the work, that which may 
 win for us many worldly means, by which it is 
 ordained God's work should proceed." Thus the 
 Father President unbosomed himself of his con- 
 ceit, which was, plainly put, to keep Isidro by him 
 until the spirit and power of the Missions had 
 got into his blood, and then send him to Mexico 
 to be made a priest, and use his family for 
 priestly ends. An excellent plan enough, but 
 too late in fruition. Perhaps Fages knew this ; 
 the man was no fool, though reputed slow ; no 
 less a saint than many of his stripe, and greedy 
 of advancement. Perhaps Father Vicente made 
 the mistake of taking his subordinate's limita- 
 tions for granted. Fray Demetrio was a man of 
 no blood and little schooling, but if he had gone 
 far for a man of his parts he might go farther. 
 
 49 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Father Vicente was all for Holy Church and St. 
 Francis ; Fages was all for Fages. Holy Church 
 was a good thing for you if you could make it 
 so ; one might climb by the skirts of St. Francis 
 to some very desirable seat. So when the Father 
 President unburdened himself on the hill trail 
 between Carmelo and the Presidio of Monterey 
 he gave that worthy food for thought. He had 
 hardly done with it at the time they had come 
 to the top of the hill that looks on the town. 
 Out beyond, caught, as it were, in the bight of 
 the moon-shaped bay, the stranger ship dipped to 
 her white reflection on the tide. 
 
 " How make you her country ? " asked the 
 Padre. 
 
 " Venetian by the flag," said Fray Demetrio. 
 
 " Venetian. Ah, ah ! " The Father President 
 felt a loosening about his heart. What menace 
 to St. Francis could come from that quarter ? An 
 hour later he was with the Comandante at the 
 Presidio. 
 
 The Comandante of Monterey was a person- 
 able man, keen, well set up, not young, iron 
 gray as to hair, as to temper cold steel that re- 
 
 50 
 
THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 membered the pit where it was forged. A just 
 man, very jealous of military power. The Father 
 President and Comandante were, as respected 
 their several jurisdictions, upon the edge of dis- 
 trust ; for the rest, they were very good friends. 
 The Comandante's rooms overlooked the blue 
 floor of the bay and the Venetian ship which lay 
 in the anchorage. The vessel had seen stiff 
 weather and the mercy of God. Off Cape San Lu- 
 cas, beating before a southerly wind, it became 
 certain the rotten mainsail would never hold ; 
 the sound of splitting canvas was like the crack 
 of doom to the crew, who took themselves at 
 once to religion. They found an advocate with 
 God in the person of the Virgin, and by her in- 
 tervention, being strengthened miraculously, the 
 sail held, and had been vowed to her at the first 
 port of entry. The sailors even now gathered on 
 the beach to walk barefoot, each holding a cor- 
 ner of the canvas to bring it to the church of 
 San Carlos at Monterey. They raised a hymn 
 as they walked, the burden of which came up 
 through the Comandante's window, and served 
 for all introduction to the conversation. 
 
 51 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 " There came in that vessel, the King's De- 
 light," said the Comandante, " one Valentin 
 Delgado, with letters from the capital upon a 
 matter which concerns the civil authorities, which 
 concerns you, Padre, a little, me most o£ all." 
 Here was a good beginning, but the Padre 
 waited to hear more. It grew upon him as he 
 waited that Jesus Castro must be older than 
 he thought, not so much by years as by grief. 
 When the Comandante was ready for going on 
 it was curtly enough. 
 
 " You knew my wife ? " The Padre bowed. 
 " She was a Ramirez. This Delgado comes with 
 word of a considerable estate which has fallen 
 to her or her heirs ; failing the direct line it 
 reverts to the Church, — to the Hospital of 
 the Clean Conception at Mexico, to be exact." 
 This was large news, but could hardly be ex- 
 pected to interest a brother of St. Francis ; 
 the Padre judged there was more. Presently it 
 came. 
 
 " You wonder what further there could be in 
 the matter, since you. Padre, in common with the 
 rest of the world, believe me childless ; so, for a 
 
 52 
 
THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 long time, I supposed myself, but the truth is 
 Ysabel had a child." Something of what this 
 cost Castro the Padre guessed, but the Coman- 
 dante's temper brooked no pity. 
 
 " It is true," he went on, beginning to walk up 
 and down the room, " there was a daughter, and 
 no one knows what has become of her. . . . Ysa- 
 bel was at Santa Barbara ; I was putting down 
 the revolt in the south. It was the year of the 
 pestilence. On my return I found my wife dead, 
 and the woman EHsa, her nurse, gone back to 
 her people. Of the child I could hear no word. 
 As you have perhaps heard — as you know " — 
 The pride of a Castro could go no farther. 
 
 " As I know, my son," assented Saavedra fa- 
 therly. Report had it that the Senora Castro had 
 died of hate for the proudest man in New Spain, 
 whose hair was white with grief of her before his 
 time. 
 
 " Well," said the Comandante, " it was not 
 for a year that I heard anything of that matter. 
 Padre Bonaventura, who confessed her when she 
 died, was transferred from Santa Barbara, but 
 when he learned of my return he made occasion 
 
 53 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 to see me and told me this much. Ysabel was not 
 yet recovered from her confinement when she was 
 taken with the fever, and though the Padre came 
 as quickly as he might in that fearful time, she 
 was soon spent. What she confessed to him was 
 that she had had a child and put it away from 
 her, — I cannot believe her mind right at that 
 time, — but repented. She wished me to have it, 
 for it was mine of a surety. * Tell him to take 
 the child,' she said, and with that she died." 
 Damp like death stood on the Comandante's 
 brows. Father Saavedra kept his fine hands 
 twisted in a knot, and his eyes on the King's 
 Delight. Men will not look on one another's 
 mortal agony. 
 
 Said the Padre at last, " And you found no 
 trace ? " 
 
 " None. The woman Elisa might have told 
 somewhat, but she had disappeared. Afterward 
 I came upon sure proof that she had died of the 
 fever." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "Now I wish to know more. Elisa was a 
 Christian, and very intelligent. If the child died 
 
 54 
 
THE FATHEE PRESIDENT 
 
 she would hardly have had it buried without a 
 priest ; i£ it lived she would have had it baptized. 
 Some of your Padres may know ; I am told they 
 keep strict register. Or, at least, whoever had her 
 in charge would have confessed, perhaps." 
 
 " The seal of the confessional — " began the 
 Father President. 
 
 " The seal of the confessional, Padre," inter- 
 rupted the other, " has been used before now to 
 restore that which was lost." He shrugged ofB 
 the implied rebuke of the Padre's uplifted hand 
 and hurried on : "I have heard lately that your 
 college of San Fernando has fallen somewhat into 
 decay. The child is the heiress of the Ramirez ; 
 bring me news of her, and I promise you St. 
 Francis shall not suffer for it." It was a reUef to 
 Castro to speak peremptorily of what he would 
 do if the child were found : it seemed almost like 
 getting something done ; but to do the Padre jus- 
 tice, at this point he had hardly a thought of the 
 bribe to St. Francis, though that came afterward, 
 as befitted a Superior of the order. Just now he 
 was touched as a man by the other man's con- 
 suming grief. 
 
 55 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 " By what marks would you know her when 
 found?" 
 
 " None, none ! " cried Castro. " I know no- 
 thing except the time of her birth. She would be 
 turned sixteen by now. You see I did not know 
 — I was not sure — my wife had not said — I 
 had been four months from home, and it is prob- 
 able Ysabel was brought untimely to bed. She 
 had not been well in Santa Barbara. Then when 
 I heard that my wife was dead I wished not to 
 live myself ; I asked to be kept in active service. 
 But in the end I went back to Santa Barbara, 
 and there I learned about the child." 
 
 Slowly the two men beat over the stubble of 
 the Comandante's old grief, but found small 
 comfort in it. The woman Elisa had not been 
 one of the Mission neophytes, and in that busy 
 time she had died without priestly ministrations. 
 There had been another woman with her keeping 
 the Senora Castro's house. It seemed she might 
 be able to tell something if she could be found. 
 It appeared to the Padre that she must be living, 
 for if she had died in any of the Missions she 
 would have confessed, and word of it come to the 
 
 56 
 
THE FATHER PRESIDENT 
 
 Gomandante. There were not then so many 
 dwellers in Alta California that the name of Jesus 
 Castro could come up in any such connection and 
 the Padres not know who it should be. The 
 Father President promised to charge his mind 
 with it as he went on his yearly round of Mis- 
 sions, which woxdd begin now in a week or two 
 at most. 
 
 It was a matter which could be turned to ac- 
 count in many ways. To serve Castro in this 
 affair would be to turn his influence on the 
 side of the Missions in the crisis which ap- 
 proached, and the reward might be considerable. 
 Besides, there was the heiress herself, who, if 
 found, might be, as a child of the Missions, 
 brought to serve their end. These were the 
 thoughts of the functionary, the head of an 
 order ; there was another which was pure priest- 
 hood. Father Vicente was jealous for souls, and 
 Castro an indifferent communicant. If now he 
 could be helped in this matter his thoughts 
 might be turned properly toward God and the 
 Church, his mother, who served him. This 
 was sweet thought, and the Padre fed upon 
 
 57 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 it walking back to Monterey. But what he 
 thought he did not tell to Fages, much to that 
 worthy's discomfiture. The good brother had an 
 itch for news. 
 
YSABEL 
 
 HIS is a true account of Ysabel Cas- 
 tro, and how a child of hers came 
 to be lost. The rest of the argu- 
 ment has to do with finding her. 
 Most of it was known to her husband ; 
 ci as much as was known to all the world 
 ci was known to Vicente Saavedra ; the rest 
 ^ you shall hear and judge. 
 ^ If Ysabel Castro had been a beautiful 
 5 woman, fit to set a man beside himself, 
 \ Ysabel Ramirez had been a more beau- 
 tiful girl. There are still extant in San 
 Bias among the gallants there some songs which 
 were made of her worshipfully. They knew 
 how to appraise a woman, those sprigs of New 
 Spain, — her hands, her ankles, her eyebrows, the 
 black shroud of her hair. That she had few 
 suitors for her hand among many lovers was not 
 so much because the Senor Ramirez was villain- 
 ously poor as that he was villainously proud. 
 
 59 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Suitors or no suitors, Ysabel had given her 
 heart to another Ramirez, a cousin in some sort, 
 who had the family beauty, the family pride, and, 
 it may be added, the family poverty. There is 
 no doubt he loved Ysabel ; perhaps the young 
 people might have come together and been happy 
 in the face of all these, — such things have hap- 
 pened in New Spaiu, — but before this could be 
 accomplished Jesus Castro had seen her. Castro 
 was already a made man, and his youth dry in 
 him when the beauty of Ysabel Ramirez shook 
 the crypts of his soul. One is obliged to admit, 
 had there been no impediment, it would have 
 been a suitable marriage. The name of Castro 
 was as good as Ramirez, the fortunes better. 
 
 The pride of young men is not the pride of 
 middle age. Ramon Ramirez was too proud to 
 have his cousin if she did not love him ; Castro 
 was too proud, loving her, not to have her on 
 any terms. In the end he possessed her, at what 
 cost to himself you shall hear. Always one must 
 admit a certain amount of misunderstanding to 
 mitigate the pitiableness of human affairs. 
 
 When Castro began to make favors of small 
 60 
 
YSABEL 
 
 loans to the elder Ramirez it was merely to ease 
 the need he had of serving Ysabel. When Rami- 
 rez began to accept favors he had no hint of 
 Castro's suit. If he had known how much the 
 weight of debt pressed upon the elder man, Castro 
 might not have used such urgency. That Ysabel 
 did not love him he knew, but had no hint of the 
 affair with the cousin ; there had been no formal 
 betrothal, and, besides, the body and soul of him 
 cried out for her. The desire of mastery mastered 
 him ; Ysabel he would have i£ he died for it. But 
 Ysabel died. 
 
 She had one stormy hour with her father, a 
 stolen one with her lover, and afterward submitted 
 to what was, for her, the will of God. They were 
 aU for pride, those dons of New Spain, for name 
 and honor and bravery ; but in fact they were a 
 simple folk. 
 
 Jesiis Castro was at that time Comandante at 
 San Bias, and Ramon Ramirez one of his lieu- 
 tenants. At the marriage of his superior Ramon 
 held a stirrup for the bride at the church door. 
 Castro saw his hand tremble when her foot was 
 on it, and got an inkling ; looked at his wife's 
 
 61 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 face, and had a revelation. There went to that 
 wedding a broken heart, a slighted troth, a cold 
 exchange of coin, for all of which Castro paid. 
 
 Ysabel saw to that. She went to his hearth in 
 scorn, to his bed with cold shudderings of distaste. 
 He had his will of her as far as the outward form, 
 never so far as the borderland of soul and under- 
 standing. His pretty plan for marrying a wife and 
 winning her afterward went all awry. It was not 
 that he was too proud to woo, but he lacked 
 knowing how. She met his courtesies with con- 
 tempt, and his passion with bitter gibes. In all 
 this was no outward quarrel. Her very obedience 
 was a mock. Eamon she had never seen, never 
 tried to see, since her marriage. It was not doubt 
 of his wife's honor that led him to exchange his 
 post to Santa Barbara, where aU was strange, but 
 the hope that in sheer loneliness she might turn 
 to her husband. The worst of his unhappiness 
 was that with all her hating he could not unlove 
 her. 
 
 At Santa Barbara Ysabel loathed him more, 
 and clung closer to the woman Elisa, who had 
 nursed her. 
 
 62 
 
YSABEL 
 
 In truth, I think the poor lady not all to blame 
 in this. With all his will to do her good, her 
 husband's bitter passion would not let him spare 
 her. Besides, her condition — she was by now 
 enceinte — no doubt worked a disorder in her 
 mind. Of this, as you have learned, Castro had 
 no hint. 
 
 " It would please him too much," said Ysabel 
 to her woman. 
 
 Indian revolts in the south kept her husband 
 away from home much of that year, and furthered 
 her plan of concealment. When the Dona Ysabel 
 was near her time, there broke out at the Mission 
 a great pestilence of fever that carried off the 
 natives by scores, and kept every man's mind upon 
 his own affairs. 
 
 Those were simple times .when nature had a 
 large measure of trust, and women served one 
 another at need. Dona Ysabel had in her hour, 
 which came untimely, the woman EKsa and one 
 other. About sundawn, when they showed her 
 the child, she saw that she had stamped it with 
 her hate, — the very front and feature of the 
 Castros. She turned upon her side and hid her 
 
 63 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 face. "Take it away," she said to the women, 
 " take it away." 
 
 It seemed a weakling, not likely to find breath 
 for going on, and the women had hurried it to 
 the priest for baptism. Father Bonaventura had 
 too much to do at that time for record-keeping ; 
 he christened the child, between two deaths, 
 Jacinta Concepcion, and knew no more about it. 
 
 Ysabel never saw her child but once afterward. 
 The women put it to her breast, but there was no 
 milk ; the rage of grief had dried that fountain. 
 It seemed she might have been tenderly moved 
 toward it, for she looked at it long, and took a 
 medal from her neck to hang about the child's, 
 but at once she rose up in her bed, bright and 
 hot and shaken terribly, crying upon the women 
 to take it away. She seemed not to have any 
 thought but " Take it away ! take it away ! " 
 and " Never let him know, Elisa, never let him 
 know," meaning her husband, "ah God, never 
 let him know ! " So she would fall asleep moaning, 
 and waking fall to crying again very pitifully. 
 It seemed as if the child were a great shame to 
 her which she would hide, as, indeed, such a birth 
 
 64 
 
YSABEL 
 
 might be to a woman who was a maid at heart. 
 But the women understood that she was in a fever, 
 and were very tender of her. 
 
 On the ninth day the woman Elisa saw that 
 she opened new eyes upon her, strange, but sane. 
 " Go for the Padre," she said to the other serving 
 woman ; " it is the shadow of death." The shadow 
 was very near. 
 
 " I have been a sinful woman," Ysabel said to 
 the priest between two breaths. " Tell my hus- 
 band to take the child " — With that she fell 
 a-shuddering so that the Padre made haste to lay 
 the host between her lips. So she died, but when 
 Padre Bonaventura had time to inquire into the 
 matter the woman and the child had disappeared. 
 Doiia Ysabel should have shown her repentance 
 to her servant rather than the priest. The woman 
 lov,ed her, and was as reticent as death. 
 
 Neither the Padre nor Castro could make any- 
 thing of it. That they had died of the fever 
 seemed likeliest. Castro fed upon the hint of 
 forgiveness in that last word, " Tell my husband to 
 take the child." Ah, Christ, what would he not 
 give ! but to the world he was still a childless man. 
 
 65 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 As much of this as he knew, Padre Saavedra 
 brooded over after his meeting with the Coman- 
 dante. He glimpsed a Kttle what had been in 
 Ysabel's mind when she had denied her child — 
 the good father had confessedwomenaswell asmen 
 — and a little of the notion of the woman Elisa; 
 but he believed the daughter of Castro still alive, 
 since God, who ordered all things, would hardly 
 let it rise up to trouble his mind if there were 
 nothing to come of it. The woman Elisa was a 
 Christian, — therefore, if living, to be reached 
 through Holy Church. Father Saavedra had it 
 in mind to go through the Missions as with a sieve 
 till she was found, or some trace of her. Castro 
 beheved her dead of the plague, but the child was 
 not with her ; then she had left it in charge of 
 some other who might still be reached. But the 
 best reason for believing was the urgent need 
 of St. Francis to support his faihng cause; the 
 fortune of Ramirez might very well be the ram 
 caught in the thicket for sacrifice. You will easily 
 perceive by this the bent of the Father President's 
 mind. 
 
 At the Presidio the Padre had asked Castro 
 66 
 
YSABEL 
 
 for proofs, — marks of identification by which 
 the child should be known when found; the Co- 
 mandante, you remember, had said there were 
 none. There was the medal, — Castro had seen 
 it on his wife's bosom, — but they knew nothing 
 of that ; and there were marks : the beauty of 
 the Eamirez stamped by the Comandante, — two 
 perfect parted bows of lips, two great eyes under 
 a fine curved line of brows meeting over the high 
 straight nose, a temper quick and restrained, a 
 tongue tipped with the aloe of bitterness that 
 curdled Dona Ysabel's heart, great power of 
 hating, greater for loving. By these marks 
 you should know the child of Ysabel and Jesus 
 Castro when she was found. No doubt the good 
 Padre was right. The surface of waters is troubled 
 above bodies about to rise; something was to 
 come up out of the depths to concern the Co- 
 mandante and the Father President. Eevolving 
 the affair. Father Vicente paced back to Carmelo 
 neither so cheery nor so communicable as he had 
 been in the morning. 
 
 Meantime Castro, who knew more of these 
 things than the Padre, but not so much as you 
 
 67 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 have heard, set straightly about the business of 
 doing something. He sought out Don Valentin, 
 and put it before him somewhat in this fashion. 
 There was an heir, a daughter who would be 
 about sixteen, but she was unfortunately out of 
 touch, mislaid, in fact lost. He let Delgado think 
 what he would of causes, gave him only facts, 
 place, time, the name of the nurse. It occurred 
 to him now as he talked that he had not paid 
 sufficient attention to the other woman ; he had 
 been all for Elisa. It grew upon him that here 
 was a clue that might be followed to advantage. 
 All this was interesting, though it was hardly 
 clear what it purported to Delgado, but there 
 was more to follow. 
 
 This Delgado was as courtly and serviceable 
 a young man as ever came out of Mexico ; a nim- 
 ble wit and likely to have himself most in hand 
 when there was most need. AU the young cabal- 
 leros about the Presidio were vastly taken with 
 him. He brought them a new style of waistcoat 
 and a new game at cards. The rope of silver 
 around his peaked sombrero was fastened with a 
 great turquoise. The leathers of his spurs had 
 
 68 
 
YSABEL 
 
 jewels in them. Besides he could talk, as the 
 fashion then set, of liberty and the Republic, — 
 had all its newest phases very pat. 
 
 It seemed from his account that there had been 
 a half-brother of the elder Ramirez who had gone 
 far in the favor of fortune, but not far enough 
 in the favor of ladies to secure him a lawful heir. 
 Dying, his estates fell to the heirs of Ysabel, if 
 any such were found. Delgado freely admitted 
 that he had accepted that quest from the admin- 
 istrator because it brought him to the new land 
 where he had heard estates were to be come 
 by. He had taken ship at San Bias on this 
 same King's DeHght that dwindled to a speck 
 against the west. He had no other employment 
 but the business of the heir. 
 
 Castro considered that he had here a tool to 
 his hand. Delgado could see for himself — Cas- 
 tro put it to him, walking up and down in the 
 low room opening toward the sea — that he was 
 the man for this affair. Once supplied with money, 
 letters, all the details that were known to the 
 father, this young blade with the quick wit should 
 do wonders. To tell the truth, Castro had made 
 
 69 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 a perfunctory search. The rage of Ysabel even 
 in her grave had been a thing not lightly to be 
 braved. From the first he had been sure it would 
 baffle him. 
 
 Padre Bonaventura was no longer at Santa 
 Barbara, but at San Grabriel. He should be able 
 to set forth the facts freshly. The census of the 
 inhabitants was so strictly kept by the Missions 
 that a careful search must reveal something, and 
 the girl once found, — ah, well, — who so worthy 
 of the doe as he who sped the arrow; to whom 
 should the dove belong if not to him who set the 
 snare? In short, Castro let him know in very 
 courtly and roundabout fashion, and not aU at 
 one sitting or in one day, that if he would but 
 find the daughter of Ysabel Eamirez he might 
 have whatever he asked, even to the hand of the 
 heiress. Delgado felicitated himself that things 
 were coming his way, but he would have a surer 
 bond. This polite indirection had a little fallen 
 into disuse in the days of the Eepublic. He 
 would do his utmost, he said, and marry her — "if 
 so be she was marriageable ! " The eyes of the 
 Comandante narrowed to two slits spitting fire. 
 
 70 
 
YSABEL 
 
 Marriageable ! to a Delgado, the daughter of a 
 Ramirez ! Don Valentin kept a level eye ; he had 
 seen great men rage before now; nevertheless, 
 he had good manners in the main. 
 
 "The Senor Comandante forgets — the seno- 
 rita may be married by now." This was a check, 
 and Castro let his rage die out while he consid- 
 ered it. Ah, ah, no matter; only find her, the 
 reward would not be wanting. So, finally, a bar- 
 gain was struck, but at this first interview they 
 had hardly made a beginning. There was very 
 little business in those days in Alta California 
 which could not better be finished to-morrow 
 than to-day. 
 
 Delgado had gone off to his quarters in the 
 town. Lights twinkled in the houses and went 
 out. Somewhere out of sight a woman sang to a 
 fretful child, the sentries called across the dark. 
 Over in Carmel Padre Vicente knelt by the bones 
 of Serra; in devotion his soul took flight. De- 
 metrio Fages, near him, moved sidewise on his 
 knees to rest them from the tiles ; he prayed with 
 his hps, his hands, and the surface of his mind. 
 The depths of him were busy with other things. 
 
 71 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 By and by the moon swam into the clear void; 
 it looked in on the serene face of the Father 
 President, sleeping with his hands clasped on a 
 crucifix lest death surprise him; on Delgado, 
 gaming with the young bloods of Monterey ; on 
 Escobar, sleeping in his silver-fringed mantle, and 
 on El Zarzo, watching him in the wakeful pauses 
 with black, deep-lighted eyes. But in the house 
 of the Comandante lay shadow of darkness; 
 where no moon could pierce, a man rolled face 
 downward on his bed, who moaned and bit his 
 hands, and cried only " Ysabel ! Ysabel ! Ysa- 
 bel ! " 
 
VI 
 
 THE BRIAE 
 
 cHE rain was over and gone when Isi- 
 dro woke in the grapevine hut of 
 Peter Lebecque. It was clear day 
 overhead, and the sim coming up re- 
 splendent. Peter Lebecque was busy about 
 the cooking pots ; said he, — 
 
 " Well, senor, are you for the road ? " 
 " Most assuredly, seiior ; the sooner the 
 better." 
 
 " It is so," said Lebecque ; " the Padre Presi- 
 dente is not a man to be kept waiting." They 
 broke their fast in silence ; the boy, Isidro 
 judged, had been fed ; the sheep jangled their 
 bells for the start. El Zarzo came up with Esco- 
 bar's horse and a kicking pinto saddled for him- 
 self. He gave no greeting, but his eyes were 
 distinctly friendly. He was dressed more in the 
 fashion of the time, and showed more slender- 
 ness. He wore no hat, but the kerchief on his 
 
 73 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 head was black and new. Rid of the fantastic 
 garnish of leaves, his brows showed under it a 
 fine black line meeting across the thin high nose. 
 Straight black locks clipped his face around and 
 fell under the chin like a veil ; so much of his 
 skin as showed had a deep touch of the sun. He 
 was to ride with Isidro and the sheep to find 
 Mariano's men, who would be by this time in the 
 place called Pasteria. 
 
 There was no ceremony of parting other than 
 this : the trapper called the lad aside and thrust 
 a packet in his bosom ; there passed some words 
 between them in a strange tongue, — French, 
 guessed Isidro, — but no farewell. 
 
 Escobar, who, now that he was fed and astride 
 of a horse, felt the world to go very well with 
 him, sang as they passed out of the canon of the 
 vines. 
 
 Eain still shook from the laden trees ; it lay 
 heavily on the slanting grass, heaviest on the 
 folded poppy buds. Little runnels lined the 
 gravelly slopes; the streams were over-full. 
 Woolly patches of cloud clung about the shoul- 
 dering hills and flocked in the canons. Where 
 
 74 
 
THE BRIAE 
 
 their horses trod among the wild oats there was 
 a sound of showers. It was a morning of deep, 
 unmastered joy. They went slowly by dim, sweet 
 trails, for the lambs made small progress in the 
 wetness. 
 
 The sun warmed and dried them soon enough ; 
 warmed the blood of the lad, who played a thou- 
 sand impish tricks, — scurried on steep hillsides, 
 went needlessly about in the scrub to increase the 
 way, chased the hill creatures, and gave them 
 call for call. He rode one of the wild horses 
 native to those hiUs, on a saddle of Indian make, 
 lacking the high pommel of the Spaniard, and 
 rode like an Indian^ indifferently on one side or 
 the other, on neck or rump. With all he watched 
 Escobar with alert intentness. 
 
 At mid-morning they struck into a belt of 
 chaparral in the wash of a sometime flood, very 
 gaudy at this season with wild gourd and cactus 
 flower. Rabbits herded here, scarcely fearful of 
 men or dogs. In the clear vault above them 
 eagles swooped and hung. Suddenly one dropped 
 with a great spread of pinions on the cactus scrub. 
 It struck and halted, sweeping forward slowly for 
 
 75 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the rise, and from its pierced quarry came a cry 
 anguished and human. Isidro, startled out of a 
 muse, clapped spurs to his horse. As the eagle 
 rose to his level, he struck it sharply with his 
 silver-handled quirt. The great bird, amazed, 
 loosed his hold upon the rabbit, which made off 
 in the chaparral, squealing pitifully. The eagle 
 showed fight for a moment, thought better of it, 
 sailed ofE to new depredations. 
 
 El Zarzo rode up astounded. " What ! " he 
 said. 
 
 " My faith," said Isidro, " but I can never hear 
 one of them scream for pain and be quiet." He 
 was ashamed of his weakness and ashamed of his 
 shame. 
 
 " Rabbits were made to be eaten," said the 
 shepherd lad, "and eagles to eat them." 
 
 Isidro recovered himself. 
 
 " It is not fitting that a priest should see kill- 
 ing done," he said. 
 
 The boy edged up his pony and slacked rein ; 
 clearly this fine gentleman was not to be feared, 
 and might repay study. 
 
 " Are you a priest, senor ? " 
 76 
 
THE BKIAR 
 
 " I am about to be." 
 
 "What is he, a priest?" 
 
 " A priest, Virgen Santisima ! A priest is a 
 very holy man, in the service of God and our 
 Saviour and St. Francis, or other of God's saints. 
 Hast never seen one ? " 
 
 " One. He was fat, and had small hair, and 
 wore a dress like a woman's. You look not like 
 such a one. When my mother lay a-dying she 
 was all for a priest. ' A priest, a priest ! ' she 
 would cry, but when one was fetched she was 
 already gone." 
 
 " She was, no doubt, a very good Christian." 
 
 " She was a Cahuiallas," said the boy. 
 
 " A Cahuiallas ! Thou?" 
 
 " Of that tribe." 
 
 Isidro looked at the fine, small face under the 
 fall of hair. " Nevertheless, you are no Indian," 
 was his thought. 
 
 " But what does he do, a priest? " 
 
 " My faith, the boy is a stark heathen ! " cried 
 Isidro. " A priest is for marrying and christening 
 and burying. He doeth on earth the works of 
 our Father Christ." 
 
 77 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "My mother had a Christ," said El Zarzo, 
 " silver, on a black cross. In the sickness it is a 
 great comfort." 
 
 Isidro had a fine feeling for situations; he 
 tuned himself to the boy's key. Their talk was 
 all of the wood and its ways, trapper's and 
 shepherd's talk, suited to their present shift. For 
 food the boy had brought jerke of venison, barley 
 cakes, and dried figs. They took their nooning 
 under an oak with great content. 
 
 El Zarzo pushed the sheep shrewdly ; their 
 way lay by high windy slopes, by shallow canons 
 under a sky of leaves. They worked up water 
 courses reeking sweet with buckeye bloom ; they 
 forded streams swollen with the rain. So evening 
 brought them to the place called Pasteria, — a 
 long valley running north and south between 
 broken ridges full of lairs. Spare branched pines 
 spiked the upper rim of it ; oaks stood up here 
 and there ; along the shallow groove that some- 
 times held a stream, a fringe of birches. The 
 sheep passed down the shore of the valley, and 
 the purple glow of evening lapped them like a 
 tide ; burrowing owls began to call ; night hawks 
 
 78 
 
THE BRIAR 
 
 set their dusky barred wings above the scrub. 
 Far across the pastures a rosy flame blossomed 
 out against the dark, and settled to a glow. It 
 was the camp-fire of Mariano's men. 
 
 " They come this way," said the boy. " Rest 
 here, and by the third hour after sunrise they 
 will come up with us." They Ht a fire of sticks, 
 and had a meal. Pastena flooded with soft 
 dusk, and the rim of it melted into the sky. 
 Noe and Reina Maria kept their accustomed 
 round. 
 
 " Senor," said the boy as he lay in his bright 
 serape by the dying fire, " do you like it, being a 
 priest ? " 
 
 " It is a great honor, and greatly to the soul's 
 salvation to serve God and Holy Church." 
 
 "But do you like it?" 
 
 " Yes," said Escobar, forced to deal simply in 
 the face of such simplicity. As well put on airs 
 with Noe or Reina Maria. 
 
 " Do women become priests ever ? " 
 
 " Sacramento ! Women ! It is a man's work, 
 being a priest, though there are many holy 
 women who serve God and the saints in con- 
 
 79 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 vents. Santa Barbara was such a one, and Santa 
 Clara." 
 
 "What do they do?" 
 
 " They say prayers and do penance ; also they 
 do the work of the convent, and visit the 
 sick." 
 
 " Is that all ? Do they never go out ? " 
 
 " There may be other matters requiring their 
 attention, biit I do not recall them. For the most 
 part they pray." 
 
 " Do they never marry ? " 
 
 " Santisima ! They are the brides of the 
 church." 
 
 " Nor have children ? " 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 El Zarzo brooded over these things for a space, 
 and Isidro settled himself for sleep. 
 
 "It is stupid, I think," said the boy, "to get 
 married." 
 
 . " Ah, no doubt you wiU come to think dif- 
 ferently." 
 
 " You are not for marrying?" 
 
 " I am to be a priest." Isidro said his prayers 
 and crossed himself; El Zarzo did the same; 
 
 80 
 
THE BRIAE 
 
 it appeared he was a Christian, though some- 
 what lacking in instruction. The deep velvet 
 void closed over them, blurred with stars ; the 
 coyotes were beginning their choruses. 
 
 Shepherds are a simple folk, slow of wit, little 
 wondering, accustomed to mysteries. They have 
 an affinity for sheep. Those who had the care 
 of Mariano's flock came up with Isidro and the 
 lad about mid-morning. It is doubtful if Nicolas 
 and Ramon understood their part in the affair, 
 but they made no objection. Here were sheep of 
 Mariano's lacking a shepherd, and shepherds of 
 Mariano's hiring. They met and mingled as 
 of duty bound. Further than that the matter 
 furnished them material for days' thought and 
 night talks by many a coyote-scaring fire. The 
 adventure of No^ and Reina Maria passed into 
 the Iliad of the hills. By the week's end Nicolas 
 and Ramon, who had traversed the length and 
 breadth of the affair, concluded that they should 
 go and look for Mariano. 
 
 Isidro and El Zarzo, once they had done with 
 them, struck across the valley for the outposts of 
 the Santa Lucia. On leaving Las Plumas it had 
 
 81 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 been the purpose of Escobar to drop into the 
 public road at the Mission San Antonio de Padua 
 de Los Robles. From there he could reach San 
 Carlos in a day's riding. This business of No^ 
 and Reina Maria had set all his plans awry, 
 fie was now out of his own riding and all at sea. 
 El Zarzo, who knew the land like an Indian, 
 led him a sharp pace. They rode hard, made a 
 hunter's camp that night, and slept the clock 
 around on stacked dried grass. 
 
 Prom that the directions for the way were 
 plain enough : keep to the trail as long as it 
 ran west, where it broke and wavered in stony 
 ground cut straight over the hill crest. It did 
 not matter greatly how ; take the easiest going 
 and keep a certain bulk of blue hill always to 
 the left. So you came to a valley with a river ; 
 the ford was by the road house ; the rest was 
 open highway. Isidro rose early, sHpped a silver 
 piece under the shepherd lad's serape, and gave 
 him a friendly pat. The boy breathed lightly in 
 sleep. 
 
 The way was long, and Escobar struck out with 
 a Ught heart. Lilac and laurel bloom brushed 
 
 82 
 
THE BRIAR 
 
 his saddle-bow and at times engulfed him. The 
 Santa Lucia rose up, blue and sparsely wooded 
 slopes ; seaward on those high and lonely altars 
 bloomed the tail spike of yucca, called the Can- 
 dles of our Lord. He pricked forward singing. 
 The wood was very still. It came upon him once 
 or twice that something moved behind him in 
 the trail. Twigs snapped ; a stone rolled clatter- 
 ing to some leafy deep. His horse grew restless, 
 cocked an ear back upon the path. It might be 
 deer or bear. Too noisy for one, Isidro judged, 
 too still for the other. His horse whinnied and 
 halted. Wild horses, no doubt, or an Indian rid- 
 ing at random in the scrub. He had come to 
 the end of his trail and was forced to pick his 
 way. Once in the pauses of this business he 
 heard the clank of bridle bit, but nothing came 
 up with him. By this he became sure he was 
 followed. Little hints of sound, a pricking be- 
 tween his shoulders, the unease of his horse, 
 kept him on the alert. Covering the rise of the 
 hill, he looked back to see the scrub moving 
 where a horse, led by his rider, came after him. 
 His own horse saw and whinnied ; the led horse 
 
 83 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 answered. Then began a conversation between 
 those two ; it seemed of friendly import, but 
 conveyed no information to the rider. Isidro 
 cleared an open space at a gallop, backed under 
 a hanging rock, and waited. 
 
 It was by this time noon, hot and dim ; a bank 
 of white cloud hung low in the west above the 
 sea ; purple haze lay like a web along the scrub. 
 No birds broke silence but the telltale jays. 
 Isidro could hear the horse slowly breaking his 
 way up the steep. Since the rider had dismounted 
 Isidro could make nothing of him until he came 
 full into the cleared space before him. It was El 
 Zarzo. He must have expected to come up with 
 Isidro hereabout, for he gave neither start nor 
 sign when the other hailed him. Said he, — 
 
 " How goes the trail, senor ? " 
 
 " My faith, lad, you gave me a turn. Where 
 go you ? " 
 
 " I, senor ? I go to the Presidio of Monterey 
 in your company." The lad was imperturbably 
 impudent. 
 
 " Caramba ! I cannot take you ; it is ridiculous ! 
 What will the old man say ? " 
 
 84 
 
THE BEIAR 
 
 " That you are very discourteous, since I 
 have guided you so far, and you refuse me the 
 same." 
 
 "Eh, it can prick, this Briar," said Isidro. 
 " Did he bid you follow me ? " 
 
 El Zarzo looked calmly out across the lilac 
 bloom. " It grows late," he said. 
 
 Isidro became grave. 
 
 " Think, lad, there is no friend there to do 
 you a kindness. As for me, I know not how I 
 shall fare where I go, nor how long remain." 
 
 " There have been few to do me kindness, that 
 I should look for it." 
 
 " Your father " — 
 
 " He is not my father." 
 
 " I refuse to take you." 
 
 " The trail is free, seiior." The lad breathed 
 deeply and his face was troubled, but he was 
 not to be shaken. 
 
 " Peste ! " cried Isidro. He wheeled his horse 
 about, and made off at a keen pace ; his mount 
 was of good blood, and proved the mettle of his 
 pasture, but the hill pony had the lighter load. 
 He was never a full cry behind. On a stony 
 
 85 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 slope, Isidro, doubling on his trail, came once 
 face to face with him. 
 
 " Boy, boy ! " he cried, " do you know what 
 you do?" 
 
 " I go to Monterey, senor." 
 
 Isidro unbent suddenly with laughter. 
 
 " So," he said ; " we will go better in com- 
 pany." They struck into the valley presently, and 
 jogged on comfortably side by side. 
 
VII 
 
 THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 ^HE riders were now upon the main 
 ridge of the coastwise hills ; from 
 this vantage they saw the land 
 I" "i~t"~*"' slope, by terraces unevenly wooded, 
 to the floor of the valley where the SaUnas 
 ran. Here was a sag in the ridge that gave 
 easy passage. North and south the range 
 showed brokenly ; west, the valley roUed 
 :: up into blunt rounded hills; beyond them 
 S lay the sea. They watched the shift and 
 play of light above it all day long. Between the 
 trees on the slope the scrub was thick and close ; 
 all the gullies were choked with the waste of 
 years. There were deer here, but no antelope; 
 even at this distance they could make out a 
 number of bears feeding on mast under the wide 
 oaks. The riders steered by the road house that 
 made a white speck by the river; an hour later 
 they heard the singing of the ford. 
 
 87 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 They had shrewd shift crossing, for the river 
 ran full and swift ; the horses had to swim for it. 
 The Escobar finery was hardly so fine by now. 
 They slept early at the road house, where the lad 
 passed for a servant, and lay at Isidro's feet ; 
 dawn end saw them riding forward in a weeping 
 fog, saddle weary, but very good company. 
 Isidro turned questioner in his turn ; the lad told 
 him freely of himself and his way of life. That 
 was not much ; he stuck to it that his mother was 
 an Indian, a Cahuiallas ; Peter Lebecque no kin 
 of his, — " my mother's man," he said. Their 
 life was all of the hills, hunting and trapping, 
 following the shifting of wild creatures for their 
 food and housing. They had never gone into the 
 settlements ; it seemed there was some obscure 
 reason for this. Isidro made a shrewd guess that 
 the woman might have been enticed away from 
 one of the Missions, and was wary of a forced 
 return. The lad had seen only Indians, vaqueros, 
 and some such wayfarer as Escobar. It had been 
 a rough life, but he showed no roughness ; he 
 had been servilely bred, but used no servility. 
 
 Of his errand at the Presidio of Monterey, if 
 88 
 
THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 errand he had, he would say nothing. He showed 
 Isidro a package of coin, curious concerning the 
 value and use of it, avowing that he had it from 
 Peter Lebecque ; upon which the young man 
 made sure the trapper had sent him, but he gave 
 over trying to probe that afEair. 
 
 "Keep your own secret, lad," he said good- 
 humoredly. " But you are young to be seeking 
 your fortune in this fashion. Where will you go 
 in Monterey ? " 
 
 " Ah, with you, serior," breathed the lad, with 
 something quick and wistful in his eyes. Isidro 
 laughed. Priest or no priest, he had a good deal 
 of the zest of life in him ; the sense of companion- 
 ship quickened it. If the lad took kindly to him, 
 it was no more than the kindness he showed to 
 the lad. By Our Lady, they would see something 
 of the world, even out of a cassock. Their blood 
 sang to a pretty tune ; they rode forward merrily. 
 By noon they saw below them the chimes in the 
 east tower of Carmelo. They saw the sea, and, 
 that being new to them, stayed rein to snuff the 
 wind of it like a strong wine of excitement. Rid- 
 ing into the Mission grounds Isidro grew grave. 
 
 89 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Look now," he said, " here is the end of my 
 going at my own will. I shall find the Padre 
 Presidente here or at Monterey and give myself 
 into his hands. Whatever I am able to do for 
 you, that I will do, but you must be obedient in 
 all things ; so you will win the Padre's good will, 
 and in any private concern I wiU bespeak you 
 fairly. More I cannot promise. Here let us rest." 
 
 By a brook under an oak Isidro braided his 
 hair and set his dress in order. They fell in with 
 a band of neophytes going to dinner from a 
 meadow where they had been marking calves. 
 The Indians had stripped to the work, but they 
 had each a shirt which they put on as they went. 
 They wore little else, — a loin cloth and a strip 
 of kerchief about the brows. Some of them had 
 protected their legs with strips of hide wound 
 about and about. 
 
 A great body of white cloud brooded over the 
 land; the shadow of it dappled the hills. A 
 wind came up from the sea and brought the breath 
 of orchard bloom. The neophytes fell into lines 
 two and two ; another band came in from the 
 fields and streamed alongside them. They raised 
 
 90 
 
THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 a crooning chant, timing their feet as they went. 
 The bell cried noon from the tower. 
 
 The Father President came out of the church, 
 and Isidro knelt to receive his blessing. At the 
 meal which followed he was made acquainted 
 with the resident Padres, — Pablo Gomez and 
 Ignacio Salazar, — and with Fray Demetrio. 
 
 It was a very comfortable meal, — soup with 
 force-meat balls, chicken, beef dressed with pep- 
 pers, a dish of spiced pumpkin, another of fried 
 beans, fine flour cakes, and light sour wine of the 
 Mission's own making. An Indian servitor stood 
 at the Father President's back ; the napery was 
 white and fine. Isidro gave the news of Las 
 Plumas, the progress of his father's malady, the 
 tale of the flocks, the growth of the vine cuttings 
 Father Saavedra had sent the year before ; but 
 of his journey, of the incident of the Indian 
 under the oak, of Noe and Reina Maria he said 
 nothing ; these were matters too smaU for the 
 Father President's ear. Neither did Saavedra say 
 anything of his schemes, nor what he would ad- 
 vise for the young man ; the time was not ripe. 
 
 They walked out afterward in the pleasant air. 
 91 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 The neophytes were getting back to their work, 
 children lay asleep, and women sat spinning and 
 weaving in the sun. The Mission San Carlos 
 Borromeo stands on an elevation, its buildings 
 inclosing an imposing square. On the north side 
 the church, which was built in a single aisle, 
 reared its two towers, brooding above the first 
 foundation of Junipero Serra, el Capella de los 
 Dolores. Adjoining the church were the cloisters 
 of the priests, opening into the long dining-room ; 
 beyond that the kitchen. The store-rooms, shops, 
 smithy, the quarters of the major-domo, and the 
 huts of the neophytes made up the four sides of 
 the quadrangle, in the midst of which stood the 
 whipping-post and stocks. All the walls were of 
 adobe, whitewashed, shining in the sun ; aU the 
 roofs of tile, brick red ; aU the floors, except that 
 of the church, of stamped earth, swept daily. 
 Two bells hung in the west tower, three in the 
 east, reached by an outside stair. One was rung 
 for meals, for rising, for beginning and quitting 
 work. For the offices of Holy Church they rang 
 the chimes. So Padre Vicente explained to young 
 Escobar. 
 
 92 
 
THE KOAD TO CARMELO 
 
 Very pleasantly, very much at ease in the 
 golden afternoon, they went from storehouse to 
 smithy, from chapel to orchard. They saw the 
 rows of huts of the married neophytes, orderly 
 and four square like a village street ; saw the 
 carved Christ above the high altar flanked by the 
 patron of the Mission, and San Antonio with the 
 Child. They said a prayer by the bones of Serra, 
 and bowed before the Stations of the Cross. 
 Then they went out into the quadrangle to see a 
 man flogged for stealing a hen. 
 
 The feUow had fifteen lashes, and bore them 
 stolidly, putting on his shirt again with the 
 greatest good-humor ; doubtless he thought the 
 dinner worth it. Isidro looked out to sea ; he 
 felt a little queasily at the sound of blows, and so 
 missed the point of the Padre's observation on 
 the Church's duty of rendering spiritual relief 
 according to the fault. At Las Plumas they had 
 Indian servants who did about as pleased them, 
 except when the old Don was in a passion, and 
 threw things at them. If the women misbehaved, 
 their husbands dealt with them in a homely 
 fashion, but they never called it spiritual relief. 
 
 93 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Isidro had a moment o£ doubting if he should 
 really make a good priest. 
 
 He walked after that for a space with Saavedra 
 in the Mission garden, where young fruit was 
 setting on the trees, and the vines blossoming. 
 The Padre showed him some experiments in hor- 
 ticulture newly under way, grafting of deHcate 
 fruits on wild stock. They flourished hardily. 
 " So," said the Father President, " is the vine of 
 Christian grace engrafted on this root of sav- 
 agery, fruitful unto salvation." 
 
 Isidro was not thinking of souls just then. He 
 was suddenly smit with a sense of the material 
 competency of the Brotherhood of St. Francis. 
 He remembered his life in old Mexico with his 
 mother, where all his thoughts of the priesthood 
 had gathered about the cathedral and the altar 
 services. Now it occurred to him that to be a 
 good priest in this new land one must first be a 
 better man. It was not by blinking the works 
 that men do that the Padres had established 
 themselves among the heathen, but by doing 
 them, — making themselves masons, builders, 
 artists, horticulturists ; dealing with sheep-scab, 
 
 94 
 
THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 weeds, alkaline soil, and evil beasts. It appeared 
 that God was also served by these things. This 
 prompted him to put some question to the Father 
 President concerning the disposition of himself. 
 Saavedra responded with an invitation to Isidro 
 to make with him the round of the missions of 
 Alta California, which progress should begin 
 within a fortnight. The proposal fell in with the 
 young man's mood of adventure. The Father 
 President and Escobar began to be well pleased 
 with each other. 
 
 Returned to the Mission buildings the Padre 
 found work cut out for him ; a poor soul want- 
 ing the mercy of the Church. Padre Salazar was 
 at a bedside in Monterey, Padre Gomez in the 
 meadow of oaks overseeing the counting of calves ; 
 the Father President himself went into the con- 
 fessional. Outside they heard the evening bustle 
 of the Mission as of a very considerable town, — 
 children crying, dogs barking, and the laughter 
 of young girls. Men gathered in from the far^ 
 thest fields ; the smell of cooking rose and mixed 
 with the smell of the orchard and the sea. It 
 was the hour for evening service, and an altar 
 
 95 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ministrant crept up to snuff the tall candles that 
 burned before San Antonio with the Child. The 
 ringers in the belfry shook the chimes ; a veil of 
 fog came up and hid the sea. 
 
 The poor soul at the 'confessional rocked side- 
 wise uneasily upon his knees ; not much account 
 to look at, a shepherd by his dress, young, low- 
 browed, dark, with dirty, fidging fingers, a fresh 
 cut upon his face running into the unshaven jaw. 
 Most plainly of all he was in the grip of grief 
 or terror too large for his shallow holding, that 
 marred his smartness as the bubbling of pitch 
 fouls the pot. The penitent's tale ran on, mum- 
 bled, eager, with many a missed word painstak- 
 ingly recovered : " I accuse myself of the sin of 
 envy — of drunkenness, of neglect of holy ordi- 
 nances " — various sins of omission and commis- 
 sion. All this was merely perfunctory ; counter 
 to it ran the deep mutter of the priest, " What 
 more, my son, what more ? " At last it was all 
 out, — envy and drunkenness and hate, ending 
 in a slain man lying out on a pleasant heath with 
 his mouth to the earth and blue flies drinking 
 
 his blood. 
 
 96 
 
THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 All judgments are mixed. Padre Saavedra 
 might have bidden the man surrender to the civil 
 authorities, but he thought perhaps the civil au- 
 thorities claimed too much, and there are better 
 uses to put a man to than execution. Besides, 
 here was a reasonable doubt as to the degree 
 of criminality ; both men were drunken, one o£ 
 them had suffered grievance, — without con- 
 scious fraud Ruiz had put that forward, — and 
 no knowing whose had been the first provoca- 
 tion. Whatever Mariano's share in it, and the 
 confessor judged it must have been considerable, 
 he was now gone out of the Padre's jurisdiction. 
 Perhaps he had known the Portuguese without 
 finding in the knowledge any warrant for hold- 
 ing him blameless. Was it fair, then, that the 
 other should bear the brunt of punishment ? 
 
 "Is there any circumstance known to you," 
 he had asked Ruiz, " by which it is possible that 
 any other should come to suffer for the evil you 
 have done ? " 
 
 " None, none," protested the poor herder. 
 
 " But should any arise " — 
 
 " Ah, Padre, Padre," interrupted the penitent, 
 97 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " I am a poor man, and of but small account. 
 Give me ease for my conscience, and if it should 
 come to pass that any be falsely accused or suffer 
 because of me, I am in your hands. Do you but 
 come after me, Padre, and I shall make all things 
 plain." 
 
 Ruiz had not much imagination. This was a 
 safe promise, he thought, for once freed of blood- 
 guiltiness he could not conceive how it should 
 come up to trouble him again. 
 
 There was an art once of making cups so that 
 if but clearest water was poured in them it be- 
 came medicated, turgid, or hurtful, with the 
 properties of the vessel ; so, often, the saintliest 
 soul takes a color from its human holding. Did 
 the Padre, flinching a little at the abasement 
 of his divinely derived authority before the en- 
 croachments of the state, and leaning always 
 toward mercy for the sake of this simple people 
 from whom he might yet be torn, appease him- 
 self with the secret exercise of priestly powers ? 
 At any rate, he made the shepherd an obligation 
 of prayers and alms, masses said for the mur- 
 dered man, no more drunkenness. This was 
 
 98 
 
THE ROAD TO CARMELO 
 
 hard, and, moreover, he should go back and bury 
 the dead decently out of sight. This was harder, 
 but here was no family to compensate, no restitu- 
 tion of stolen goods to make. What else ? Then 
 he made inquiry where the place of the unblest 
 grave might be found, for he had it in mind to 
 pass by it in his itinerary and do what lay within 
 his holy office for the sake of the murdered man. 
 And having concluded these things he gave Ruiz 
 release. 
 
 " Go in peace, my son, and may the God of 
 Peace go with thee. Ahsolvo te." The penitent 
 crept out into the dark with a mingled expres- 
 sion of cunning and relief. 
 
 Indians gathered in to the evening service j 
 the candles glowed on the high altar. Isidro 
 went in with the others. He had not attended 
 service in a church since he had been a child in 
 old Mexico; the recollection came back dimly, 
 and with it a memory of his mother. He remem- 
 bered why he was here and what it purported. 
 The smell of incense and candle smoke, the ris- 
 ing and falling of the bent worshipers as they 
 followed the ritual, the mellow droning voices 
 
 99 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 lifted his soul above the sense of time and things. 
 He saw the saints in Paradise and souls in Pur- 
 gatory ; sweat broke out upon him ; a great pant- 
 ing shook his heart ; he was taken with the hun- 
 ger of souls. There was no doubt about it that 
 Isidro would make an excellent priest. Toward 
 the end of the service, a little wearied of his own 
 fervor and the hardness of the floor, his eyes 
 strayed to the lad Zarzo, who watched him from 
 his station under the choir. He met two great 
 eyes of burning and amazement, a hint of won- 
 der, and along with it something of the dumb 
 brute's envy of the man. A wave of kindness 
 overtook the young man. It occurred to him 
 that although the lad was plainly a Christian 
 there remained much that might be done for his 
 soul's good. 
 
vm 
 
 MASCADO 
 
 SIDRO judged himself done with 
 the business of Juan Euiz and his 
 sheep, but, in fact, he was not yet 
 to see the end. The night that 
 Escobar supped with the Father President 
 at San Carlos, Peter Lebecque had also a 
 guest. He came at dusk, lighting down 
 from his horse, — a newly caught wild 
 bronco of the hills in a rawhide halter. 
 He came as one accustomed to that hostel, 
 and gave no greeting. The old trapper silently 
 made additions to his evening meal; the dogs 
 came one by one and put their noses to the 
 newcomer in recognition. He was, no doubt, an 
 Indian, but owning a lighter strain, a skin less 
 swart, a mould less stocky, a hint of hotter, 
 swifter thought. Except for the loin cloth he 
 was naked ; his blanket, folded, served him for 
 a saddle ; around his neck in a deerskin sheath 
 hung a knife ; around his brows the inevitable 
 101 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 bright bandeau of woven stuff, — the knotted 
 ends, fringed with abalone shell, hung down and 
 mingled with his hair. His breast was black with 
 bruises and scars of half-healed cuts. 
 
 " Where from, Mascado ? " said Lebecque. 
 
 "Los Tulares; the elk shift their feeding- 
 ground from the lake to the river; the young 
 are dropped early this year." So he gave the 
 news of the road, — three hundred calves branded 
 at Las Plumas, Eed Baptiste slain by a bear, a 
 feud between the Obehebes and Ohio's following. 
 Lebecque answered with the tale of his traps and 
 pelts. All this was made talk, while the rene- 
 gade's eyes kept a-roving, up the swale, along 
 the creek, in the alleys of shade under the grape- 
 vines ; his ears appeared to prick a little like a 
 dog's at noises. Lebecque leered at his cooking 
 pots with his back to his guest, his mouth screwed 
 in a fit of obscene mirth. 
 
 " Eat," he said at last, when all was done ; but 
 no talk interfered with that business. After food, 
 drink. Lebecque fished up a bottle from some 
 crypt under the vines; with drink, talking. 
 
 " Eh, Mascado, wine is good ! " cried the trap- 
 102 
 
MASCADO 
 
 per. " Drink, Mascado ; drink deep. Another 
 cup ? " The old rascal's tongue had got wagging 
 at last. " Drink, Mascado ; El Zarzo will not 
 come. You are looking for him ? You have some- 
 thing to say to him ? Well, you will have to say 
 it to me, Mascado ; it will be long before you see 
 him again. Drink, Mascado." 
 
 The Indian took another cup to beat down 
 the embarrassment that threatened to rise and 
 flood him. 
 
 " Where is she ? " he said. 
 
 " Where ? How should I know ? Who keeps 
 the trail of a flown bird ? Ah, Mascado, you are 
 too late ; the Briar has bloomed in your absence, 
 and another man has plucked the rose." 
 
 The Indian's lids narrowed. 
 
 " Speak straight, Lebecque." 
 
 The old trapper began to sigh and wag his 
 head prodigiously. 
 
 " Ah, the women, Mascado ; they are all of a 
 piece ; you think you have known them all your 
 life, you think you have them ; comes a fine sprig 
 of a cabaUero and gives them the tail of his eye, 
 
 off they go." 
 
 103 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The Indian struck the table -with his hand un- 
 til the bottle jumped. 
 
 " Where is she ? " he said again. 
 
 " Where ? At Monterey, I think. It is a very 
 pleasant town, I have heard, a gay town. Eh, 
 Mascado ? If you should go there, Mascado, you 
 could tell me how my Briar blooms in the sea 
 air." He leaned his arms on the table and shook 
 with chuckling. The Indian was a renegade from 
 the Mission San Carlos ; if he so much as put his 
 nose in that direction he smelt the whipping- 
 post. 
 
 " Have you let her go, Lebecque, have you let 
 her go ? " 
 
 " Ah, what is an old f eUow like me to a fine 
 young gentleman in velvet ? Velvet smallclothes, 
 Mascado, with silver trimmings. You see, Mas- 
 cado, I am old ; my face is not good to me ; I 
 have no fine garments, no silver, no lace, no 
 manners. Ah, ah, what could I do ? " The old 
 villain's allusions were pointed each with a leer ; 
 his shoulders shook. " Why, now, Mascado, you 
 take it hard. My word, you are quite excited 
 over it. So am I; see how my hand shakes." 
 
 104 
 
MASCADO 
 
 (So it did, with indecent mirth.) " Take a drink, 
 Mascado ; it will do you good." 
 
 SaidMascado, "When?" 
 
 " Ah, a matter of two or three days ago, quite 
 
 three days ago. They will he in Monterey by 
 
 now. More wine, Mascado? Wine is good against 
 
 grief, and you are plainly grieved, Mascado. So 
 
 . 
 
 There was something keen in the old man's 
 feeUng of the situation, something earnest in the 
 dry sobs of laughter, something hidden that 
 stung, something open that was meant to soothe; 
 the Indian sat fuming, but uncertain. 
 
 " I have watched, Mascado ; the old man has 
 eyes. I have seen the thought grow in you ; you 
 would have set my Briar to grow in your own 
 door, Mascado, and now she has gone. He was a 
 very fine gentleman, a very good family, and 
 rich, Mascado, very rich." 
 
 The Indian sprang to his feet. " A fine gen- 
 tleman, say you ? Was he smooth and young ? 
 Had he an eye like a bird's ? Had he a bay horse 
 with one white fore foot and a long scar on his 
 belly ? Ah, ah ! " The man twisted and shook 
 105 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 like an eel in a spit; his eyes stood out; his 
 words choked him. He shook his knife ; he was 
 plainly in a great fume, and something warred 
 with his rage to beat it down. 
 
 " A fine gentleman, ha ! All in black with sil- 
 ver, and a way with him that said, ' You are the 
 dust under my feet, therefore expect no harm of 
 me.' Ah, I know him.'-' 
 
 Lebecque pricked up his ears. 
 
 " If you know him I doubt you know nothing 
 good." Again the Indian shook like a candle in 
 a gust. " And if you know him, Mascado, you 
 can perhaps tell me how he came by the flock 
 and the dogs of Juan Ruiz." 
 
 " This day week," said Mascado, " Juan Ruiz 
 fed the flock at the Mesa Buena Vista ; he had 
 with him No^ and Reina Maria. I have not seen 
 him since." It was plain he had no notion how 
 this should concern him. 
 
 " Three days ago," said Lebecque, " this cabal- 
 lero came to my house, here at the Grapevine, at 
 sundown. He rode a bay horse with a white fore 
 foot ; I did not notice the scar. He was driving 
 the flock of Mariano the Portuguese. I knew the 
 
 106 
 
MASCADO 
 
 brand, and by the dogs that were with him I 
 knew the flock for that one kept by Juan Ruiz. 
 The dogs were plainly fagged; Noe had the 
 marks of teeth on him." 
 
 " Said he anything for himself? " 
 
 " Why, that he had found them at the head 
 of Oak Creek by the ford, and no sign of the 
 shepherd. A likely tale, think you, Mascado ? 
 For look now, the flock had not been frightened, 
 — that was plain, — nor diminished since I saw 
 it, and that in a land where the coyotes are like 
 cattle for numbers, and the bears carry off the 
 sheep from under the shepherd's eyes. And look 
 you again, — this young man washed before 
 meat, and there was blood on his hands and on 
 his ruffles. I saw it ; blood, Mascado." 
 
 The half-breed's lips curled backward from his 
 teeth, his breath came whistUng. 
 
 " Which way came he ? " 
 
 "By Deer Spring, where we killed the big buck. 
 He came on Zarzito suddenly in mid-afternoon, 
 and professed not to know whose sheep he had." 
 
 " Which way went he ? " 
 
 " Toward Pasteria, to bring the flock to Mari- 
 107 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ano's men. Maybe; maybe not. What should 
 an Escobar care for a stray flock? Foul work, 
 Mascado." 
 
 " Ay, foul." The mestizo ran over with curses 
 that made the flesh creep. Lebecque pushed over 
 the bottle. 
 
 " Cursing is dry work," he said ; " what would 
 you do?" 
 
 " That ! " Mascado whipped his knife into the 
 table until the tempered blade rapped the handle 
 on the boards. 
 
 " They are not your sheep, Mascado, nor your 
 shepherd," 
 
 " There is Zarzito," said the Indian. 
 
 Lebecque sniggered. "Neither is that yours, 
 oh, my friend." 
 
 For all answer Mascado struck his blade into 
 the table again. 
 
 " Ah, put up your knife ; he has pistols, big 
 and silver-handled ; he is a fine gentleman, I tell 
 you." 
 
 ' Fine gentlemen have throats." 
 'Put up your knife, I say. He is in Monte- 
 rey ; the rose is plucked. Drink, Mascado." 
 
 108 
 
 «1 
 
MASCADO 
 
 The night wore, the fire dropped flickering 
 on the hearth, the candle guttered; Lebecque 
 drained the bottle, drained himself dry of ras- 
 cally wit, and stumbled off to drunken slumber. 
 The Indian sat at the table ever of two minds, 
 blown hot and cold. He sheathed his blade and 
 unsheathed it; his muscles flexed and heaved; 
 rage shuddered in him, and went out. The dying 
 fire touched the high glistening curves of his 
 body, and made moving shadows on his face. 
 The fire snapped and went out. Dark lapped up 
 about him ; the Httle candle made an island of 
 light for his face to shine in ; it lit his high cheek 
 bones, glimmered on the shell fringes of his ker- 
 chief, on the whetted blade. The candle guttered 
 and went out. 
 
 Waking late, Lebecque found himself alone. 
 "Eh, eh," he grunted, "let him go. It will not 
 be to Monterey, I warrant. The good Padres 
 have a rod in pickle. The swine ! He would 
 have the Briar to bloom by his wickiup, would 
 he ? The wild hawk would mate with the dove. 
 And he thought Lebecque would give him 
 his blessing ? Eh, let him go ; I have served 
 109 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 him well." So he grumbled over his morning 
 meal. 
 
 Mascado had not gone to Monterey. He had 
 done what would serve his purpose better for that 
 turn. He went about to pick up the trail o£ Isi- 
 dro and the sheep. The rain that had fallen be- 
 tween times made it slow going, but he knew in 
 the main where the trail should be. In the course 
 of the morning he came to the ford of Oak Creek. 
 Here the storm had fringed out to a passing 
 shower that had scarcely penetrated the thick 
 roof of leaves. He found the bones of the sheep 
 that Isidro had killed, and the remains of the 
 fire. From there the trail was sufficiently plain. 
 He noted the vagueness and indecision of the 
 sheep, the absence of night fires ; saw the broken 
 flower tops and the bent grass where No^ and 
 Reina Maria had settled their duty to the flock. 
 But one thing he missed, — that was the trail of 
 Juan Ruiz, for it lay in thick grass, and was a 
 week old. He knew where the flock should have 
 been, and judging from his encounter with Esco- 
 bar under the oaks, knew where he should have 
 passed it. He pressed on after the trail of the 
 110 
 
MASCADO 
 
 sheep. This brought him in time to the Mesa 
 Buena Vista, and the body of Mariano. 
 
 One must believe here that the mestizo's rage 
 had put him at fault, since the truth, i£ he had 
 known it, would have served his purpose quite as 
 well. He knew Juan Ruiz very Uttle, and Mari- 
 ano not at aU. The body had lain out a week of 
 warm wet weather, and, besides, the coyotes had 
 been at it. He made out a knife wound or two, 
 and the evidences of a struggle. Some prompt- 
 ing of humanity or superstition, a remnant of his 
 Mission ti-aining, led him to gouge out a shallow 
 grave with a knife and a stick. When he had 
 pressed the earth upon it he started forthwith for 
 the Presidio of Monterey. He reached there the 
 third day, looked about, failed to find what he 
 sought. Then he went to San Carlos. 
 
 Once a neophyte always a neophyte, was the 
 rule of the Padres. It had been two years since 
 Mascado had left the Mission without leave, and 
 for the second time. The corporal of the guard 
 had brought him back the first time. Mascado 
 and the whipping-post kept a remembrance be- 
 tween them of that return. But now he chose his 
 111 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 time. It was Sunday, at the hour of morning 
 service. There was no one left outside the church. 
 Mascado went and stood in the nave with unbent 
 and unrepentant head ; he stood still and heard 
 the blessed mutter of the mass for the space of a 
 Pater Noster. By that time he had seen all that 
 he wished ; but he had also been seen and recog- 
 nized by Padre Pablo, by half-a-dozen neophytes, 
 and by the servant of Isidro Escobar. 
 
IX 
 
 IN WHICH NOTHING IN PARTICULAR 
 HAPPENS 
 
 <i>;ni;Bi;«i;nir»'HE time uearcd when the Father 
 ^•S^Jf^ President should begin his an- 
 
 '^•r ^B jiS' nual progress through the mis- 
 
 •vr<iK ^W Aiynr 
 
 "' ^••""'"" ^' ^^^^^ °^ -^1** California; the 
 rainy season drew to a close; the 
 planted fields were flourishing, the cattle fat. 
 Upon this journey he was to discover to Escobar 
 the true glory of the Franciscan foundations, to 
 send bim off to Mexico primed with ghostly en- 
 thusiasm for the work which God in His wisdom 
 permitted to be threatened by the temporal powers. 
 But before that there were some lesser matters. 
 
 There was this affair of the Comandante's, 
 concerning which he must be better informed. 
 Castro would be sending for him at all hours to 
 consult upon some new conjecture which he 
 had formed. There was, also, the affair of the 
 renegade Mascado, who had been recognized at 
 
 113 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 church the Sunday before. Such contumacy, 
 such slighting of authority, must indubitably 
 provoke a spirit of irreverence in the neophytes 
 if not promptly brought to punishment. They 
 should have Mascado back and flogged within a 
 week, even though Saavedra must ask for a detail 
 from the Presidio to fetch him. To be frank, 
 the forcible detention of neophytes by the Pa- 
 dres met with scant countenance from the civil 
 authorities, and at this time less than ever. The 
 Father President felt he could ill afford to strain 
 the relations between himself and the state, still 
 less to let the offense of Mascado go unnoticed. 
 
 In the end he got a corporal and two men 
 to go with the privates attached to the Mission ; 
 the Comandante's own need of help made him 
 kindly disposed. The expedition was dispatched 
 to the south, since Mascado was reported to have 
 been seen in that direction. For that reason they 
 should have gone in almost any other. At the 
 moment of the soldiers' departing Mascado lay 
 within sound of the sea, in cover of a spaley oak 
 wedged in a pit of dunes, known and comforted 
 by several of the neophytes. 
 114 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 Isidro had a private matter which could be best 
 attended to at this time. Out of the bowels of 
 great mercy, and fdr the greater ease of souls, 
 His Holiness Pope Pius VII had endowed the 
 Church of the Holy Cross at Santa Cruz with this 
 exceeding grace, — that every mass said there for 
 the space of one hundred years would loose the 
 soul in whose interest it was said from the pains 
 of Purgatory. Isidro was to assist at masses 
 there for his mother's sake, and if so be she did 
 not need them they were to go to the credit of 
 Don Antonio, who had doubtless the longer ac- 
 count. To Santa Cruz, therefore, went Escobar, 
 and with him went the lad Zarzito, who would 
 answer to no Christian name, to the great scan- 
 dal of Padres Gomez and Salazar. He had at- 
 tached himself to Escobar, in the character of a 
 privileged dependent, and as such, largely for his 
 soul's sake, had won the promise of accompany- 
 ing him on the pilgrimage. The two had become 
 great friends by now. What a youth needs to 
 smack the full savor of new times and adven- 
 tures is the company of another youth. It had 
 been seven years since Isidro had seen a larger 
 115 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 town than Monterey, and Zarzito never at all. 
 There was not enough difference of schooling be- 
 tween them to render one unsuited to the other's 
 mind, just enough difference of caste to leave no 
 question who should lead. 
 
 It was very pleasant weather to take the road 
 in ; the way led between the burnt splendor of 
 the poppies and the freshness of the sea, — and 
 made one day's riding from Monterey. The last 
 mass celebrated at the Church of the Holy Cross, 
 so the Padre had told them, had been said for 
 the soul of a murdered man. Isidro heard the 
 masses very devoutly, and in the interim watched 
 the slaughter of a thousand cattle, the hides and 
 tallow of which had been bargained for by a 
 Yankee trading schooner lying off-shore. It was 
 Monday when they set out, and Friday found 
 them back at Carmelo. Still the Father President 
 lingered over his preparations, waiting for tardy 
 instructions from his college, fencing with the 
 civil powers over small matters of privilege. Isi- 
 dro found time to look about him, and put in 
 motion the work of kindness which he purposed 
 toward Peter Lebecque's wild lad. 
 
 116 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 He had had occasion to begin it on the first 
 night of their stay at the Mission. The retiring 
 beU had rung, and o£ the night bustle remained 
 only the shuffle of feet across the quadrangle. 
 Isidro lingered in the corridor in late courtesy 
 with the Father President, watching the neo- 
 phytes to their quarters. It was a general rule 
 of all missions that the unmarried men and 
 unmarried women should sleep each in separate 
 buildings — monoferos — provided for that pur- 
 pose, to which only an upper servant had the 
 key. Doubtless the good Padres had reason.. 
 The married people slept in their huts and the 
 young children with them. On this evening, 
 about the time when there should have been a 
 cessation of aU noises, there came a sound of 
 struggle and protestation. It edged across the 
 patio from the direction of the monofero, and 
 involved the voices of Padre Pablo, Pray Deme- 
 trio, and the Briar. Pages had the latter by the 
 collar, but the lad contrived to keep an arm's 
 length between them. 
 
 " abandoned ! apostate ! Despiser of 
 holy persons," began the secretary, pushing the 
 117 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 lad before him. Isidro cut him short. It seemed 
 that the slight figure o£ the boy swayed a little 
 in the direction of Escobar, as they came up, but 
 the eyes were turned away. There was a kind of 
 appeal that touched the young man in the very 
 abnegation of all claim. Saavedra got the gist 
 of the matter in a question or two. The boy had 
 objected to being locked up for the night with 
 the rest of the youths, and had registered his 
 objections on the person of Fray Demetrio. 
 
 " Let him lie at my door," said Escobar ; " he 
 is a good lad." 
 
 " Who is he ? " asked Saavedra. 
 " I had him from Peter Lebecque in the Ca- 
 nada de las Uvas. His mother was a Cahuiallas, 
 so he says. He is not of the missions." 
 
 " Is he a Christian ? " 
 
 " That I '11 warrant he is not," cried Fages, 
 thinking of his bruises. But the boy protested ; 
 his mother had always said — " And, besides, 
 there was a token." He wrenched himself free 
 of the secretary, and fumbling at his neck, drew 
 out something on a cord, which he held toward 
 them in a manner indicating that he would not 
 118 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 have it touched. Padre Vicente came forward 
 to peer at it in the candle flare ; at sight of it he 
 crossed himself devoutly ; so did the others. 
 
 " A most holy token," said the Father Presi- 
 dent. " How came you by it ? " 
 
 " My mother said it was a token of my bap- 
 tism." 
 
 " The medal of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows," 
 said Saavedra. " I doubt there is another such 
 in Alta California. Let him go with Senor Esco- 
 bar; after all, he is but a lad, and, without 
 doubt, a Christian, though somewhat ill in- 
 structed." It occurred to Isidro that he could 
 not begin better than by remedying that matter. 
 Zarzo put back his treasure in his bosom ; it was 
 plain to see his own respect for it had risen, ob- 
 serving die respect it won from the others. For 
 that night, then, he slept in the corridor at Isi- 
 dro Escobar's door. For the rest, he settled him- 
 self very well. It seemed he had come to an 
 excellent understanding with a motherly soid 
 among the Indian women, who had none of her 
 own kin, and had quartered himself in her house. 
 
 " A most commendable woman," Padre Igna- 
 119 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 cio told Escobar ; " one who has known great 
 sorrows, and digested them to her soul's good. 
 Ordinarily we do not expect the treasures of 
 spiritual experience from these poor children of 
 the wilderness, but Marta is something more than 
 ordinary. Her father, in fact, was captain of the 
 tribe, — a man of great influence in Serra's time, 
 — and Marta has the gift of testimony. I myself 
 have been often lifted up to hear her descant 
 upon the mercies of God. She has a son, born 
 out of wedlock, though I cannot think it due to 
 her fault, but a most rebellious youth. Twice 
 has he left the Mission without leave, to consort 
 with the Children of Darkness ; it is, in fact, he 
 whom the Father President has dispatched the 
 guard to seek. I doubt they find him, but Marta 
 is a submissive soul. Mary grant that this lad 
 prove a comfort to her." 
 
 He was a comfort, at least, to Isidro, who 
 practiced upon him all the priestly airs which 
 most people found to become him vastly. He 
 also undertook the lad's instruction in the foun- 
 dations of Christian faith and the lives of the 
 saints,.much of which he had gathered directly 
 
 120 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 from books of Saavedra's. Long mornings, after 
 mass, the pair of them would chmb the beU 
 tower by the outer stair. There Isidro would 
 sit with the sun on his body and the shadow of 
 the belfry on his book ; the sea airs made a soft 
 whisper about the deep-mouthed chimes and 
 heaped blown petals and pollen dust in the 
 corners of the stairs. Whiles he would read in 
 some old book, other whiles Uft up his face to 
 take in the lovely landscape like long sips of 
 heartening wine ; again he would read or relate 
 monkish tales to the Briar, who, lounging on 
 the steps below him, found nothing better worth 
 looking at or listening to than Escobar. The 
 lad heard him with that sidelong look of the eye 
 which questions the tale but not the faith of the 
 teller ; but when they touched upon the visible 
 workings of the Church they came to lively issue. 
 . Saavedra never entered upon any justification of 
 the missions, — said, " Behold ! " and considered 
 the argument concluded. It was a manner not 
 without weight upon the generality : so many In- 
 dians clothed, housed, and fed; such prodigious 
 labors; so many baptized, instructed, ripe for the 
 
 121 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 garners of Paradise. Isidro was disposed to give 
 the fact its due. Said Zarzito : — 
 
 " But why do they lock them up ? Is God 
 glorified because there is a roof between me and 
 the sky ? To the citizens of Monterey they do 
 not so, and there is much goes on there that is 
 not of the Church. And what have they got by 
 serving God? Food in their belUes? Even so. 
 I have seen wild Indians in the mountains. In 
 the hills there is not always food enough, but 
 often there is more and the pleasure of feasting. 
 And look you, senor, here is a whipping-post, so 
 if a man works not he is flogged ; but in the 
 forest if a man works not he goes empty, and 
 that is the greater pain. They serve God, say 
 you, for their souls' salvation. But my mother 
 served God in the hills, and the priest who came 
 after she died, — we would have had him before 
 but the sickness was too quick, — the priest said 
 she had of a surety seen salvation. And again, 
 what is this talk that the missions will be taken 
 away from the Padres ? If that be so you will 
 see what you will see ; for now they are as the 
 water of streams which are dammed, quiet as a 
 122 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 pond, but when the dam is taken away they go 
 roaring all abroad. One I have seen, Mascado, 
 bred in this place, him whom the Padres hunt; 
 fifteen years he lived in this place, and is now in 
 the hois more wild and cunning than any other. 
 So will aU these be." 
 
 It seemed that Isidro was likely to get other 
 views of the policy of the Franciscans than Saa- 
 vedra intended. 
 
 In Monterey, also, where he met Delgado, 
 and felt for him that anticipatory thrill by which 
 nature warns men that they are about to be 
 pitted against each other, he heard talk of an- 
 other sort that set his wits stirring. Here the 
 speech of young men was all of Liberty and the 
 Eepublic. Liberty in the figure of a female finds 
 easy worship among a people who count a woman 
 chief among the Holy Family, and the new cult 
 bred plots thicker than flies in August. There 
 were clamors against the Governor because he 
 was thought to favor the priestly power, counter 
 clamors that he favored it not at all ; people who 
 contended that the removal of the missions from 
 the cure of the Franciscans would put the com- 
 123 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 munity at the mercy of savage hordes; cross 
 contentions that the Padres held their charges in 
 a condition more ignoble than they might achieve 
 for themselves. Copious reasons were not want- 
 ing for naming the Padres both saints and sin- 
 ners, all of which Escobar heard. He had a way 
 with him which made men always anxious to ex- 
 plain themselves, quite sure of his countenance 
 once they had deUvered the facts. First and last 
 there was a good deal of light thrown on the sit- 
 uation of the Missions of Alta CaUfornia ; some 
 time later Isidro found that it stood him in good 
 stead. At this present the only use he made of 
 it was to try the case over again with Zarzito. 
 Isidro was one who, in order to get the pith of 
 any subject, needed to express himself, and for 
 full expression required an audience. The lad's 
 part in it was chiefly to help the young man find 
 out his own thought. 
 
 The pair had often much the same sort of 
 companionship together that Isidro had at Las 
 Plumas with his dog. Often, as he sat against 
 the wall smoking in the sun, looking out over 
 the hyacinthine slope when the smell of blos- 
 
 124 
 
IN WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS 
 
 soming wild vines was sweet in the warm, abun- 
 dant spring, the dog would come and lay his 
 head upon his knees, and Isidro would stroke 
 the silky ears and sense the joy of life deliciously, 
 more poignant for the companionable touch. So 
 he got a double portion of zest in his new sur- 
 roundings, — his own and the boy's; but the 
 Briar was not to be stroked, as became evident. 
 Once, walking on the beach when a calHng wind 
 was on the sea and a tearing tide came in, for 
 sheer delight of its wildness Isidro clapped him 
 on the shoulder, and the shoulder shpped from 
 under his hand as the wave under foot. 
 
 " No offense, lad," laughed Isidro. 
 
 " No offense taken, senor, but I like not to be 
 clapped." 
 
 " Now by that token I know you for a true 
 Indian ; I am like to forget it else. You are as 
 wary of touching as a wolf." 
 
 They trod with joy on the fringe of the in- 
 coming waves, and sniffed the wet, bracing wind. 
 
 " Oh, to be gone upon it ! " cried Isidro. 
 "South and south into Mexico. Shall you not 
 miss me, lad, when I am gone ? " 
 125 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 All the boy's spirit rushed into his eyes. 
 
 " No," he said. 
 
 "What?" cried Escobar. 
 
 El Zarzo looked flushed and mutinous. 
 
 " No," he said, " for I shall be upon the sea 
 •with you there." 
 
 " Why, what will you do ? " said Escobar. 
 
 " What will you do, senor, there in Mexico ? " 
 
 " I wUl serve God," said Isidro ; and being an 
 honest youth, he added, " I will also see the 
 world." 
 
 "I also serve God and see the world," said 
 El Zarzo; but the words were bolder than his 
 eyes, — " serve God and you, senor." He had 
 at times a certain quick and wistful air of depre- 
 ciation, very engaging. 
 
 "Well spoken for an adventurous youth," 
 laughed Isidro, and but for his late warning would 
 have clapped him on the shoidder again. 
 
Ij 
 
 THE ARREST 
 
 [F Padre Saavedra had been as ■wise 
 A in the ways of sinners as of saints 
 he would never have sent his search 
 party groping so far afield for the 
 renegade neophyte, Mascado, who, having 
 nothing to hope for from the clemency 
 of the Padres, had not exposed himself 
 at San Carlos without reason. The busi- 
 ness that led him to brave the whipping-post 
 would hold him in that neighborhood until it 
 should be accompHshed. His appearance in any 
 quarter meant mischief ; since nothing had hap- 
 pened it was safe to conclude him stiU within 
 reach, as, in fact, he was, made comfortable by 
 several of the Padre's flock. Neither had Peter 
 Lebecque, who had a hand in that business, 
 anticipated so much hardihood. As much as 
 in him lay, the old trapper wished good to the 
 wild Briar that had grown up beside his door, 
 127 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 but his love of provoking led him farther than 
 he knew. Mascado, misled by the old French- 
 man's ribaldry, believed that Escobar had done 
 dishonorably what he, as much as he was able, 
 meant to do openly, and with credit, as, in- 
 deed, the temper of gallantry at that time gave 
 him warrant for believing. He was ignorant of 
 Isidro's ignorance, and Lebecque thought it a 
 point of humor to let him remain so. But Le- 
 becque supposed by this time that Zarzito would 
 be under the protection of the Father President, 
 and in such case as to put an end to the Indian's 
 coveting. Also he thought Mascado very much 
 of a coward, and expected no such good joke as 
 that he would really go up to Monterey to find 
 where the truth of the matter lay. The young 
 man's passion, though he sensed the fact of it, 
 seemed to the trapper wholly ridiculous. But 
 Mascado was minded to sift the affair, and this 
 is what he found : first, the body of a slain man 
 lying not far from the path of Escobar; then 
 this fine gentleman with blood specks on his 
 linen, giving himself priestly airs at San Carlos, 
 where Zarzito passed for a servant and slept at 
 
 128 
 
THE ARREST 
 
 his door. Mascado made very sure of these 
 things ; he went into the church and saw the 
 great eyes of El Zarzo, wistful and amazed, watch- 
 ing Escobar while he prayed, and wished for no 
 further proof. After that he made his lair in the 
 pitted oak, meditating vengeance. By night he 
 sought food in his own fashion, and by day he 
 sat among the dunes, and whettejj his knife and 
 his heart, wishing Isidro injury, but not able to 
 compass it. 
 
 Escobar had done him a kindness, you will 
 remember, under an oak in a certain open glade, 
 but he had also done him a wrong. He had killed 
 Juan Ruiz indubitably, and he had stolen Zarzito. 
 
 " Eh, he would have a Briar, would he ? Well, 
 here was one that would prick ; " he stuck his 
 knife furiously into the tree. His rage was great, 
 but his passion overrode it ; but still — Zarzito 
 
 — to have her — to hold, to keep — rifled, de- 
 spoiled, — but still to have her ! Dimly it grew 
 in his mind that when he had become a little less 
 afraid of her, when use had dulled a Httle the 
 edge of his desire, he might take it out of her, 
 
 — might repay himself in her pangs for this keen 
 
 129 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 tooth of injury. Perhaps in time he might beat 
 her, but now he knew if she so much as noticed 
 him it sent his wits all abroad. Body of her he 
 would have though Escobar had her soul, — and 
 Escobar had unquestionably saved his life ; so 
 he sat and fumed. 
 
 Meanwhile^ Isidro and Zarzito had been to 
 Santa Cruz and back, Father Saavedra had dis- 
 patched his search party on the renegade's trail, 
 — for that purpose Mascado had openly left a 
 trail, — and Don Valentin had come to an under- 
 standing with the Comandante. He had gone 
 south by the coasting schooner, Jesus Maria, at 
 Castro's cost, to find Padre Bonaventura and 
 bring back the heir of the Ramirez ; to marry 
 her if she proved marriageable. Delgado ad- 
 mitted to himself that the condition allowed a 
 good deal of latitude. Finally, the day was set 
 for the departure of the Father President. 
 
 About this time, Eamon, shepherd to Mariano 
 the Portuguese, came fumbling up from Pasteria 
 with a great tale for the alcalde of Monterey. 
 Mascado, threading catlike between the pine boles 
 behind the town, came upon him camped over a 
 
 130 
 
THE AEREST 
 
 tiny -winking fire at the end of his day's trudge, 
 and gave him a wayfarer's haU. They two had 
 supped by the same fire before now. Ramon, who 
 was full of his tale, and, barring the gift of 
 speech, more simple than his own dogs, unbur- 
 dened himself. It was well that he had found 
 stuff to practice his maunderings upon, otherwise 
 the alcalde would have gotten a sorry tangle. 
 Under Mascado's guidance he got it fairly into 
 shape. 
 
 It seemed that while he, Ramon, and Nicolas 
 kept Mariano's sheep in the northern end of 
 Pasteria, sometimes called Angustora, a fortnight 
 since, there had come riding a fine caballero, and 
 that thin lad of Lebecque's, him with the married 
 brows and pricking tongue, having in charge 
 the flock and the dogs of Juan Ruiz. And the 
 caballero — yes, an Escobar ; so the lad named 
 him — had told a most strange story of finding 
 the sheep of Ruiz, but no Ruiz, at the ford of 
 Oak Creek. The flock was whole, but the dogs 
 looked to have been at each other's throats. The 
 Senor Escobar had passed on toward Monterey. 
 "And after," said Ramon, "we went with the 
 131 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 sheep to look for Ruiz ; it was slow going, for 
 the trail was cold." Here Mascado might have 
 helped him, but he chose rather to hear the end. 
 " But this was most strange ; Senor Escobar told 
 that he found the flock at Oak Creek, but we 
 found Euiz at the Mesa Buena Vista in a new 
 dug grave. Yes, we uncovered enough to see 
 that it was a man ; the coyotes had been at it. 
 And look you, Mascado, whatever was done evilly 
 was done at that place ; so thinks Nicolas, so 
 think I ; for Noe here," — he touched the dog 
 at his feet, — " Noe, when we came towards that 
 place, when we were no more than at the borders 
 of the Mesa Buena Vista, made so great a howl- 
 ing that the hair of our flesh stood up. And 
 Nicolas thinks, and so think I, that whatever was 
 done there the dogs were witness of it." The 
 man's voice fell off to a whisper; he edged a 
 little away from Noe, making the sign of the 
 cross surreptitiously. " And when we came to 
 the grave, — it was but poorly dug with a knife, 
 as if one had come back hastily with fear upon 
 him to cover it up, — when we came to that place, 
 I say, Noe here left minding the flock, and went 
 
 132 
 
THE AREEST 
 
 whining in his throat, so that we fell a-praying 
 just to hear it. And there is more. When we 
 went about with the flock to bring them towards 
 the place of The Reed, at the edge of the mesa 
 we came upon a track of a horseman riding, such 
 a track as might have been made by the cabal- 
 lero who brought us the sheep at Pasteria ; and 
 the dogs, when they had found it, made as if to 
 be pleased. Eh, what make you of that, Mas- 
 cado?" 
 
 Mascado made murder of it, and smacked the 
 word as if it had a fine savor. Still there was 
 more. The shepherds, it appeared, had taken 
 thought to carry their news to Mariano, but 
 when they came by the place of The Reed they 
 found the door of the house open, and rabbits 
 running in and out. Worse, they found the box 
 at the bed's head broken open and not a real left 
 in it, not a real. Mascado shrugged away a sus- 
 picion of denial that lingered in the other's 
 voice ; that Mariano had been robbed was very 
 much to his purpose, — by whom, not so much. 
 
 " To the alcalde ! " he cried, shaking with 
 an evil joy ; " to the alcalde ; the caballero shall 
 133 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 swing for it ! These will be witnesses, you and 
 Nicolas, Peter Lebecque and I." 
 
 " And the boy," said Eamon. 
 
 Mascado thought not. "We are four men," 
 he said. " What do we want of the boy ? " 
 
 The morning of the day that was to see the 
 Father President started on his journey there 
 was high mass at the Mission San Carlos. Within 
 the church was a flare of color Hke a trumpet 
 burst. Sheaves of poppies, last of the spring 
 splendor, burned under the Stations of the Cross ; 
 el Capella de los Dolores glowed like a forge; 
 wisps of incense smoke floated before the high 
 altar like fog across the sun. All San Carlos 
 huddled in the aisle. The candle Kghts of the 
 high altar glimmered on the bare bronze skin of 
 the worshipers. The eyes of most burned with a 
 sombre fire. Isidro was beginning the practice 
 of his priestly vocation by serving at mass. 
 Saavedra himself officiated, glowing, like the 
 Host, with a fervor of devotion. It passed over 
 the kneehng horde, reached the acolyte and 
 wrapt him as a flame. El Zarzo stood in the 
 
 134 
 
THE ARREST 
 
 bell tower with the ringers, who made the sign 
 of the cross with the ropes as they rang the 
 chimes. 
 
 There went a little flicker of curiosity over 
 the congregation toward the middle of the In- 
 troit, when the alcalde of Monterey, with two 
 officers of the constabulary, came well forwaj:d 
 into the body of the church and knelt among 
 the neophytes. Isidro felt their presence a check 
 upon his devotion ; the Father President made a 
 motion of unease, but it passed ; he was too full 
 of his holy office. His voice streamed upward 
 in a ghostly triumph, wavered into tenderness, 
 turned upon the note of fatherliness into the 
 deep wrack of a purely human concern, rose 
 again through faith, and carried the hearts of 
 his people to the barred door of Heaven itself. 
 
 " Lord have mercy on us ! " 
 
 " Christ have mercy on us ! " 
 
 The wail of the people beat upon it in an 
 agony of entreatment; almost the door gave 
 back. The naked souls of his cure, accustomed 
 to the self-hypnotism of their own wild imme- 
 morial chants, missed no point of the spiritual 
 135 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 exaltation. The people bowed, rose, and bowed 
 again at the Elevation of the Host ; the chimes 
 rang in the tower. The smoke of incense passed, 
 the murmur of devotion fell ofE into the rustle 
 of departing, the people came blinking out into 
 the sun, last of all Isidro and Saavedra, stripped 
 of .their vestments and spent with spiritual pas- 
 sion. The alcalde, lingering by the great oaken 
 doors, came up to them; there was bowing 
 and a display of manners. But the alcalde had 
 a taste for dramatics ; the moment was propi- 
 tious. He waved up his deputies and disposed 
 them on either side of the young man with a 
 gesture. 
 
 " Senor Escobar," said he, " I have the ex- 
 ceeding regret to inform you that you are ai^ 
 rested for the murder of Juan Ruiz." He might 
 have managed differently, but, in fact, the alcalde 
 was a little big man and a stickler for the Re- 
 public ; he suspected the Padre Presidente of an 
 intention to cry down his authority. To come 
 into the Padre's own jurisdiction and carry away 
 his acolyte almost from the steps of the altar 
 was a vindication of the civil right. 
 
 136 
 
'GO IN PEACE, MY SON' 
 
THE ARREST 
 
 The blow was a shrewd one ; you could see 
 horror and amazement widening in the faces of 
 the bystanders as a circle widens on the surface 
 of a smitten pool. Isidro was simply puzzled and 
 dumb. Saavedra rallied first. He fetched up a 
 tolerable smile. 
 
 " A mistake, Seiior Alcalde," he said, " most 
 annoying and yet almost laughable, but wholly 
 a mistake. Juan Ruiz is not dead." And then 
 his smile slipped from him and left his mouth 
 stretched and gray. The pallor reached his eyes, 
 his tongue curled dryly in his open mouth, for 
 he remembered what he knew of Juan Ruiz and 
 how he knew it, and the inviolable seal of the 
 confessional was over it all. 
 
 "You will have ample space to prove it. 
 Padre," the alcalde was saying ; " I hope it may 
 be so. There is "also a charge of robbery." 
 
 " Senor Alcalde," said Saavedra, " there is 
 much here that wants explaining." The good 
 Padre must be forgiven for regarding this as a 
 new onset of the temporal powers against the 
 spiritual business of the Brothers of St. Fran- 
 cis. Almost as if they guessed his purpose with 
 137 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Escobar, here was a plot to snatch him away out 
 of the Padre's power. As for the charge, he 
 believed nothing of it ; he had confessed Isidro 
 as well as Juan Ruiz, and rejoiced to find him 
 as clean as a maid. 
 
 " No doubt the Serior Escobar will be happy 
 to explain upon all proper occasion," said the 
 alcalde. " In the mean time I must ask him to 
 go with these gentlemen." 
 
 " By whom is the charge preferred ? " asked 
 Saavedra; his wits were all abroad after Juan 
 Ruiz, — how to come at him, how to shoulder 
 the crime upon him and remain within his 
 priestly prerogative. 
 
 "By his companions, Nicolas and Ramon, 
 shepherds to Mariano, who have found the body." 
 The alcalde threw out his hands. "Forward, 
 gentlemen." The deputies took Escobar each by 
 an elbow. 
 
 "Fear nothing, my son," said Saavedra. "I 
 have that in mind which shall loose all bonds." 
 
 "And I," said the alcalde, "have a duty to 
 perform ; we will go at once, if you please." 
 
 " I go," said the Padre, " to bring that which 
 138 
 
THE AEREST 
 
 shall clear you. Go in peace, my son, and may 
 the God of peace go with you." 
 
 Isidro said nothing at all. Ten minutes later 
 El Zarzo came out of Marta's hut and dogged 
 them unseen to Monterey. 
 
XI 
 
 THE QUEST OF JUAN EUIZ 
 
 JN the orchard closes of San Carlos 
 Isidro had been smitten with a sense 
 of the sufficiency of the Mission 
 Fathers as men. Now he was to have 
 a revelation of the men as priests. The 
 Brothers of St. Francis, who admitted no 
 material hindrance, who dug, hewed, and 
 planted, unbound all considerations of 
 want and toil, were themselves in bond- 
 age. Men who made themselves masters of a raw 
 land and unkempt thousands of its people were 
 overmastered by their own vows. If they loosed 
 others, themselves they could not loose. 
 
 Vicente Saavedra was a man of parts, great in 
 dignities, honored in place, but before all a priest 
 in orders and a servant of God. His great work as 
 Father President of Missions was not set before 
 his greater service in the cure of souls. Within 
 his province he could plot to use the Escobar 
 
 140 
 
THE QUEST OP JUAN RUIZ 
 
 connection to the advantage of the missions, and 
 be commended for the contrivance by the measure 
 of its success; but he could not, to further that 
 design, abrogate his position as spiritual father 
 to a filthy shepherd with a stain of murder on 
 his soul. 
 
 Except by the greatness of his determination, 
 in the present trouble he was no greater than 
 the meanest of his priests. He had the whole 
 tale of suspicion from the shepherd Eamon, the 
 whole business of Noe and Eeina Maria from 
 Escobar, and the confession of Juan Ruiz to 
 make aU straight. As for the robbery, he took 
 no account of it, not being able to lay it to 
 either party. What he knew to be truth was that 
 Mariano, not Ruiz, lay out in the unblessed grave 
 on the Mesa Buena Vista, and Ruiz, not Isidro, 
 was the murderer, but knew it by such means as 
 made his surety impotent. Not for any of the 
 considerations entering here might the seal of the 
 confessional be broken. What he must do was to 
 find Ruiz, and by the sword of the Spirit bring 
 him to open confession ; and now that prompting 
 
 of the Spirit that had secured from the penitent 
 141 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the right to seek him out in the interest of one 
 unjustly accused in his stead, assumed in the 
 Padre's devout mind the proportions of Divine 
 Intervention. Saavedra might not declare Isidro's 
 innocence, but Juan Ruiz was pledged to it could 
 he be found. Forthwith the good father set about 
 it. He visited Isidro in the calabozo at Monterey 
 and comforted him. " God," he said, " permits 
 his people to be vexed for no light purpose. Do 
 you, therefore, my son, set yourself to discover 
 the meaning of God behind this visitation of 
 humiliation, and so nourish yourself in the wis- 
 dom of the Spirit. Meanwhile,! go to bring that 
 which will serve you this turn." So having made 
 the best disposition that he might of present 
 affairs, Saavedra set off with an Indian tracker, 
 and very light of baggage, upon the trail of 
 Juan Ruiz. 
 
 It was, after all, though tedious, an affair of 
 no great magnitude to follow and find the 
 vanished shepherd of Mariano. There were not 
 at that time above two thousand souls in Alta 
 California not of the native races, — gente de 
 razon they were called, and of these was Juan 
 142 
 
THE QUEST OF JUAN RUIZ 
 
 Ruiz. His mother was a Mexican ; his father 
 might have been Mariano as well as any other. 
 He was well known to hunters and trappers and 
 the riffraff o£ population that floats into new 
 lands ; within a fortnight he had been heard of at 
 Santa Cruz hearing mass at the Church of the 
 Holy Cross. 
 
 This business of the mass had stripped him of 
 all his poor earnings, and left him bare to the 
 purpose that lay all this while at the back of 
 his mind Uke a stone in a pool, — not revealed 
 because of the troubling of the waters. Rid of 
 the witnesses and the fear of dead men walking 
 on his trail, the thoughts of Ruiz began to turn 
 toward the strong box at the head of Mariano's 
 bed in the hut at the place called The Reed. It 
 was not for that he had killed Mariano, but the 
 Portuguese being dead, and Ruiz impoverished 
 for the good of his soul, it was fitting that 
 Mariano should pay. By now the sweat of fear 
 began to leave him, and Ruiz recovered the low 
 cunning which was the habit of his mind. So, 
 on the day that Isidro and El Zarzo rode into 
 Santa Cruz, Ruiz went out, telling no man, with 
 143 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 no baggage but his shepherd's stafE and a parcel 
 of bread and meat, bound for the place of The 
 Eeed. 
 
 He went south all day by piney wood and open 
 slope, meeting no one, walked on into the night 
 as long as the moon lasted, and slept under an 
 oak. He supped next night at an Indian ran- 
 cheria, where they shared with him what fare they 
 had, and asked no questions. The third day 
 brought him early to the place of The Reed, hav- 
 ing made good time ; for ever as he trudged 
 there grew in him the lust of gold, — the touch 
 a^d sight of it, the clink of bright pieces fall- 
 ing together. He ate very Httle, feeding on the 
 pleasures he would buy with Mariano's coin, the 
 bustle and change, fine clothes, the lusting, the 
 feasting, the drink — ah, well, not so much of 
 that, perhaps ; the Padre had forbidden it ; but 
 there must be money enough in that strong box 
 to make peace with God in charities and devo- 
 tions for such small transgressions without cur- 
 tailing them. Oh, the golden coins, the golden 
 days ! Then from glowing hot he grew cold to 
 think of his treasure — his ! It had come to 
 
 144 
 
THE QUEST OP JUAN EUIZ 
 
 that with him now, — lying there in the ten- 
 antless hut for any wandering thief to take. 
 Who knew i£ Mariano had made fast the door, 
 seeing, when he went out of it last, he had no 
 notion of being so long away ? Suppose Nicolas 
 and Ramon had been there before him, scur\y 
 rogues both. So he hurried his going, ready to 
 do killing again for the sake of the slain man's 
 treasure, until he came to the place of The 
 Heed, where he was brought up again by the 
 fear of Mariano. 
 
 The hut looked low and menacing in the even- 
 ing light, shut and barred, weathered and soiled 
 and mean. The pool, reflecting all the light 
 waning from the concave heaven, glimmered 
 palely at him like an eye. He heard the reeds 
 whispering above it all night long. Ruiz had not 
 dared to come into the hut in the dark, but lay 
 out near it, watching, watching, lest any come 
 out of it to surprise him where he lay in long 
 pauses of strained wakefulness and snatches 
 of haunted sleep. But when earth and sky had 
 cleared to a cool gray, and rabbits began to stir 
 in the long grass, he was up and had broken the 
 145 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 lock with a stone. He found the box at the bed's 
 head, as he had known it, but bound with iron, 
 studded with nails, double-locked, a weary piece 
 of work. He tried the lock with his stone, tried 
 the wood with his knife, fumbling and hurried ; 
 bethought himself at last to stumble about the 
 dark and filthy corners of the room for a mattock. 
 The clank and thud of it upon the chest rolled 
 out and scared the rabbits from the pool ; it 
 jarred Euiz to a fury of haste and fear. So be- 
 tween pounding and running to the door to see 
 if any one spied upon him, he wrestled with the 
 chest in the darkling hut until the gold poured 
 out of the riven wood, and he knew himself 
 shepherd no longer, but his own man, and rich. 
 He was quieter after that, looked about him, 
 found a bag for his coin, found food, and re- 
 membering that Mariano would have wine — he 
 felt the want of it by now — looked for it until 
 he found it in a kind of crypt under the bed, and 
 carried away as much as he could handle. Then, 
 being laden and wearied, he turned south slowly to 
 fetch up with the place where he had left Mari- 
 ano. Father Saavedra, you will remember, had 
 
 146 
 
THE QUEST OF JUAN RUIZ 
 
 bidden him bury the man, and, in fact, Ruiz 
 would hardly have any peace untU he had seen 
 the sod upon him. 
 
 On this business, chiefly because of great fa- 
 tigue, he was three days more, meeting no one 
 but Indians, and reached the Mesa Buena Vista 
 shortly after Mascado had visited it. Here he 
 fell into a new terror, greater than all, for he 
 found the fresh-dug grave sunken to the shape 
 under it. Here was discovery hot upon his 
 track ; Mariano's death known, himself, no doubt, 
 guessed as the murderer. Sick, shaken, he went 
 back to where he had covered his gold, for he 
 would not come into the presence of Mariano 
 with it, and drew together his wit, which had 
 gone aU abroad with fancying himself cunning 
 and rich and altogether a fine fellow. But be- 
 cause his wit was slow, he went on a day and a 
 half in his old course before he was able to shape 
 a new one. First, his plan had been to work 
 down to Santa Barbara to take ship there and 
 away ; to live well, and to take pains never to 
 confess to the theft of the money until after he 
 had spent it. Now he thought best that he should 
 147 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 turn north, skirt the vast, dim valley of the San 
 Joaquin, cross the river, and so make the Rus- 
 sian colony out of the bounds of Alta California. 
 So he planned, and, returning by the end of the 
 Mesa Buena Vista, was in time to see Nicolas 
 and Ramon, with Noe and Reina Maria, digging 
 up what remained of Mariano. By this time he 
 was clean daft with terror, and lay out in the 
 scrub for a day, drinking Mariano's wine. He 
 took to the trail again while the drink was still 
 in him, and so had a fall in a stony place, wrench- 
 ing his foot. Then he began to want food, being 
 afraid now even of Indians. In a day or so the 
 need sobered him even of the drunkenness of 
 fear; the habit of his shepherd life began to 
 assert itself. He began to study the land, to lay 
 the shortest course, to find roots and fruits, con- 
 triving that he should fall in with the bands of 
 renegade Indians who, under Urbano, laired like 
 beasts in the Tulares. But Urbano at that time 
 had other afEairs in hand. Ruiz kept to the bor- 
 der of the hill country ; eastward lay the lineless 
 valley, full of a brooding mist, formless and blue ; 
 dark and low on the horizon lay the Tulares, and 
 
 148 
 
THE QUEST OF JUAN RUIZ 
 
 the river in the midst of them maundering down 
 to the bay. 
 
 Meantime, Father Saavedra, with Saco the 
 tracker questing like a hound, followed the 
 shepherd's trail. Learning at what time he had 
 left Santa Cruz, and guessing his errand in part, 
 they had turned directly toward the Mesa Buena 
 Vista, since it seemed likely Ruiz had not heard 
 that any one had been before him with the 
 burial. They pushed the way very shrewdly, 
 and before long had trace of him. Among the 
 Indians whom Buiz met was a woman to whom 
 he had given a gold piece, thinking himseK a 
 man of means and able to requite favors hand- 
 somely. The woman made a hole in the coin and 
 strung it about her neck, having, in fact, no 
 other use for it. This Saco spied, questioned, 
 and reported. So the robbery was accounted for, 
 and Father Saavedra went with his head sunken 
 on his breast for the space of several hours. He 
 could not escape the conclusion that Ruiz must 
 have gone fresh from the confessional and the 
 sacrament to this new transgression . Approaching 
 Buena Vista, Saco found the place where Buiz 
 149 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 had hidden his treasure while he went to look 
 his last on Mariano, and found the newer trail 
 going from it ; later they found an empty bottle 
 where he had east it from him, and a coin in the 
 grass where the shepherd had dropped it in his 
 drunken walk. Finally, they struck into his very 
 path and the print of his limping foot. 
 
 Eiding out from the Mission the Father Pre- 
 sident had sat his horse cheerfully, resting the 
 issue of the affair, as his habit was, on God. He 
 had in him that spirit of dehghted service which 
 informed the labors of Junipero Serra, craving 
 whatever circumstance of labor or sorrow that 
 brought him into touch with the Divine Will. 
 Come what might of this business of Juan Ruiz, 
 Padre Vicente had no doubts ; he was still able 
 to interrogate every anguish, What lesson hast 
 Thou ? A little as a lover rides into the garden 
 of his mistress, expecting sight or reminder of 
 her at every turn, so rode the Padre upon his 
 errand to surprise the purposes of God. Thus at 
 first, but the long journey wearied him. The 
 evidence of the shepherd's fresh crime, following 
 closely on the sacrament, gave him heart-sickness. 
 150 
 
THE QUEST OE JUAN RUIZ 
 
 The lust of man-hunting, which glowed in Saco 
 as he pricked forward on the freshening trail, 
 oppressed his soul. Lastly, he began to be 
 troubled for the physical distress of the fugitive 
 himself ; the dragging foot, the rag of torn 
 clothing by the brook where he had bound it 
 up, the holes where he had dug feverishly for 
 the roots of wild hyacinths, the wavering of the 
 course which betokened unease of mind, gave 
 the good father concern. In the beginning, he 
 had ridden this quest for the sake of justice and 
 Isidro ; at the end, he pushed it hard for the sake 
 of mercy and Juan Euiz. 
 
{Iv^. 
 
 XII 
 
 THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 vjETWEEN the hnis and the Tulares 
 ^ is a treeless space, rolling, shrubby, 
 i — herding-place of deer what time 
 •j. yaT 'Tgtf they run together. Transversely 
 across it frothy winter floods gouge out fur- 
 rows, sharp and deep near the canon mouths, 
 running out shallowly valleywards at the 
 limit of waters. Here run turbid streams in 
 Sn wet weather, two or three months of the 
 year ; for the rest, they lie void, bone-dry 
 water-scars, and wild beasts dig their lairs in 
 the banks of them. Hereabouts is the Place 
 of Wolves, Ul Poso de los Lohos. Here are 
 stinking holes where the lean-flanked mothers 
 with heavy dugs go in and out to the whim- 
 pering cubs ; here are foxes' covers and stale 
 old lairs of the dogs of the wilderness, sunken 
 caves, weathered niches all a-litter of old bones ; 
 earthy hollows where a hunted man might safely 
 152 
 
THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 lie. It was a place known to trappers, guides, 
 wanderers for any profit of the hills or for no 
 profit at all, and to Juan Euiz. 
 
 The reminder of the lair is strong in a stricken 
 man, — to draw to cover, lie close, keep dark ; 
 to have the sense and nearness of the earth. 
 Juan Euiz, knowing the place of old, lame, 
 a-hungered, feverish, hugging his gold, croon- 
 ing over it to comfort himself for his pains, 
 steered his course for the broken lairs of the 
 Poso de los Lobos. In his mind he designed to 
 shelter there and recover from the sickness of 
 terror and fatigue, but the shuddering soul of 
 him purposed more than that. Unawares, it drove 
 him with the last instinct of the burrowing beast, 
 the while he thought himself following a clever 
 plan. A man who commits a crime without first 
 taking his own measure is likely to find himself in 
 such a case as this. He must be brute enough to 
 have it lie wholly without his sensibilities, or his 
 determination must be greater than all these ; oth- 
 erwise the thin wall of reason cracks. In the fifth 
 night of his flight from Mesa Buena Vista, Euiz 
 slept under a thicket of buckthorn on a forward 
 153 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 sloping hill. The night was soft, dark, warm, 
 and sweet ; no coyote howled nor bird awoke ; 
 the tormented soul departed into the borderland 
 between death and sleep and found an interval 
 of rest. About the mid-hour he started up, warned 
 by the wolf sense of pursuit. It seemed such a 
 sense watched in him while he slept. Often keep- 
 ing the flock of Mariano he had roused at night 
 before the unease of the dogs made him aware 
 of danger ; now he trusted that sense as he had 
 been wont to do, and, in fact, the warning was 
 true. Father Saavedra and Saco camped on his 
 trail not a day behind him. Euiz got up and 
 shook off the stiffness of his Hmbs ; huddling as 
 the air began to chill toward morning, stooping 
 as the weight of his treasure told on his shaken 
 frame, dragging his swollen foot, he worked his 
 way down the hill front. He followed a dry wash 
 as long as it served him, then struck across a^clear 
 space of knee-high, shrubby herbs and grass. He 
 had no light but star^shine and the candle at the 
 back of his brain, that burned brighter as his 
 vital force waned in him. So he forged north- 
 ward, and the day widened and shut him in like 
 154 
 
THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 the hollow of a beU. Back on his trail followed 
 Padro Vicente, pitiful and prayerful, and Saco, 
 the hair of his neck pricking Uke a dog's as the 
 trail freshened. 
 
 By mid-morning Euiz was out on the plain be- 
 yond the limit of small waters. Eain had fallen 
 scantily on the eastern slopes that year, and few 
 streams ran beyond the foothills. So, as the day 
 advanced, he began to add to the fever of his 
 flight the fever of thirst, the more severe because 
 of his oblivion of delirium. It would come over 
 him while he rested in the short shade of the 
 scrub, and ease him of his pains and terrors until 
 the brute warning of pursuit urged him forward. 
 He made as straight a course as the land and his 
 fuddled wit permitted for the Poso de los Lobos, 
 to hide his gold and himself. Saco and Saavedra 
 had sighted him, a moving speck in the haze, 
 about the second hour of afternoon, and though 
 they lost him again in the rolling land, expected 
 confidently to come up with him before night. 
 
 By this time Ruiz had forgotten about the 
 priest and Mariano. He was hardly conscious of 
 much beside the bag of gold which he huddled 
 155 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 in his bosom ; in his disorder he conceived that 
 some one followed on his trail for the sake of it. 
 Therefore, as he neared the Poso de los Lohos 
 he began to go very cunningly, trod as much as 
 possible upon the stones to leave no trail, and 
 went back and forth upon his tracks. Stooping 
 from the top of the bank, he fixed upon a bob- 
 cat's lair, high up above the possible reach of 
 waters. Leaning above it he kissed his treasure, 
 half in tears to put it from him, half laughing 
 with the pleasure of his cunning, made a long arm, 
 and dropped it out of sight. Then, wallowing in 
 the loose soil of the bank to leave no trace of 
 hands or feet, he contrived to push down a quan- 
 tity of gravel and loose stones until he had 
 blotted out the mouth of the lair. That was the 
 last flicker of the cunning mind. He had hidden 
 Mariano's money from those walking on his trail, 
 and hidden it so securely that come another day 
 he would not be able to find it himself. 
 
 There was a niche in the north bank of the 
 
 wash that must have been left there first by the 
 
 falling away of a great boulder the size of a wine 
 
 cask ; behind it the earth was a little damp from 
 
 156 
 
THE PLACE OP WOLVES 
 
 some blind water source that in a rainy country 
 might have been a spring, and the coyotes had 
 scented it in a dry season, pawing deeply into the 
 bank. Now and then in hot weather they re- 
 turned, drawn by the water smell to dig for it and 
 cool their hairy flanks in the cool dampness. The 
 opening had thus grown larger than any lair, 
 and smelled of beasts. The displaced boulder lay 
 not far from the mouth of it, and loose soil from 
 above had piled about it, making a barrier that 
 screened it from the unaccustomed eye. Here 
 Juan Kuiz hid himself, clean gone out of his nat- 
 ural mind, lacking food and drink, but glad of 
 the darkness and the cool damp of the clay, to 
 which he bared his aching foot, and in his glad- 
 ness of rehef and the sense of the solid earth 
 about him, babbled fooUshly as a child. Here, 
 when the sun was not quite down, Saco found 
 him singing in a feeble, merry voice the old nurs- 
 ery rhyme which begins : — 
 
 Senora Sauta Ana, 
 Why does the baby cry ? 
 
 Saco, starting out from San Carlos, knew no- 
 thing whatever of the Ruiz affair except that he 
 157 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 was a man the Padre wished to find, and his trail 
 was to be picked up somewhere about the Mesa 
 Buena Vista. There, having found and followed 
 it to this conclusion, although he was as pleased 
 with his skill as a hound that has brought the fox 
 to earth, his Indian breeding forbade him any ex- 
 pression of it. He squatted on his haunches by 
 the lair, rolled a cigarette, and appeared to dismiss 
 the whole matter from his mind. He looked now 
 for Padre Saavedra to take up the turn, and the 
 Padre had forgotten for the moment that he fol- 
 lowed Ruiz for any other purpose than the man's 
 own relief. If he had remembered it at this junc- 
 ture it must have been a sharp jog to his faith to 
 find Ruiz brought to a pass so little likely to serve 
 his purpose. 
 
 The Padres had always the means by them for 
 bodily relief as well as for spiritual remedy. They 
 were never lacking simples nor the materials for 
 the sacrament, christening, marriage, and burial. 
 Saavedra sent the Indian up the wash with the 
 horses for water, and himself turned nurse. By 
 the light of a brushwood fire and a few hours of 
 the moon he bound up the shepherd's foot and 
 158 
 
THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 covered him from the night chill with his own 
 blankets. As often as the Padre came near him 
 to handle and relieve him, Euiz remembered 
 Mariano and the tortures of his soul ; when they 
 let him he, his mind wandered off foolishly on the 
 trail of the nursery song. 
 
 SeSora Santa Ana, 
 Porque llora el nino ? 
 
 he sang as he lay stark on the earth, and then, as 
 the Padre lifted him, " Ha, hell litter, you will 
 leave me, will you? Take that ! and that!" — 
 and then failed for weakness, and feeling the 
 comfort of the blankets began again presently 
 piping and thin : — 
 
 Por una manzana ? 
 
 " Rest, rest, my son," said the Padre tenderly, 
 and the raucous voice of the shepherd answered 
 him with curses intolerably obscene. It fell off in 
 obscure mutterings that clarified after an interval 
 to the gentle air, — 
 
 Que se le ha perdido 
 
 Venga V. a me easa 
 
 Yo le dar^ dos, 
 
 Una par el nino y otro para vos. 
 
 So it went on, mournful and sweet in the 
 159 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 shadows, until the clink of horses' feet on the 
 boulders, as Saco returned with the water, roused 
 him to present memories. 
 
 " Cursed be the wood of which it is made, 
 thrice cursed the iron that binds it ! Will it never 
 come open ? " cried Ruiz, rising up in his place. 
 " Faugh, what a filthy house for a rich man to 
 live in ! Ah, the pretty pieces, ah, so round, so 
 bright ! all mine, mine, mine ! " His voice rose 
 to a scream, the Padre's hand was on his breast 
 pressing him back upon the blankets. 
 
 " Drink, my son," said Saavedra, holding water 
 to his lips. 
 
 " Ay, drink, Mariano," said Ruiz, " Good 
 wine, excellent wine, and a pretty price, eh ? 
 Another bottle ; " then as the water cooled him 
 he was minded to sing again : — 
 
 SeKora Santa Ana 
 Porque llora el nino ? 
 
 "In nomine Patris, — per Christum Domi- 
 num," breathed the Padre above him. 
 
 " Beast — Devil's spawn ! " gurgled Ruiz from 
 the Padre's bed. 
 
 So it wore on for the greater part of the night, 
 160 
 
THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 but about the ebb of dark, when there was a 
 smell of morning in the air, he woke out of 
 his delirium tolerably sane. The presence of 
 the Padre seemed not to surprise him ; he was 
 stricken with death, and knew it as the earth- 
 born know, as the coyotes that dug this lair might 
 have known before him. 
 
 He had come out of his stupor clear of the 
 fear of men, knowing his end near ; but the 
 sight of Saavedra signing the cross put him in 
 a greater terror of heU fire. He clutched a fold 
 of the Padre's gown and fell to whimpering, but 
 was too far spent for tears. This was the Padre's 
 hour ; tenderly and by all priestly contrivances, 
 he lifted the poor soul through his agony, and 
 for the ease of his conscience, to the point of open 
 confession. The Padre wrote it out for him by 
 the flare of the brushwood fire he had called Saco 
 out of deep sleep to light, and held it carefully, 
 for the fidging hand to mark with a cross over 
 the name he had written. Saavedra had signed 
 it Juan Ruiz. The dying man gave back the 
 quill, speaking more at ease, as the troubled wUl 
 
 after open confession. 
 
 161 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "I'm not sure that it is right," he said; 
 " Ruiz is not my name. It is the name of a man 
 my mother married at the pueblo San Jose. I 
 am not sure what my father's name might have 
 been ; my mother was not married to him. She 
 died years ago ; she was Maria Lopez." 
 
 "What!" cried the Padre, "Was she, indeed, 
 Maria Lopez, daughter of Manuel Lopez of San 
 Jose? And are you her son born out of wed- 
 lock? May God be merciful to you a sinner! 
 Your father was Mariano the Portuguese." 
 
 That was a time when the consideration of the 
 pangs of heU was potent to drive souls to salva- 
 tion, and men were keen to pronounce judgment. 
 What deeper pit was there than that reserved for 
 the parricide ? The groan which was forced out 
 of the Padre at the sudden revelation, his start- 
 ing back, the horror of his countenance, smote 
 upon the poor shaking soul hke the judgment 
 of God. With a great broken cry Ruiz threw 
 himself upon the Padre's breast, clawed him, 
 clung to him, wrestled with him as a man might 
 on the edge of the pit to win back out of it, 
 with hoarse bestial breathings, a wide mouth of 
 162 
 
THE PLACE OF WOLVES 
 
 terror, and staring eyes. Saavedra, wrenched 
 free, forced him hack upon the bed, and trem- 
 bUng laid the hlessed wafer between stretched 
 Kps from which the soul shuddered in departing. 
 
 They buried Juan Ruiz in the place where 
 he lay, in a beast's lair, after the Father Presi- 
 dent had blessed the ground. Saco rolled stones 
 across the mouth of it and made a little cross of 
 withes. All his Ufe after Saavedra had moments 
 of self-accusing, in that he supposed he might, 
 by the better control of his countenance in that 
 crisis, have given the poor soul a larger assur- 
 ance of the mercy of God. 
 
 They spent a day looking for the gold of Ma- 
 riano, but got nothing for their pains ; Juan 
 Euiz had not been very clear in his account of 
 how he had hidden it. There, no doubt, it Kes 
 to this day, high up in the bank of the wash in 
 the bobcat's lair in the Poso de los Ldbjos. 
 
 Then, with the confession under his belt, the 
 good Father President of Missions set back by 
 the shortest route to the Presidio of Monterey. 
 He had been gone just a week. 
 163 
 
XIII 
 
 DELFINA 
 
 |HERE was a woman in Monterey of 
 a mischievous and biting humor, 
 but not wanting in generous im- 
 pulses, curious above all, a great 
 lover of gossip and affairs. This Delfina 
 had wit and traces of beauty, and, along 
 with great formality of outward behavior, 
 considerable reputation for impropriety. 
 She had come into the country ten years 
 X since with the family of the, at that time, 
 governor of Alta California, as a sort of compan- 
 ion or upper servant, on a footing of friendly 
 intimacy, which she maintained, by report, with 
 the governor at the expense of the governor's 
 lady. At any rate she had found it convenient 
 to break off that connection and establish her- 
 self in a little house just beyond the plaza in 
 company with an elderly woman who was called by 
 courtesy Tia Juana. The house had a high wall 
 
 164 
 
DELFINA 
 
 o£ adobe about it, and a heap of wild vines rid- 
 ing the rooftree and spreading down to the outer 
 wall, affording, so she was accustomed to say, 
 great sense of security to her solitary way of life. 
 It was not possible in so small a community as 
 Monterey quite to overlook a lady of such con- 
 spicuous claims to consideration as Delfina, for 
 that she possessed them there was no one heard 
 to deny ; and, indeed, she was not lacking friends 
 willing to affirm that she was most infamously put 
 upon, and possessed of as many virtues as accom- 
 plishments. She was the repository of all possible 
 patterns and combinations for the drawn-thread 
 work which occupied the leisure of that time ; 
 she was a competent seamstress ; invaluable at 
 weddings, christenings, and bailes, in the way 
 of decorations and confections, and an industri- 
 ous and impartial purveyor of news. Among the 
 most judicious and surely the most disinterested 
 of her supporters was Fray Demetrio Fages, who 
 visited her frequently in the interest of her 
 Christian salvation, as he was heard to affirm; 
 and was made the vehicle of liberal donations to 
 the Church, which she was accustomed to bestow 
 165 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 out of an ostensibly slender income. Since 
 was so often at her house it is to be 8upp< 
 that he found no company there not to his lik 
 and no behavior not suited to so godly a chu 
 man ; but even upon this there were those 
 posed to wink the eye. 
 
 In one way, however, the friendliness of I 
 Demetrio gave Delfina better countenance am 
 the matrons of the town, as it gave gre 
 weight to any news of hers which related to 
 affairs of the Missions, since none so likeh 
 know the facts as the Father President's se 
 tary, and none more apt in the distribution t 
 the secretary's friend. If Delfina had been Idi 
 received before, judge how it was in the mc 
 which brought Valentin Delgado and the your 
 son of the Escobars to the Presidio of Monte 
 Both these events, in the bearing they had u 
 the Church, gave a new fillip to the absorl 
 topic of the imminent secularization of the ] 
 sions, the probable distribution of the great we 
 of herds and silver which they had, and 
 greater wealth with which report credited th 
 and the possible effect upon the settlement 
 
 166 
 
DELFINA 
 
 removing from the authority of the Padres some 
 thousands of Indians who required very httle 
 scratching to show the native savage under the 
 mission gilding. Then there was the old story of 
 Ysabel and Jesus Castro revived with new and 
 fascinating particulars, for there were several 
 people in Monterey who held a remembrance of 
 the beautiful and unhappy woman. Along with 
 this was the arrival of two pretty gentlemen of 
 excellent manners and good blood, — one from 
 the capital in search of a wife and a fortune, 
 the other from Las Plumas, ready to renounce 
 aU these in favor of the priesthood. You will 
 perceive that Delgado had let some hints of his 
 purpose be known ; and, indeed, so obvious a 
 conclusion as marrying the heiress when he had 
 found her would have been tacked on to any ac- 
 count of his proceedings whether he had declared 
 it or not. And to crown all this, when gossip was 
 at its best, came the arrest of Isidro on a double 
 charge of murder and robbery, and the depar- 
 ture of the Father President on some mysterious 
 errand of justification or disproval. 
 
 Delfina, who had seen Don Valentin and en- 
 167 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 tertained him in her house behind the wall, had 
 the most to say of the first affair ; but of Isidro, 
 who had not cared, or had been too much under 
 the supervision of the Father President, to make 
 her acquaintance, — Delfina herself inclined to 
 the latter opinion, — she knew only what Fages 
 could tell her, and that, beyond a shrewd guess 
 or two and some malice, was very little. Both 
 her vanity and curiosity, therefore, were set upon 
 the trail of the mystery behind the bare fact of 
 the arrest. She began to cast about for some 
 plausible ground for invention or explanation, 
 and this led her in the course of a week to the 
 servant of Escobar, who was still in Carmelo in 
 the house of Marta. From Fages Delfina had 
 learned, almost by accident, that the boy had 
 not accompanied Isidro from Las Pluxnas, but 
 had been picked up by the way. This seemed a 
 very pregnant piece of news ; to point to an ac- 
 complice or at least an accessory after the fact. 
 Delfina set herself to fall in with the lad and 
 have it out of him by cajolery or whatever means. 
 It happened that her instincts led her soon into 
 the proper juxtaposition for that very business. 
 168 
 
DELFINA 
 
 Since Isidro's arrest she had been in the habit 
 of taking her evening walk in the neighborhood 
 of the calabozo, as, indeed, how could any lady of 
 sensibility help being drawn in that direction by 
 the pitiful case of this handsome youth cast into 
 prison on so heinous a charge, which must, no 
 doubt, prove unfounded, or at least justifiable. 
 And being so employed she observed, on more 
 than one occasion, the lad called the Briar lurk- 
 ing about with a great air of disconsolateness, 
 and the assumption of having no particular busi- 
 ness. It was her instant conclusion that he 
 walked there for the purpose of some secret 
 communication with his master, and it wanted 
 but the right moment of quiet and the absence 
 of other observers; and Delfina concluded she 
 might bring about a conjunction which would 
 serve her ends. 
 
 In fact, the lad had no such purpose as the 
 woman credited him with, having reached that 
 point where he would have sold himself to the 
 devil without parley to have quieted his hunger 
 for a sight of Escobar, sound of him, print of 
 his foot in the earth, or any indubitable sign of 
 169 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 his living presence. And that he might have 
 had if he had known enough to apply through 
 Padre Salazar to the proper authorities. As the 
 servant of Escobar he might have had free ac- 
 cess to his person, but he was too little used to 
 the ways of men to have known that, and, per- 
 haps, too shy to have used it if he had known ; 
 so he hung frequently about the walls that in- 
 closed Isidro, fevered with desire, but maintain- 
 ing a tolerable appearance of having no interest 
 there. This was that wild lad called the Briar 
 who had come up to Monterey with Senor Esco- 
 bar, charged with a packet from Peter Lebecque, 
 having instructions to deliver it and himself 
 into the hands of the Father President. He had 
 parted from the trapper with little compunction, 
 for, though the old man stood in the place of a 
 father to him, he showed little of fatherliness, 
 accepted him as a member of his household, nei- 
 ther to be greatly considered nor denied. Since 
 the death of the Indian woman Zarzito had 
 called mother, the lad had known loneliness and 
 the desire to miK with his own kind which stirs 
 in the blood of the young, and had ridden this 
 170 
 
DELFINA 
 
 adventure with Escobar by instinct, as a bird of 
 passage attempts its initial flight. For the first 
 time he had tasted companionship, faring forth 
 in the royal spring, young blood timing to young 
 blood, and the world aU singing and awake. But 
 the lad was most a creature of the wood. He 
 had, one might say, the wit and the will to be 
 tame, but kept the native caution of wild things. 
 Therefore, had no other reason arisen, he would 
 have gone slowly about the business of resigning 
 himself to the disposal of the grave President of 
 Missions. But another obstacle had arisen : love, 
 forsooth. The love of young lads for older, 
 the love of the companionable for gay compan- 
 ions, love of the dawn soul for the soul of morn- 
 ing, — love, in short, — but of this you shall 
 presently be better instructed. It was no great 
 wonder that the hiU-grown lad should love Esco- 
 bar, so wise and merry and cool, and of such 
 adorable and exasperating gentleness that it 
 irked him to see thieves whipped and wild eagles 
 get their food. It seemed to Zarzito that he 
 could devise no better way of life than to serve 
 Escobar, and follow him even into the cloister, 
 171 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 of which you may be sure he had no very clear 
 idea. But in the mean time the packet troubled 
 him, for Lebecque's instructions had been plain 
 upon the point that it should be turned over to 
 Saavedra, and his intimation that the Padre would 
 thereupon put him in the way of good fortune. 
 It appeared that El Zarzo desired no better for- 
 tune than following Escobar. But the real point 
 of his difficulty was this, — he did not in the 
 least know what the packet contained. The lad 
 had not known much of priests or men, but he 
 had learned rapidly, — from the Indian woman 
 Marta, from walks and talks with Escobar, from 
 mere seeing ; he had sucked up information as 
 the young sage of the mesa sucks up rain, filling 
 out and erecting visibly. So he knew there was 
 one fact hid from the Father President which, if 
 it became known, would put an end to following 
 his heart's desire. The question was, did the 
 packet give notice of it ? 
 
 On a day when Isidro had been about a week 
 in prison, the day before the Father President 
 returned from the quest of Juan Ruiz, El Zarzo 
 sat a long time under an oak and considered the 
 
 172 
 
DELFINA 
 
 matter, turning the packet over and over. It was 
 long and thin, wrapped in a black silk kerchief, 
 wound about many times with thread, and sealed 
 up with gum. It showed no sign nor superscrip- 
 tion, — apparently nothing to connect it with 
 Peter Lebecque's lad or the servant of Escobar. 
 Zarzito concluded that if it could be placed in 
 the Father President's hands without his agency 
 he would be quit of his obhgation at the least 
 possible risk. Accordingly, in an un watched mo- 
 ment he dropped it in the alms-box at the door 
 of the church. It was part of his newly gained 
 information that whatever went in at that open- 
 ing found its way eventually to the priests. 
 
 It was close upon dark when El Zarzo came 
 that evening with the hght foot of his Indian 
 training around the corner of the calabozo of 
 Monterey. A bank of fog-built mountain hid 
 the meeting of the sea and sky ; a kind of white- 
 ness, reflected from the near-by water and the 
 level beaches, lightened the air. Across the plaza 
 came the thrum of guitars, and the voice of sing- 
 ing mixed with children's laughter, and the cheer- 
 ful bark of dogs. 
 
 173 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 On the side of the prison away from the town 
 was a window high up in the wall ; between the 
 bars fanned out the pale yellow ray of a candle. 
 The wall was all of adobe, plastered smoothly 
 up, and whitewashed. Below the window two or 
 three cracks, which could be widened out with a 
 toe or the fingers, afforded sUght and crumbling 
 holds. Within the wall all was stiU ; no sound 
 or motion from the prisoner or the guard. The 
 candle rayed out steadily toward the sea that 
 broke whisperingly along the beaches. El Zarzo's 
 heart beat loudly in his bosom, stirred by the 
 nearness of the well beloved. He reached up the 
 wall for a finger hold, put one toe in a crack and 
 raised himself a foot or two nearer, cUnging and 
 climbing like a worm on an orchard wall. Delfina 
 at that moment came mincingly around the cor- 
 ner on her errand of curiosity, and caught him 
 there. The lady, who was as quick in execution 
 as in design, made no outcry to have aroused the 
 guard, but went and plucked him swiftly from 
 behind, and dropped her arms about his body as 
 he came tumbHng from the wall. The lad was but 
 a slender armful for one of her build, and though 
 174 
 
DELFINA 
 
 he writhed and -wrung himself, he could neither 
 get at her to do her hurt nor to set himself free. 
 
 " Be still," said the lady ; " I want but a word 
 with you." But the lad struggled the more. 
 
 " Be still, you brat," she said again ; " do 
 you want to bring the guard upon us ? " But 
 though El Zarzo had his own reasons for not 
 wishing it, he did not or would not understand, 
 and while she struggled and fretted with him 
 Delfina made a discovery. 
 
 " What, what ! " she cried, and her note was 
 changed to one of amazement and smothered 
 laughter ; " so the rabbit has jumped out of the 
 bag ! — What, what, my lady," she said again, 
 continuing her investigations with chucklings of 
 mischievous delight ; " and he a priest ! And you 
 his body servant ! Pie, oh fie ! " Her voice qua- 
 vered with the burden of ofEensive mirth. " Be 
 still, you little " — But the word wUl not bear 
 repeating. El Zarzo grew sick to feel her hands 
 fumbling about him, and limp and quiet more at 
 the insult of her tones than at any word. 
 
 Behind them they heard the sudden stir of 
 the guard. 
 
 175 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Come away," cried the Briar, panting and 
 shaking. Delfina wished nothing so much as to 
 get to the bottom of this affair uninterrupted. 
 Holding fast by the lad's shoulder she ran her 
 prisoner down the open road toward the bay, and 
 out where their running left a wet trail on the 
 sand. The tide was low and quiet. Few lights 
 showed on the seaward side of the town. No- 
 thing moved in sight but the shape of a solitary 
 horseman on the road above the beaches. It 
 seemed a safe and silent hour for aU confidences. 
 
 " Confess ; you are a woman," said Delfina. 
 
 " I am a maid," said the other in a dry 
 whisper. 
 
 " Oh, yes now, a maid," said the older woman, 
 mischief beginning to stir in her ; " no doubt a 
 maid, and he a priest." 
 
 " I will hear nothing evil of him," flashed the 
 Briar. 
 
 " Why, to be sure," bubbled Delfina ; " and 
 he, I dare say, will accredit you with all the vir- 
 tues of Santa Cecilia. All priests are alike. I 
 also could tell you " — But it was plain the girl 
 did not hear ; she had begun to twist and wring 
 176 
 
DELPINA 
 
 her hands, with a kind of breathy moan, as one 
 in great distress and unaccustomed to the use of 
 tears. 
 
 " You will never betray me, senora," she 
 begged, " you will not ? " 
 
 " Why, as to that," began Delfina, moved 
 greatly by curiosity and a little by the girl's 
 evident distress, " that remains to be determined. 
 Let us hear your story." 
 
 But the girl continued to wring her hands and 
 cry brokenly without tears. 
 
 " I will tell you," she said, " yes, I will tell 
 you," but made no beginning. The horseman 
 on the upper road had passed on behind tbem ; 
 they did not see him wheel his horse and return 
 upon the sand. 
 
 " Oh, I meant no harm, seiiora, and no harm 
 must come to Senor Escobar because of me, — 
 ah, yes, I will tell you," began the girl again, 
 moving her lips dryly. Delfina shook her to 
 quiet her own impatience and the other's quak- 
 ing sobs. At once there came a hiss and hurt- 
 ling through the air, a wind of whirHng flight, 
 a tang of tightening cord. The girl gave a gasp 
 177 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 and staggered, began to cry out chokingly, threw 
 up her hands, shook and struggled as with an 
 invisible wrestler, and at the same time began to 
 move with extraordinary rapid stumbHng toward 
 the horseman who had appeared opposite them 
 on the sand. He drew toward the girl as she 
 drew to him and showed dimly a naked Indian 
 throu^ the dusk. 
 
 Delfina saw him approach the girl, Hft her to 
 the horse in front of him, and choke out her cries 
 and the beating of her hands upon his breast. 
 Delfina, too much astounded to cry out, was run- 
 ning heavily up the sand toward him, but only 
 rapidly enough to see the Indian riding at a gal- 
 lop toward the mainland, reeling in his riata, as 
 he rode, about the body of the girl, who seemed 
 stiU to twist and struggle in his grasp without 
 outcry. A very little such pursuit warned the 
 older woman of its futility ; she stood at last 
 staring and panting as she watched the man and 
 his burden ride away into the soft dark. 
 
XIV 
 
 LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 Jjg ^^^^ ^ IGHTS of early summer along the 
 %m ^S|.% coast of Monterey are damp and 
 % [§ ^B iljg' heavy with sea-dew. It hangs on 
 ^r^^^-S^i^* t^e blossom tops in the wild pas- 
 tures, and drips down the fine brown needles of 
 the pines. Swift passage among the close thickets 
 of the hillslopes shakes out the moisture with a 
 sound of rain. If the moon rides in the seaward 
 sky it win be dim and ghostly white with mist, 
 or wholly quenched in a floating bank of fog. 
 A night rider through the wood wakes querulous 
 jays in the oaks and deer from the deep fern. 
 He must pass by sea marsh and spongy meadow 
 to stony ridges and thin, dark clumps of pine, 
 and in an earlier time of scant and ill-kept trails 
 must have had great faith in his horse and his 
 luck. So rode Mascado on a line that led directly 
 inland from the peninsula. He drove hard and 
 wildly, careless of the trail he left ; keen whips 
 179 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 of the underbrush slapped against his bare legs 
 as he rode. He was all bent on holding fast what 
 he had got, and making the shortest going. As 
 he rode he felt what the woman Delfina had felt, 
 — the young budding breasts crushed against 
 his bosom, and thrilled to the passion of the pri- 
 mal man, double joy of the huntsman and lover. 
 He rode east, leaving the Mission to the right, 
 labored through a stretch of rolling dunes, lifted 
 his horse carefully from the bog of back sea 
 water, passed the wild pastures, and struck on 
 to rising ground. At every shift of the rider 
 the girl struggled shrewdly, but neither wept 
 nor cried out. Once he spoke to his horse and 
 she grew instantly quiet. He trembled through 
 all his naked body at the sudden loosening of 
 the tension of hers. Had she recognized his 
 voice ? was this the quiescence of submission ? 
 They rode ; he felt her breast heave and fill 
 under his hand ; the weight of her body was 
 sweet upon his arm. The sea wind blew about 
 his face; wet, pungent-smelling leaves brushed 
 against his horse's sides. He had expected pro- 
 test, had been led on and advised to this point 
 
 180 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 by the effort of his spirit to match with hers. 
 Now the cessation of struggle daunted him. His 
 passion had reached that state where it was 
 necessary for his ease to know how she stood 
 toward it. Cautiously he loosened the blanket 
 with which her head was covered and met the 
 girl's level, unfluttered gaze. 
 
 " I wish to sit up," she said ; there was hardly 
 a shade of interest in her tone. Mechanically 
 the man raised her until she rode more at ease. 
 " Unbind the rope, it cuts me," she said again, 
 with a terrible matter-of-factness that sent his 
 passion receding from him like a wave from a 
 rock. He fumbled at the rope a little, and got 
 no thanks for it. The girl looked about her 
 quietly by the dim, watery moon. " Where do 
 you go ? " she said at last, but not at all as if 
 she supposed she was going with him. 
 
 " Far enough from Monterey." 
 
 " But where ? " 
 
 " Las Chimineas." 
 
 " And what will you do there ? " 
 
 " Keep you." There was a sudden tightening 
 of the arm about her slim young form ; it met 
 181 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ■with no answering movement of repulsion or 
 complaisance. Mascado saw he had still to deal 
 with Peter Lebecque's graceless boy. Many a 
 time in the last year at the hut of the Grapevine 
 he had tried to betray her into some conscious- 
 ness of himself as a lover through her conscious- 
 ness of herself as a maid, and had been beaten 
 back by the incorrigible boyishness of her be- 
 havior. He had begun by allowing the child to 
 browbeat and revile him, and afterwards found 
 himself in no case to deal with the woman, being 
 swamped by the embarrassment of his own pas- 
 sion and Lebecque's contemptuous perception of 
 its futility. His desire throve best in absence, 
 and suffered a check in the moment of personal 
 contact. He had hours of doubting whether he 
 should ever be able to take her, not being able 
 to put her on the defensive, and he was savage 
 enough to need a hint of fleeing to whet the 
 courage of pursuit. Vaguely, though he had re- 
 sented the hand of Escobar upon her, he expected 
 that experience to have made a short cut to his 
 desire, for he had beKeved the most concerning 
 that relation ; Lebecque had seen to that out of 
 182 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 a rascally humor to pay the mestizo for his pre- 
 sumption, and, believing the girl gone quite out 
 of the range of the half-breed's life, had not 
 spared innuendo. And Mascado without the old 
 Frenchman's hint would have come to the same 
 conclusion, seeing that the girl passed every- 
 where as a lad and the servant of Escobar, slept 
 at his door, and companioned his solitary hours. 
 Probably no other conjunction would have braved 
 Mascado for the capture and the sally at dusk, 
 for he had a servile taint of his Mission upbring^ 
 ing, and the girl's spirit was imperious. But 
 greatly as his passion had exalted her, the passion 
 of Escobar, for so Mascado understood their rela- 
 tion, had brought her down. There was even an 
 appeal to his savage sense in bearing off what 
 had been the prize of another, and he suffered a 
 check in her unconsciousness of the situation. 
 She sat indifferently under the pressure of his 
 arm, drew even breaths, and looked about her. 
 Half in response to her unconscious carriage, 
 Mascado relaxed his hold. 
 
 " The corporal of the guard looks for you in 
 yonder hiUs," she said at last. 
 183 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " He will look far and long without finding 
 me," said Mascado. 
 
 " So you said once before, I remember," re- 
 marked the girl. 
 
 Mascado had no answer to that. 
 
 " At Carmelo they showed me many things," 
 she went on ; " among other things the whipping- 
 post ; " she laughed low and amusedly. 
 
 The mestizo felt his gorge rise. " And among 
 other things," he said, " you saw also the prison, 
 you and your fine gentleman. He will see a rope, 
 doubtless, before all is done, with his killing of 
 sUly shepherds and stealing of sheep." 
 
 " That is a lie, Mascado," said the girl simply, 
 but she also shivered. " It is cold," she said ; 
 " put the blanket about me." 
 
 Mascado drew it clumsily across her shoul- 
 ders. They were traveling slowly now, stoop- 
 ing under trees and picking the way on stony 
 ground. Once they forded a stream where the 
 water came gurgling to the horse's thighs. The 
 girl fidgeted and made fretful noises of fatigue. 
 Presently Mascado felt her weight sag against 
 his arm ; by gentle constraint he forced her head 
 184 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 back upon his shoulder and saw that she slept. 
 Mother of saints ! here was a girl torn from one 
 lover by another, who had come against her will 
 from a delicate-mannered gentleman to be rav- 
 ished by a renegade mestizo in the hills, and she 
 slept, — by God and His saints, she slept ! 
 
 The moon had come free of the belt of fog 
 that hangs about sea borders, and poured clear 
 and light on the shut lids and drooping mouth. 
 Mascado looked, and, though he had no words 
 for these things and believed otherwise, suffered 
 a remote perception of unassailable virginity. 
 He passed on, wondering, through the night. 
 Two hours later the girl was roused by having 
 a fold of the blanket drawn tightly across her 
 mouth. Mascado bent over her and threatened 
 with his eyes. He held the rein with the hand 
 that constrained her, and with the other pressed 
 the point of his knife against her breast. A little 
 way ahead she saw a glow ruddier than the moon 
 on the scrub. They had nearly stumbled on a 
 camp in the dark. An Indian had risen up at 
 the disturbance, and thrown fresh fuel on a 
 dying fire, — stood listening and intent. The 
 185 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 girl could see by the dress that he was of the 
 Mission. She thought for a moment that it 
 might be the corporal and his men, but as Mas- 
 cado, guiding chiefly by the pressure of his 
 knees, backed his horse away, she saw by the 
 glow the face of the Father President, as he lay 
 sleeping, turned toward Carmelo. Slowly, al- 
 most noiselessly, they backed away and around 
 the camp ; she could see the Indian still watch- 
 ing as long as the camp-fire served for a Ught. 
 The glimpse of Saavedra set her thoughts back 
 toward Monterey and Isidro ; she slept no more 
 that night. At moon-set Mascado drew up under 
 an oak, and lifted her from the horse under the 
 canopy of thick dark. 
 
 " What is it ? " she said ; " it is not Las Chi- 
 mineas ? " 
 
 " Here we rest," said Mascado ; " there is no 
 further going in the dark." Not the smallest 
 star-beam showed through the close tent of the 
 oak ; the air under it was heavy and damp. 
 Mascado heaped up leaves for her, and spread 
 over them the folded pad of coarse woven stuff 
 taken from his horse, aU the saddle he used. She 
 
 186 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 sat down, and he sat opposite her, holding the 
 stake rope of his horse. So they sat for a space 
 of two hours; the first gray dawning showed 
 them watching each other with wide, regardful 
 eyes. 
 
 Mascado took the trail again as soon as it was 
 light enough to be moving, and by sunrise had 
 come to the place of the Chimneys. Heading 
 east among the highest peaks of the Monterey 
 coast is a broad, shallow gorge, having in its 
 middle a pleasant open glade, nearly treeless, 
 walled in by a slaty formation weathering in 
 huge upright piUars and nodules, standing singly 
 or in files; or higher up tumbled and falling 
 athwart one another, afEording tunnels and 
 draughty caves of shade. Among the standing 
 boidders trickle clear, warmish springs to water 
 the canon floor. Here, from time to time, had 
 harbored more than one distressed clan, the 
 smoke of whose hearth-fires had blackened the 
 bases of Las Chimineas. It was clear morning 
 when Mascado rode into the canon ; wet shadows 
 lay on the grass between bars of yellow light. 
 The mid-meadow was succulently green and white 
 187 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "with flower and leaf of yerha mansa. Its rosy 
 pointed buds floated in the tops of the grass, 
 dipped and hobbled with the motion of it in a 
 ripphng wind. Cool gray shadow spread among 
 the caves, and small water chuckled on the stones. 
 It was such a place and weather as might have 
 served for a bridal morn. Mascado and the girl 
 brought no bridal mood to it. Mascado was sure 
 of nothing except that the girl seemed to have 
 no hint of his purpose, which he should have to 
 convey to her, and had no notion how he should 
 begin. It seemed that he still held Peter Le- 
 becque's boy within the circle of his arm, riding 
 as unconcernedly as she had ridden in a bygone 
 spring, — before he had known her for a maid, 
 — and presently she might insist upon climbing 
 up on his shoulders, as she had once done, to 
 look at a hawk's nest in a blasted pine. And, 
 in fact, the girl was farther from him in spirit 
 than the child had been, panoplied by her love 
 for Escobar, — though she did not call it by 
 that name, — wrapt in it above the sense of 
 all offense, so that if he had accomplished his 
 intent upon her person in that exalted mood he 
 
 188 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 could have left no stain upon her mind. He had 
 expected protest and tears ; rather counted on it 
 to spur his lagging desire, always a little con- 
 founded by her cool assumption, now increased 
 as she measured him by Escobar, whom she 
 judged as far removed from him as the order of 
 archangels or other blessed personages. 
 
 She had, in fact, very little thought to spare 
 for Mascado at that moment, thiuking that by 
 now Father Saavedra would be moving toward 
 Carmelo with the promised relief, and a few 
 hours later, say by the time the shadow had gone 
 up from the floor of Las Chimineas, he would 
 be at Monterey^ Comforted in that, though wea- 
 ried of her bonds and hard riding, she was able 
 to respond a little to the morning note of fresh- 
 ness and delight, and keep the ascendency over 
 Mascado as she had done in the hut of the Grape- 
 vine, flooding him with lover's delight at the 
 nimbleness of her wit, with embarrassment at 
 her gibes, and secret fuming that he made no 
 better way with her. 
 
 "Your mother at Carmelo prays for your 
 soul," she said, as he went about to prepare a 
 189 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 meal of food he had brought, " but I shall tell 
 her to pray for your wits ; you have burned all 
 the cakes." 
 
 And again, " Mend your fire, Mascado ; it 
 smokes like a lazy mahala's." But when he 
 brought a fagot on his shoulders for its plenish- 
 ing, " Oh, spare your back, Mascado ; you will 
 need it when the corporal of the guard comes up 
 with you." 
 
 " Where now, Mascado ? " she said with the 
 greatest cheerfulness when the meal was done, 
 and she sat loosely bound against a broken tree. 
 
 " Here," said Mascado ; " it is safe enough. 
 Did you think your fine gallant would be looking 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Why should he ? " said the girl coolly ; " he 
 has better things to do than looking for stray 
 serving lads." 
 
 " For a serving lad, yes," said Mascado with 
 a secret and insulting air. " But a wife " — 
 
 " What talk is this ? " said she, yawning in 
 his face ; " here are no wives, unless you have 
 a fancy yourself for turning mahala, as seems 
 likely." 
 
 190 
 
'MEND TOUE FIRE, MASCADO' 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 " But there will be one," he said, ignoriDgthe 
 taunt with deep insinuation. 
 
 " Big talk," she said ; " but where there is 
 no bride and no priest how will there be a wed- 
 ding?" 
 
 " I have never heard that there was any lack 
 of weddings among my people before the priests 
 came," said Mascado, with something of a grin. 
 " As for a bride " — He stopped full, and let 
 his desire burn upon her from his eyes. 
 
 " Mascado, you are a fool, and Peter Lebecque 
 will kill you," said the girl. 
 
 " I am a free man. What will Peter Lebecque 
 know of my doings ? " 
 
 " All that I can tell him," said she. 
 
 Mascado let his gaze wander pointedly along 
 her bonds. 
 
 " And is it your purpose to keep me tied up 
 forever and a day that you may cook and clean 
 for me, like el cojo viejo in the Mission, scouring 
 pots and tending a tame squirrel in a cage ? For 
 look you, do you so much as sHp the knots of my 
 rope and turn yomr back, and you have seen the 
 last of me. Do you remember the time I sent 
 191 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 you and Peter Lebecque seeking and crying 
 through half the day and night while I lay in a 
 crypt of the vines almost under your noses ? Eh, 
 you are a fool for your pains, Mascado." 
 
 The girl had him there : she had the tricks of 
 an Indian for making her way in the hills ; but 
 she was no Indian, who, once the subjection of 
 her body was accomplished, would bring her mind 
 into accord, sit by the fire, and follow at the back 
 of him who had made himself her man and the 
 father of her young. Mascado's notions of the 
 married state partook of the earth, but, such as 
 he was, he wanted no prisoner, but a wife. There 
 would be small satisfaction in keeping her bound, 
 and no safety in letting her go free. 
 
 " Well," said the girl, much as i£ she had dis- 
 posed of the whole matter, " if we travel not, I 
 sleep, though the bed is none of the softest." 
 Stolidly, to hide a certain shamefacedness, he 
 brought her an armful of leaves and young 
 boughs, which she took indifEerently enough with 
 her face turned away. Mascado staked his horse 
 in the wet meadow, and set snares to catch quail 
 and rabbits for their food. His Mission training 
 
 192 
 
LAS CHIMINEAS 
 
 had lost him the familiar use of the how, and he 
 had no gun. 
 
 The girl spent most of the day upon her bed 
 of leaves, her head hidden in her arms to hide 
 the quivering of her face. She felt herself in 
 desperate need of succor, but knew not from 
 what quarter it could come. Supposing the Fa- 
 ther President to have brought Isidro his free- 
 dom, would he be of a mind to follow his errant 
 lad ? and who but the woman Delfina should tell 
 him that El Zarzo had gone against his will ? and 
 if Delfina told him that would she not tell all ? 
 Ah, never all, never tell him all ! Better Mascado 
 should have his will of her at present, and trust 
 to finding some better shift at the last. For she 
 had no thought of marriage with Escobar, — was 
 he not dedicated to God and His Church ? AU 
 that she asked for herself was to stand at his door 
 and serve. 
 
 Then seeing no better issue of her affairs she 
 would fall a-trembling with nameless dread, and 
 feeling safe for that day, resolve to sleep, the 
 better to wake and watch against the terrors of 
 the night. She could trust to holding Mascado 
 193 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 in check for a time, but there must come an hour 
 of weakness, of fatigue, a moment of darkness 
 and surprise, — she grew sick to think of it. And 
 then across it all would come the dream of inef- 
 able sweetness, — the joyous road to Monterey, 
 the stroUs on the beaches, the sea music and the 
 sea air, Escobar walking with his hand upon her 
 shoulder, the vesper hour when, kneeling on the 
 bare tile flooring, she had leave and liking to 
 watch Escobar through the changes of the hour's 
 devotion. Little looks, little ways, a trick of 
 tossing back his hair, a gentle irony of laughter, 
 the way his fine hand lay on the bridle rein, — 
 all these came back and pierced her with seduc- 
 tive pain. So the day wore on warm and still 
 into the afternoon. 
 
XV 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 f AAVEDRA, working back toward 
 Carmelo with the confession of Juan 
 Euiz in his wallet, had lost time on 
 the last day's travel by reason of 
 over-full creeks and flooding fords from re- 
 cent rains on the seaward slope of the hills, 
 and camped for the night several hours out 
 on the trail. Saco, who knew every foot of 
 *] that region as a man knows his own dwell- 
 ing, would have pushed on through the 
 dark, but the Padre fancied the horses too much 
 fagged, and managed to do with one more night 
 away from his own bed. He was up and stirring 
 with the dove's first call to dawn, and got into 
 the Mission for the eight o'clock breakfast with 
 Padres Gomez and Salazar. The table was set in 
 the corridor looking toward the bay, and white 
 drift from the pear trees blew in on the morning 
 
 air. Leisurely, as concerned their several juris- 
 195 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 dictions, the Brothers of St. Francis gave him 
 news of flock and folk, — of a death in Monte- 
 rey and a christening set for Wednesday of that 
 week, of a sail sighted off the Point of Pines, 
 and much small talk of the garden and field. 
 
 "And yesterday," concluded Padre Salazar, 
 sipping his chocolate comfortably, " I found in 
 the alms-box this packet, which, as it bore no 
 name or superscription, I judged best left to your 
 reverence's disposal." 
 
 Saavedra took the thin, oblong packet of black 
 silk and turned it over absently. " Quite right, 
 brother," he said, " quite right. I cannot at this 
 moment conjecture what it may contain, but I 
 will make the earliest occasion to examine its con- 
 tents, when I have this affair of Escobar off my 
 mind. As for the calves, Brother Pablo, I always 
 say you know more of that matter than myself, 
 and I will be pleased if you will continue to follow 
 your own excellent judgment. I will look at the 
 garden, Ignacio, on my return from Monterey, 
 where I must be almost immediately in the inter- 
 est of this young man, whose affairs I trust pre- 
 sently to put in better shape." 
 196 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 It was a piece of the Father President's humility 
 that he never rode on any affair of the Mission 
 when he could walk, and in that he patterned 
 after the sainted Serra ; but this morning toward 
 the Presidio of Monterey he rode at a smart pace, 
 with Pages cantering at his back, very keen to 
 know, but not daring to ask, what the journey 
 promised Escobar. It had occurred to him that 
 the youth was too forward in the Father Presi- 
 dent's favor for his — Fray Demetrio's — good. 
 He had experienced a pious glee in Isidro's arrest, 
 which it now appeared was ill timed. The padre 
 was too cheerful and too much in haste not to be 
 the bearer of good news. 
 
 They rode at once to the alcalde, whom they 
 found at breakfast, very weU disposed toward the 
 Father President now that he conceived himself 
 to have the upper hand, and toward the family 
 of Escobar, which he esteemed discreetly. He had 
 had his fill of puffing and importance in the week 
 past, and answered expansively to the tactful 
 courtesy which Saavedra, in any affair not directly 
 impugning his authority, knew well how to dis- 
 play, and between them they made a very pleasant 
 197 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 occasion. The alcalde was charmed, overjoyed in 
 fact, to learn that the young man, of whom, ex- 
 cept in his capacity as magistrate, he had never 
 a suspicion, should have come so handsomely off. 
 But an afEair of the state, you understand, my 
 dear Padre, — it coidd not be dropped, dismissed 
 as one might say the word. There were formalities 
 — the circumstance had been noised abroad — it 
 was due to himself as the civil authority, — a 
 mere servant of the Kepublic, my dear Padre, — 
 and to the young man, to give the fullest publicity 
 to his justification. But under the circumstances 
 he saw no reason why the youth — truly a most 
 admirable young man — should not go at large. 
 He would see to it, — if the Padre Presidente 
 would excuse him until he put on his street-going 
 clothes ? Yes, and in the mean time try a glass 
 of wine which had come around the Horn ? 
 
 The alcalde bustled himselE into the house ; the 
 Padre sat in the gallery and sipped his wine, and 
 having a quarter of an hour of undisposed leisure, 
 took out Padre Ignacio's packet from the bosom 
 of his gown, and broke the confining threads. 
 When the silk kerchief was unwrapped there fell 
 198 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 out of it two folded papers, the merest glance at 
 which gave the Padre as near to a shock as was 
 possible to his well-ordered mind. They were the 
 marriage certificate of Jesiis and Ysabel Castro 
 and the baptismal certificate of Jacinta Concep- 
 cion, their child. 
 
 Saavedra stood up suddenly, betraying his 
 years as he did in any sudden tide of excitement, 
 and called to Fray Demetrio. The secretary came 
 running and agog, hoping for news. " Do you, 
 brother," said Saavedra, "do me the kindness 
 to remain here and wait upon the alcalde — this 
 packet — I have business with the Comandante. 
 Neglect nothing which may be for the Senor 
 Escobar's reHef, and bid him wait for me presently. 
 I will be with Castro." With that he gathered 
 up the papers and the skirt of his cassock, and 
 made hastily across the plaza, at that hour be- 
 ginning to fill with children and dogs and a 
 detachment of soldiery turned out to drill. The 
 secretary managed the release of Isidro to the 
 alcalde's satisfaction and his own, each swelling 
 with authority and disposed to yield to the other's 
 pretensions to save the more credit for his own ; 
 199 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 they were, in fact, a pair. Within another quarter 
 of an hour Isidro had walked out into the morn- 
 ing, and shaken o£E both those worthies, who 
 seemed disposed to bestow upon him their com- 
 pany. He walked seaward, and watched the fisher 
 boats beat in across the bright, blue stillness 
 of the bay. He wished that Saavedra might be 
 speedily done with this business of the Coman- 
 dante's. The week of incarceration made the 
 strange town and strange folk seem more strange. 
 He was hankering for the company of his horse, 
 which he had raised from a colt, and the lad Zar- 
 zito, whom he had known quite four days longer 
 than any one in Monterey. He wondered that the 
 boy had not visited him in prison ; now that he 
 thought of it, it might have been arranged ; but 
 of course El Zarzo would have been too shy to 
 have put himself forward, — shy and, no doubt, 
 lonely in his turn. Isidro walked down to the sea 
 border, and strolled in the wet track of the re- 
 treating tide, which was the place Delfina had 
 elected for her morning walk. 
 
 There is no doubt Delfina had a nose for affairs ; 
 she had scented something going forward at the 
 
 200 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 alcalde's, and had come out with her shoe-laces 
 untied, and a tnanta covering the inadequacies of 
 her morniog toilet, with aU the mincing airs of a 
 woman wishing to inaugurate an acquaintance 
 with a young man to whom she has not been prop- 
 erly introduced. You can guess that Isidro, not- 
 withstanding his vocation, made no great difficulty 
 at this juncture. 
 
 " It is the Senor Escobar, is it not ? Yes, — 
 you must pardon my forwardness ; it is impossible 
 not to take an interest in one so estimably regarded 
 and so grossly accused." To the natural insinua- 
 tion of manner Delfina added the play of her fine 
 eyes. 
 
 " There is no pardon — rather cause for grati- 
 tude," said Isidro, making her a bow and a com- 
 pliment after the fashion of the time. " You add 
 to my freedom the contemplation of beauty and 
 the society of the graciously incUned." He fell 
 into a certain familiarity of exaggerated deference 
 with remarkable ease for a man who was to be- 
 come a priest. 
 
 " But, no doubt," Delfina watched him sidewise 
 through dropped lids, " there are others — one 
 201 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 other — whom the Senor Escobar would have 
 wished to see." 
 
 " On my soul, senora, not one." 
 
 " Oh, the men, the men ! " fluttered Del&na ; 
 " oh, the faithless ones ! and the poor girl in such 
 straits, too ! " 
 
 " If it pleases you to jest, seiiora " — 
 
 Delfina assumed a grave and monitory air. 
 " It is no jest to her, I 'U warrant, senor. Indeed, 
 I am not one to cry down my own sex ; she was 
 most faithful, Don Isidro, visited the prison every 
 day in hopes to have sight of you, and went not 
 away except by force, and most unwilliugly, — 
 that I can testify." 
 
 " But she, senora, she ? " cried Isidro. " What 
 the devil does the woman mean ? " 
 
 " Ah, if the senor wishes to preserve the incogs 
 nito," said Delfina, beginning to be mischievous 
 and amused, — "but with me, senor ? Well, then, 
 the wild Briar that keeps its roses for secret pluck- 
 ing, the mestizo lad, — or is she Indian ? — whom 
 you brought out of the hills, — El Zarzo." 
 
 " El Zarzo, — what of him ? " 
 
 "She is gone, serior," cried Delfina, with a 
 202 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 sweeping air, — "seized, stolen, ravished, mur- 
 dered and buried by now for all I know." 
 
 " But how ? When ? " cried Isidro. 
 
 " Last night, by an Indian, I think ; at least 
 he had no clothing. We were walking here on 
 the beach, but up at the prison I had just dis- 
 covered — I wished to know — she was about to 
 teU me, and we heard the guard coming." 
 
 " But she, she ! " cried Isidro. 
 
 Delfina looked at him in a momentary blank- 
 ness. " Does the man mean to say that he does 
 not know ? " she said, and then dismissing it as 
 wholly absurd, returned to her gurgle of secret 
 amusedness. 
 
 " Oh, the men, the men ! " she said. " We 
 were walking here, Don Isidro, where we now 
 stand, and it was just the edge o£ dark ; suddenly 
 there came a hissing through the air, — a riata, 
 I think, — and I saw a rider draw up to her 
 and she drew to him, but she went unwillingly 
 enough, — and in a moment he had her in front 
 of him and was away." 
 
 "ElZarzo?" 
 
 " El Zarzo, so called." 
 203 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 If Isidro appeared cool at that moment it was 
 because he was too much confounded. Delfina 
 was too circumstantial to be greatly doubted. 
 She put him through all the steps of the even- 
 ing's performance ; showed him the evidence of 
 struggle, the galloping hoof prints that began 
 where the shoe prints ended. The horse she 
 judged to be a pinto pony, the man an Indian. 
 Isidro quested forward on the trail; Delfina 
 panted beside him. 
 
 " Arnaldo," she said, " is the best tracker in 
 Monterey." 
 
 " Send him to me," said Isidro curtly. He had 
 all the woman could give and wished to be rid of 
 her. Delfina took her dismissal cheerfully ; she 
 needed the rest of the morning to spread her 
 news abroad. She had mixed herself with what 
 might prove a most interesting scandal, and 
 stumbled on a hint of a really untenable situation. 
 " For suppose," she ' said to herself, " the man 
 really did not know ! " and she dwelt upon that 
 point until she was back in her house behind the 
 wall. 
 
 * 
 
 Arnaldo the tracker, a short,| keen man, came 
 204 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 on his horse ; in those days, in that land, a man 
 saddled and bridled to go the length of his own 
 dooryard. Isidro sent a boy to bring his own 
 horse from the pastures of Carmelo. Arnaldo 
 made a detour of half an hour to fetch necessaries 
 for the day ; together they worked on over the 
 cold trail. There seemed a promise of mischief 
 in the rider's haste, — in the broken bushes, 
 deep hoof scars, flakes of black loam cast up by 
 running. 
 
 " It might be Mascado," said the tracker ; " he 
 has been seen lately in this quarter. He has a 
 pinto of about that stride, and he rides like the 
 devil." 
 
 " On the devil's errand," said Isidro ; but the 
 name, which he remembered only as the name of 
 a renegade wanted at Carmelo, carried no inform- 
 ation. He was in great confusion of mind, which 
 found no relief except in haste, though he could 
 scarcely have told to what end he hurried the 
 tracker on the open trail. He would say that the 
 lad El Zarzo was in peril. But why ? Why ? A 
 lad by his own account half Indian carried off 
 by another. But if he believed his own judgment 
 205 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 the lad was no Indian, and if he believed the 
 woman Delfina, no lad. Well, then, if a maid, 
 peril enough and reason enough. He began to 
 recount occasions and circumstances, — the lad's 
 personal reticence, a certain avoidance of innuendo 
 and embarrassing incident too constant, now that 
 he recalled it, not to imply an intention ; and, on 
 the other side, a certain fearless matter-of-factness, 
 an impertinence, as it were, directed to no person 
 but to events, to destiny, endearing in a boy, but 
 hardly to be looked for in a girl. But the lad 
 was a good lad, — well, a girl, then, if it must 
 be, — so no doubt a good girl. Here Delfina's 
 amused insinuating gurgle recurred to him ; it 
 brought a hot flush and certain sickly prickings 
 of shamefacedness. 
 
 " Sacred Name of a Name ! " What was the 
 woman doing now but spreading her news in 
 Monterey, — excellent gossip about an Escobar 
 who set out to be a priest. In his hurry he 
 had neglected to stop her mouth, as he reflected 
 he might have done with a compliment and 
 silver. 
 
 Isidro was, first of all, a clean and honorable 
 206 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 youth. If he regarded the priesthood as an op- 
 portunity rather than a renunciation, he was not 
 single in his time, and though he purposed a dis- 
 creet use of its prerogatives, he meant sincerely 
 to keep within its restrictions. He had respect to 
 its orders, and as a man and priest he wished to 
 stand well with the Father President, and he had 
 all the high and formal breeding which runs with 
 pure Castilian blood : the finikin hospitality and 
 that exaggerated punctiliousness toward women 
 which often consists with no very high estimate 
 of the possibility of feminine virtue. If Delfina 
 said truth, — and, though he rejected it, he found 
 his mind working around toward conviction as 
 fast as the tracker worked over the trail, — if it 
 were true that the boy was no boy, then he had 
 set a pretty snare for his reputation to fall into. 
 Peace he might make with Saavedra through the 
 confessional, but his father, the old Don, would be 
 furious that he had so far forgotten the manners 
 of an Escobar as to take a mistress, in the guise 
 of a servant, under the Father President's roof, 
 and having so conducted his journey to Monterey 
 as to have himself accused of murder and sus- 
 207 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 pected of theft, had no sooner come free of that 
 taint than he was off hot-foot after the girl and 
 her Indian lover. That was the construction that 
 would be put upon his behavior, and Isidro owned 
 that he would probably have believed it in the 
 case of any other. As for the g^rl, she was quite 
 ruined in reputation, and any explanation of his 
 would add a touch of ridicule to reproach. If 
 these considerations had occurred to him earlier 
 it is probable Isidro would have waited to take 
 counsel with Saavedra before committing himself 
 to the trail; but by the woman's account there 
 was the lad, whom he loved for his endearing 
 boyishness and clean, companionable talk, ahead 
 of him on that road at the expense of who knew 
 what indignity; and though the fact of El 
 Zarzo's being a maid had not possessed his con- 
 sciousness, it stirred in him an apprehension of 
 unnamable disaster. As often as he thought of 
 her it was of the nimble and teachable lad who 
 had come through the hills with him in golden 
 weather, or of the pleasant companion he had 
 promised himself on a pilgrimage through Alta 
 California, — but a maid — Oh, a pest on it ! 
 208 
 
THE RESCUE 
 
 Escobar felt himself aggrieved that his servant 
 had not stayed a boy. 
 
 The sun beat upon them, and the trail stretched 
 out mile by mile. Arnaldo hung above it from 
 his saddle, finding it too plain for dismounting. 
 By noon they arrived where Mascado had stum- 
 bled on Saavedra's camp, and Arnaldo chuckled 
 to see how nearly the mestizo's haste had been 
 his undoing. 
 
 " If it were Mascado he would sooner see the 
 devil than his reverence," said the tracker. 
 
 After that it seemed the rider had taken a 
 craftier way among the hills, concealing his trail 
 more, and pursuit lagged through a hot, breath- 
 less afternoon. Later they came to where Mas- 
 cado had kept the dark watch under the oak. 
 Here Isidro looked for some signs of a struggle, 
 not assured but reheved to find none. Here El 
 Zarzo had sat, and here Mascado ; here the horse 
 cropped at the end of the rope. Isidro by this 
 time fumed with impatience and saddle weariness. 
 He rode after a week's inaction, and his breakfast 
 had been prison fare. 
 
 " Caramba ! but I could eat," he said. 
 209 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Arnaldo swung the food bag forward on the 
 saddle. 
 
 " Eat," he said ; " the trail freshens." 
 
 " And where," cried Isidro, " do you think we 
 shall come up with him ? " 
 
 " Dios sabe, but it leads toward Las Chimineas. 
 That is the refuge of many a hunted one. We 
 should be there in an hour," said the tracker. 
 
 " We must find him before night." Isidro bore 
 forward in his saddle with eagerness ; as if some 
 impalpable thread of intelligence ran between 
 him and the girl, his sense of urgency lengthened 
 with the shadows. They had made good time, 
 almost as good as Mascado, saving the dark hours. 
 It appeared the mestizo had ridden without fear 
 of pursuit, and ridden, moreover, in the night, 
 while they had the day for following. It was 
 four o'clock when Arnaldo pointed out from a 
 knoll the tall, single stones of Las Chimineas. 
 
 " From here we go cautiously," he said. 
 
 Meanwhile Saavedra had finished his talk with 
 the Comandante. They had taken a long time 
 to it, beating through all the possibilities that the 
 210 
 
THE EESCUE 
 
 appearance of the two certificates at this junc- 
 ture implied. Finding no thoroughfare, they 
 came back to suck such comfort as they could 
 from the mere fact of the papers spread out on 
 the Comandante's desk. Castro was trembling, 
 expectant, and confused; the Padre hopeful 
 and confounded. The question was, from what 
 source had the packet come? By all accounts no 
 strangers or suspicious persons had come or gone 
 about the Mission or Monterey that week past. 
 Then could it have been dropped by any one 
 resident in the capital or at Carmelo ? At this 
 suggestion, that one who had knowledge of 
 Ysabel's child might walk within daily sight of 
 him, Castro shook as with an ague. Padre Vi- 
 cente sighed; he thought to have known the 
 hearts of his people. Padres Pablo and Ignacio 
 had been warned if the matter came up in con- 
 fession to use all permissible means to bring it to 
 hght. As yet from this source nothing had trans- 
 pired. It had not been possible to keep the affair 
 out of common talk, perhaps not advisable. It 
 appeared the flood of gossip had floated this 
 packet out of the backwater of an unconscience- 
 211 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 able mind, — gossip, and not the searching sword 
 of the Church. Therefore the good Padre sighed ; 
 therefore the Commandante fell sick. The word 
 of each ran with power in their several provinces, 
 but they could not compel a favorable issue of 
 their own affairs. But why had the packet come 
 to light and not the heiress ? why the evidence 
 and not the claimant ? and why this concealment 
 of the source? who held the information that 
 would connect the papers with Ysabel's daughter? 
 Ah, who, who ? Was this flotsam all that was to 
 come up out of the depth ? Was it fear that kept 
 the informant in the background, or was it sim- 
 ply that the child was not ? Here Saavedra came 
 to the surface with a practical suggestion, — a 
 paper pinned to the church door offering a re- 
 ward for knowledge of Castro's heir. The pride 
 of the Castros demurred. Well, then, for infor- 
 mation concerning the packet found in the alms- 
 box on such a date ? This was better, and was 
 so agreed. Then, for sheer unwillingness to leave 
 the conference with so little accomplished, they 
 fell to talking of other things. Of this affair of 
 Escobar, which the Padre wished put in the best 
 212 
 
THE EESCUE 
 
 countenance ; of the report, founded on nods and 
 winks and suspicions, that Indians on the eastern 
 border along the San Joaquin and the Tulares, 
 under Urbano, fomented disturbances. The Pa- 
 dres had never pushed their labors very far from 
 the coast. Inland the unregenerate lived in native 
 savagery, and gathering to themselves malcon- 
 tents and deserters from among the neophytes, 
 became a menace to the peaceful estabHshmentS' 
 of the Mission. From Solano and San Jose came 
 news of cattle carried off, and mutterings, and 
 restlessness. 
 
 Father Saavedra was as loath to report these 
 matters as to believe them, but felt something 
 due to the Comandante. Urbano was rumored 
 to be massing his followers in the wooded regions 
 to the east. 
 
 " Saw you any such intimations on your jour^ 
 ney. Padre ? " asked Castro. 
 
 " None," answered Saavedra. " Now I think 
 of it I saw not a dozen Indians this week past,^ 
 nor came upon more than one camp which was 
 not at least three days cold. It is surprising, I 
 think, considering the report." 
 213 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Not surprising, Padre, but ominous," replied 
 the Comandante, " considering what we know 
 of their habits. At this season they should be 
 spread abroad by clans and families. That you saw 
 none is proof positive that they are gathering to- 
 gether in some other place and for some purpose." 
 
 " I trust not of mischief," said Saavedra. 
 
 "I hope not, but I do not trust where an 
 Indian is concerned," said the Comandante, 
 smiling a little. " But the detachment which was 
 sent out for your fellow Mascado should be in 
 any hour ; they were provisioned only for ten 
 days, and they may be able to tell somewhat. In 
 the mean time I advise. Padre, that you let none 
 of the neophytes pass between the Missions on 
 any errands whatever." The Father President 
 acquiesced. He was not the man for affrays ; 
 besides, had Urbano descended upon San Carlos, 
 he would have met him in the fashion of the 
 martyred Luis Jayme, saying, " Love God, my 
 children," and as likely have met the same end. 
 By the time he had finished with the Coman- 
 dante and come out into the plaza again Isidro 
 had been gone an hour. 
 214 
 
XVI 
 
 ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 ; HE place from which Isidro and the 
 tracker looked on Las Chimineas 
 was a thinly wooded hiU, its coast- 
 ward slope in the spaces between 
 the pine boles well grown with stiff-stemmed 
 manzanita and Hlac now waning in its 
 bloom. It lay directly opposite the head 
 of the gorge, and the track ran around it, 
 and over a low barrier running transversely 
 of the rift that turned it sharply to the 
 east. Beyond the barrier, which was clothed with 
 wide low oaks, the gray chimneys began to rise, 
 clustered thickly together. They parted in files, 
 leaving the meadow space clear, and met in a 
 jumble at the head of the canon. The hiU on 
 which the two men stood butted into the left 
 wall of the canon, and made easy passage to a 
 point above the crowd of chimneys. The whole 
 trend of the canon and encompassing hills was 
 215 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 south of southeast. The wood marched up to 
 the crest of the west wall, leapt over, and began 
 again midway of the opposite slope, which was 
 higher, went on in an orderly and constant growth 
 far east and south. On the down throw of the 
 bare west wall where the chimneys piled high 
 and disjointed, Arnaldo judged the renegade must 
 be if he were to be found at all. 
 
 Las Chimineas lay gray and lonely in the 
 brooding light, squirrels chattered and leapt, a 
 striped snake slid by them in the grass, jays 
 screamed and quarreled in the oaks. Presently 
 Arnaldo held up nis hand ; the two men had 
 proceeded almost without sound, for the habit of 
 his trade was upon one, and heavily on the other 
 the desire of slaughter. A jay steering a flight 
 across the canon veered suddenly near a group 
 of tall chimneys ; another, watching, wheeled to- 
 ward the point, and avoided it with a volley of 
 shrill abuse. Rabbits that ran in the meadow 
 halted and pricked up their ears. 
 
 " We have him," said the tracker. He dropped 
 from his horse, and began to work back on the 
 trail to put the brow of the hill between them 
 216 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 and Las Chimineas. Isidro was no fool to stay 
 the action with question ; he took off his spurs, 
 which clinked softly on the stones, and did as he 
 saw the tracker do. In a ring of pines, screened 
 by lilac, they made the horses fast. 
 
 " Go back and watch," said Arnaldo ; " when 
 you hear three quail calls, low and quick, and in 
 the same key, I have news for you." 
 
 He pressed back against the thicket as he 
 spoke; it seemed to spring aside to give him 
 room ; there was a little trepidation in the 
 branches, a twig snapped, a bird started, the 
 warm silence of the wood closed in again. Isidro 
 looked at the places where the man might be 
 supposed to be, but saw not so much as the glint 
 of the sun on bare skin. He did not do quite as 
 he had been told ; he went back to the hiU and 
 over it, and by dint of all the Indian craft he 
 knew, pressed down to the lower barrier and 
 then up to the top of that, until he looked full 
 on the meadow of Las Chimineas. In a secret 
 place where the grass grew taU against the rooted 
 rocks he saw a pinto pony a-graze at the end of 
 a stake rope. This and the smooth spread of 
 217 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 open meadow gave him a hint and food for 
 thought that lasted until he judged the tracker 
 might have returned. He took a longer way back 
 to the horses, looking for the tracks by which 
 Mascado had presumably come into the meadow, 
 and heard the signal given twice from the thicket 
 on the hill before he came quite up to it. 
 
 "Well?" he said. Arnaldo the tracker was 
 the man for such business ; he handed you up 
 the facts without discursiveness, and spared com- 
 ment until the adventure was achieved. 
 
 " Mascado," he said. " He harbors below that 
 one of the chimneys that has a red stain of moss 
 upon it. The boy lies bound to a log of oak. 
 Mascado mends the fire and goes about to cook 
 a rabbit." 
 
 "Has he arms?" 
 
 "He has a knife about his neck, but neither 
 bow nor spear. The rabbit was caught in a 
 snare ; I saw it hanging on a rock." 
 
 " Good," said Isidro ; " I have seen his horse ; 
 
 the meadow is between it and him. Good again. 
 
 Look you, Arnaldo, this is my game. Take this," 
 
 — it was a pistol from his saddle holster, — 
 
 218 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 " and go back to the chimneys and watch until I 
 have called Mascado out to me. If he so much 
 as lays a hand on the lad, kill ; but if not, then 
 do as I say. When Mascado has come out to me 
 in the meadow, unbind the boy, and bring him 
 here. If I happen to any mischance, take him 
 safely to the Father President." 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 "Do? Ah, there is much to do. You shall 
 see." Isidro was coiling and recoiling the riata 
 which hung at every saddle-bow in those days of 
 Alta California. He ran it through his hands 
 and rehung it to his satisfaction. The tracker 
 observed him with a dawning grin. 
 
 " Mascado knows a trick of a rope," he said. 
 
 " I also," said Escobar ; " now go." 
 
 He waited in the scrub until he judged the 
 Indian close in to Mascado's cover ; then, mount- 
 ing, he drew cautiously around the end of the 
 hill and rode freely into the meadow. He sat 
 lightly in the saddle, and swung the noose of 
 his riata with irrepressible cheerfulness. Escobar 
 was his own man again. 
 
 " Oh, ho, Mascado ; " he cried, " come out to 
 219 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 me ! " His voice, high and pleasant, went search- 
 ingly through the rocks. The jays heard it, and 
 replied with screaming ; the squirrels heard, and 
 stayed in mid motion as gray and quiet as the 
 boulders. El Zarzo heard it, and sat up thanking 
 God for a miracle. She knew the voice and knew 
 at once that in her heart she had always expected 
 he would come. 
 
 " Oh-ee ! Mascado, come out to me ! " Isidro 
 rode up and down in the meadow swinging his 
 rope. Mascado's muscle sprung to attention ; he 
 had his knife at the girl's throat ; it was to say 
 in its own fashion that Escobar should not have 
 her. She looked up and smiled. 
 
 "Do," she breathed, "for after that he will 
 but kill you the quicker." 
 
 Arnaldo judged it time for interference. He 
 dropped like a cat from the rocks, his pistol 
 cocked. 
 
 " Mascado, you dog," he said, " the Senor 
 Escobar calls you." 
 
 The renegade was not without some sparks of 
 manhood or philosophy ; he stood up, dropped 
 his knife into its sheath, dropped his arms at his 
 220 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 sides, and went out walking straight and softly 
 to Escobar. Isidro looked him over with some 
 amazement, which did not, however, abate his 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 " What is that on your breast, Mascado ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Scratches, senor." 
 
 " Sacramento ! but they look to be the marks 
 of deer's hooves, and not a month old at that." 
 
 The mestizo looked down at his scars with 
 something of a smile. 
 
 " So it would seem, senor." 
 
 *' It appears, then, that we have met before." 
 
 " So it would seem." 
 
 " On which occasion I did you a favor and got 
 scant thanks for it." 
 
 Mascado had a wintry look. " For which later 
 you did me harm enough, Senor Escobar." 
 
 " What harm, you dog ? " quoth Escobar. 
 
 Mascado's face was bleak, but his eyes ghnted. 
 " El Zarzo," he whispered dryly. 
 
 " Now by God and His Christ ! " said Isidro, 
 " but that word is likely to cost you dear. But 
 I cannot kill a dog standing. Get horse, Mas- 
 221 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 cado ; I have heard you can throw a rope." 
 Isidro's circKng rawhide hummed in the air ; he 
 threw it up and kept it there by the whirhng 
 force of motion. He ran it out, and bid it fol- 
 low the mestizo like a questing snake. It was an 
 exercise in which his perfect attune of body and 
 temper made him excellent. It had been said of 
 him at Las Plumas that he won in such con- 
 tests because he did not particularly care for 
 honors where the eagerness of others shook the 
 hand. 
 
 Mascado got his horse. Certainly Escobar 
 had saved his life in the aflEair of the buck imder 
 the oak, but this did not mend his disposition ; 
 unquestionably Isidro had exceeded the require- 
 ments in permitting him honorable contest of a 
 sort not uncommon in the country, but it did 
 not lessen his hate. However, and it was much 
 more to the purpose, the consciousness which he 
 could hardly escape, that his private meditation 
 did not fit very well with the circumstances, lent 
 him a touch of shame that mitigated his skill. 
 Vengeance burned in him sickeningly. The 
 rogue was for murder if the chance allowed. 
 
 222 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 The mestizo took pains and time with his rope, 
 fretted to see it a little touched by the dampness 
 of the meadow. Isidro kept his swinging to a 
 kind of wordless tune. Arnaldo and the girl had 
 come out of the rocks and watched them from 
 the hill. 
 
 " Come on, Mascado, come ! " cried Isidro. 
 
 Mascado came ; riding at full gallop he threw 
 the rope, dipped as he rode and slipped from his 
 horse's back to the belly. Escobar's noose sUpped 
 smoothly from his shoulder ; in fact neither rope 
 found lodgment. The sod of the meadow was 
 wet and springy; it gave to the horses' feet; 
 not the best ground for trying a duello of riatas, 
 but there was advantage to neither side. They 
 wheeled, recoiled, and rode. At the second cast 
 Isidro's rope went neither far nor wide, but there 
 was threatening in its hum. He bent backward 
 as he threw; to Arnaldo, watching, it seemed 
 that he went clean off his horse to avoid the fly- 
 ing loop that hovered a moment and settled on 
 the horn of his saddle. It appeared that was the 
 moment Isidro waited for ; without casting off 
 he stood with his horse at tension, and his rope, 
 223 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 which had gone but a noose length from him, 
 shot out from his long right arm, dropped over 
 Mascado, and with a jerk Escobar had him from 
 his saddleless pony. The mestizo had his feet 
 under him in the moment of Hghting ; if Isidro 
 drew in fast Mascado came faster. One arm 
 was pinioned, but the other was free from the 
 shoulder; he had out his knife. He came in 
 great bounds like a cat, rising from the springy 
 meadow; rage foamed in him Hke unbridled 
 waters. His own horse, with feet spread and 
 planted, held Escobar at the end of a taut rope. 
 Isidro fumbled at it to cast ofE, but not before 
 Mascado got in a blow above the shoulder. 
 Isidro set spurs and set them deep with the im- 
 pact of the knife. The mestizo had a moment of 
 check as the horse sprang away from him, but 
 the tug of the rope brought him sprawling. His 
 body rose in the air, thudded on the sod, rose 
 again ; and the knife, struck from his hand, 
 whirled a gleaming flight across the meadow. 
 By this Arnaldo came running from the hill and 
 cried out to Escobar in God's name. The spurt 
 of Isidro's anger, which took him the width of 
 224 
 
ISIDEO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 the meadow, lasted no longer than the knife 
 smart, and went out of him as the blood went, 
 leaving him drained and faint. Arnaldo got his 
 rope around Mascado's legs, and so bound and 
 disarmed drew him up to them. 
 
 " See to him," said Isidro. 
 
 " And not to your wound, senor ? " 
 
 " It will wait. It may be I have other scores to 
 settle with this rascally half-breed." He turned 
 his horse toward El Zarzo on the hill. On the 
 way to Las Chimineas he had worked himself into 
 a cool distaste for this meeting, but the affair 
 with Mascado, the rage at treachery, the smart 
 and indignity of his wound had the effect of a 
 hiatus. He had a shock, therefore, to come face 
 to face with the Briar looking haggard and large- 
 eyed, with red marks of bonds upon her wrists. 
 The qualm of meeting warned him how dear the 
 lad had been. Isidro trembled as he got down 
 from his horse. They were both pale, and shook, 
 came close and stood by each other, but did not 
 touch. 
 
 " Has he hurt you ?" cried Escobar ; " has he 
 laid hands upon you ? If he has wronged you I 
 225 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 shall kill him." Ah, ah! they were both red 
 enough now, she in a tide of maiden shame that 
 swept up to the dark crescent of her hair and 
 confessed her what his words implied, he with 
 shame for her shame. Well, at any rate, the mis- 
 chief was out. 
 
 "Has he hurt you, senorita ? " Isidro said again 
 more collectedly. 
 
 " He did not dare," cried the girl. 
 
 " He will never have the chance again," said 
 the young man. " I will deal with him as you 
 wish." But the girl had a more pressing con- 
 cern. 
 
 " You bleed, senor, you are hurt," she trem- 
 bled. 
 
 " A flesh cut merely," he said ; " Amaldo will 
 dress it." He meant nothing more than to reas- 
 sure her, but to El Zarzo it signified the change 
 in their relations. This month past he woidd 
 have had no other serve him. She hung her 
 head ; there was no blinking the fact of his 
 knowledge, though she did not ask him then, nor 
 until long afterward, how he came by it. She 
 was boyish enough to look at, lithe and slim, with 
 
 226 
 
ISIDKO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 hair, straight as the fine slant wires of rain, fall- 
 ing on either cheek below the round, firm chin. 
 But he knew her for a maid, and found the cer- 
 tainty confusion enough. It was all of an hour, 
 and that for a man of his temper was a long time, 
 before he was cheerful and cool again. Manlike 
 he made her pay for his aberration, — put her 
 miles from him by an exquisite poHteness, made 
 her miserable by proffered duty, in short, brought 
 the trappings of good breeding to serve his own 
 wounded susceptibility. 
 
 There was no question of going on that night. 
 The horses were fagged, the riders, too, for that 
 matter, and Isidro needed time to consider his 
 affairs. The shadow of the west canon wall, that 
 had spread in the meadow and up as far as the 
 edge of the wood on the east while Isidro and 
 Mascado wheeled together, had by now reached 
 the ridge and gone on deepening and darkling 
 through the forest. Stars came out above it low 
 and white. A troop of does and fawns rimning 
 nose to flank came out of the oaks at the end of 
 the barrier and passed on to the lower meadow. 
 Higher up a bobcat mother led out her young 
 227 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 and played with them among the rocks ; night 
 hawks hurtled across the damp and musky mea- 
 dow. 
 
 They lit a fire among the chimneys ; three of 
 them got little sleep. Isidro, nursing his hurt; 
 Mascado, trussed like a fowl for the spit; Ja- 
 cinta, for so she must be called, too much a maid 
 not to want the relief of tears, too much a boy to 
 know the use of them ; Arnaldo, — but there was 
 really no reason why Arnaldo should not sleep, 
 therefore he did; and he being refreshed, the 
 others in need of refreshment, they were up and 
 stirring betimes. Isidro had settled with himself 
 that he could not take the girl back to Carmelo, 
 but must first find her harborage and see Saave- 
 dra. Something, also, he purposed toward Peter 
 Lebecque, who was possibly most to blame for 
 the girl's assumption. 
 
 " How do we stand toward Cannelo ? " he 
 said to the tracker. 
 
 " East by south." 
 
 " And how toward the other Missions ? " 
 
 "We might fetch San Antonio by a hard 
 day's riding ; there is a trail hereabouts which 
 
 228 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 leads directly into it. All the others are best 
 reached from el camino real." 
 
 " And this trail, could you find it ? Then to 
 San Antonio I will go, but first I must dispose 
 of this gentleman." 
 
 " The Father President," said Arnaldo, " would 
 be glad of him." 
 
 "No doubt," said Isidro, "but we do not 
 travel toward Carmelo, and, besides, we have 
 but three horses." 
 
 " The world," said the tracker, " would wag 
 as well without such cattle." Arnaldo was a free 
 man from the south and had the scorn of the 
 full blood for the admiKture ; besides, he had 
 pricked up his ears to hear Escobar address the 
 boy as senorita, and surmised how matters stood. 
 
 " A true word," said Isidro, " but I am in no 
 mood for killing." 
 
 " Leave him to me." Arnaldo tied the mestizo 
 
 by a great variety of knots to a tree, leaving his 
 
 hands free ; his knife he laid on a rock out of 
 
 reach. " If he is diligent he may be free of his 
 
 bonds by this time to-morrow ; now we will 
 
 ride." 
 
 229 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "Let me not see him again," said Isidro. 
 " Twice I have spared his life ; the luck turns 
 on odd numbers." They left him with black 
 looks and stolid ; he had not so much as raised 
 his hand to wipe o£E the blood of yesterday's 
 scratches. Isidro lifted the girl upon Mascado's 
 horse. She could very well have sprung there, 
 but it was part of the punishment he designed 
 by way of alleviation for his hurt esteem ; she 
 had claims upon — just what he could not say 
 precisely, but claims which he would satisfy 
 handsomely, though he had no notion of putting 
 her too soon at ease. He grew less assured of 
 his position, seeing how she went staidly and 
 with bent head, except for quietness the very 
 boy that he had brought up from the Grapevine. 
 But she was plainly no Indian ; the more he 
 looked at her the more he knew it ; hands, feet, 
 and high, straight nose pointed the assurance. 
 
 If Escobar were satisfied with the adequacy of 
 his intention toward her, the girl was not, want- 
 ing the assurance of it. 
 
 " Senor," she said when, after an hour's rid- 
 ing, Arnaldo left them in a pleasant place of 
 230 
 
ISIDEO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 flowers while he cast about for the trail, " senor, 
 what will you do with me ? " 
 
 " I will take you to San Antonio." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " TeU me the truth, — are you an Indian ? " 
 
 " Seiior, I do not know ; Peter Lebecque has 
 told me that I am not, but the woman I called 
 mother, she was an Indian." 
 
 " What was Mascado to you ? " 
 
 " Peter Lebecque's friend. At least he came 
 often to our place at the Grapevine. Lebecque 
 hunted and trapped with him, but I cannot think 
 that he liked him. It was after Mascado had 
 been with us that the old man would tell me to 
 remember that I was no Indian." 
 
 "Why was that?" 
 
 " Senor, I did not know at that time. I think 
 now it was because Mascado wished to have 
 me." 
 
 " He knew, then, that you were a maid ? " 
 
 " He has known it for two years ; he says 
 that Lebecque told him, but it must have been 
 when they were at wine, for Lebecque was very 
 angry." 
 
 231 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Why is it that you dress in this fashion?" 
 
 " Seiior, I have known no other. It was my 
 mother's wish, her that I called mother. I think 
 she fancied I was safer so ; it was a rough life." 
 
 " And you know nothing of your real pa- 
 rents ? " 
 
 " Nothing. At the time I left the Grapevine 
 Peter Lebecque gave me a packet which he hinted 
 ■would have placed me rightly." 
 
 "What became of it?" 
 
 " I left it with the Padres at Carmelo." 
 
 " And nothing came of it ? " 
 
 " Nothing, senor." There was no untruth nor 
 evasion here, but if she had told him how long 
 she kept the packet by her, and how disposed it, 
 she must needs have told him why, and for that 
 she had no words. 
 
 Hearing Arnaldo call they rode forward 
 briskly. After that the talk was more at ease, all 
 of the wood and the road and the wild things 
 that crossed their trail. 
 
 " It is strange," said Isidro, " that we meet 
 no Indians; I had thought the hills were full 
 of them." 
 
 232 
 
ISIDRO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 Said Arnaldo, " Report has it that they gather 
 to Urbano in the Tulares." 
 
 " Think you he means raiding ? " 
 
 " Against the Mission beeves, — no worse," 
 said the tracker. 
 
 Jacinta said little of any sort, but that to the 
 point. 
 
 " Senor," she said again when they came to 
 an open grassy valley riding side by side, " when 
 you have me at San Antonio what wUl you do 
 with me?" 
 
 "Marry you," said Isidro with the greatest 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 One guesses the marriage of convenience to be 
 the procurement of more than simple living ; the 
 earthborn admits no inducement but the drawing 
 of lip to lip and eye to eye, the seeking of each 
 for each in its degree. One must go far from 
 the weU of nature to allow other reason ; even 
 the mating beasts know better. Jacinta knew 
 nothing of scandal, nothing of caste except as by 
 her love she put Escobar above all others, and, 
 therefore, nothing of social expedients. Marriage 
 was a g^eat mystery, but needing love for its ex- 
 233 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 cuse ; that much she knew. Though Isidro spoke 
 of marriage he had not spoken of love, — no, nor 
 looked it; and against a loveless marriage her 
 maidenhood cried out. She would be hot when 
 he was cold, shaken when he was steady ; as often 
 as he touched her, flooded with shame of her 
 full pulse beating against his still one. How 
 should she endure marriage with such a one, 
 even though he be rated a god or among the 
 Blessed Personages? It seemed a greater indig- 
 nity than Mascado would have put upon her, for 
 the first would but have held her body and this 
 one had her soul. Plainly love sickens of desire 
 if it be not the flower of love. All this Jacinta 
 raged over formlessly, without speech. Of the 
 chivalry which prompted the young man's intent 
 she understood nothing; but seeing him smiling 
 and well pleased with himself, judged that she 
 was of even less account, and sickened, poor girl, 
 even while she beheld him glorious in the young 
 day and the flooding Ught, She could not dare, 
 though she thought of it a hundred times, slip 
 her horse and run hiding in the hills, trapped by 
 her own weakness and his lordly will. 
 234 
 
ISIDEO COMES TO A CONCLUSION 
 
 In such tides the spirit ripens fast, — quicker 
 if it houses in Latin blood. Isidro was hke to 
 find little of the lad left by the time they came 
 to the Mission San Antonio de Padua de las 
 Robles. In the mean time he smoked cigarettes 
 and discoursed pleasantly of many things. 
 
XVII 
 
 A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 jF the resident Padres at San Anto- 
 I nio, Tomas de las Penas and Reyes 
 I Carrasco, Padre Tomdis at least was 
 I no causationist. What he believed 
 '•' he believed, and that was the end of it. If 
 i Holy Church said a thing was good for 
 j you, it was good for you. Any failure in 
 •:;:• the application lay in yourseH, or in the 
 inscrutable wisdom of God, who often or- 
 dered things contrariwise to our expectation the 
 better to increase the merit of belief. Holy 
 Church had prerogatives of cursings and exor- 
 cisms and cuttings off, power against men and 
 Legion and evil beasts. For it was not to be 
 supposed that her children would be safe against 
 persons and Powers of the Air, and be given 
 over to the ravages of wildcats and bears. 
 
 There was a reason for you if you were so con- 
 tumacious as to require one, though a greater 
 
 236 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 merit if you were able to believe it, whether it 
 looked reasonable or not. Further than that, 
 San Antonio himself had preached to the fishes, 
 and Padre Tomas preached to the bears. 
 
 Something may have been wanting in the ad- 
 ministration, for the Padre preached in the Mis- 
 sion church while the bears visited the calf-pens 
 by night. These depredations continuing. Padre 
 Tomas went farther, and cut them off from the 
 company of the elect, as you shall hear. 
 
 The Superiors of the Order of St. Francis of 
 Assisi had a wonderful keenness for parts. They 
 put a man to his best use with seldom a mistake 
 in the selection. This accounts for their being at 
 once the least coveteous and most materially suc- 
 cessful of Holy Brotherhoods. Padre Carrasco 
 had a knack with cattle and the soil. Padre Tomas 
 of the Stripes, a gift for the cure of souls. They 
 got on admirably together, but, though their 
 spirits seemed equal to theii- labors, it appeared 
 at times that their bodies were iU set. Padre 
 Carrasco was a lean man with a thoughtful cast ; 
 Padre Tomas was most mortifyingly rotund, com- 
 fortable, soft, and rosy. It was his particular 
 237 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 affliction that if he ate no more than a handful 
 of peas with cold water, it stuck to his ribs 
 and made him fat. Such being the case, there 
 was no merit in abstemiousness, and the Padre 
 did not practice it. He was a strict ritualist, 
 especially observant of high feasts and festivals, 
 very tender in confessional, mild as to penances, 
 much loved by his people. His project of arraign- 
 ing the powers of the Church against the bears 
 was favorably looked upon by the neophytes. 
 Holy water was efficacious in so many things ! 
 Upon this conclusion the day chosen was that 
 same one upon which Isidro and his party were 
 riding in from Las Chimineas. Toward the end 
 of afternoon all San Antonio was out in proces- 
 sion, priest and priest's boy, chasuble and stole, 
 censers, candles, and banners, and, to crown all, 
 a picture of the patron of the Mission in a gilt 
 frame ; after these the choir and several hun- 
 dred Indians, more or less naked, interested and 
 sincere. 
 
 The procession skirted the fields, winding to 
 avoid wet pastures and unclean thickets; the 
 candles starred out under the gloom of the 
 238 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 bearded oaks, and paled again in the sun ; blue 
 smoke of incense curled across the meadows. The 
 mellow voices of the choir set the time for the 
 feet of the elder Indians, who shuffled and 
 crooned melodiously behind them. Their bodies 
 swung ; they beat their hands together ; it needed 
 but a hint to set them off in the rhythmic cere- 
 monial dances of their pagan times. Your native 
 Indian is devoutly a lover of ritual; the neo- 
 phytes of San Antonio were enjoying themselves 
 highly. Padre Carrasco signed the cross in the 
 air and sprinkled holy water on the tasseled grass. 
 The voice of Padre Tomas rose solemn and 
 unctuous. 
 
 " I adjure you, bears, by the true God, by 
 the Holy God, by the most blessed Virgin Mary, 
 by the twelve apostles, and by our most reverend 
 saint and patron, to leave the field to our flocks, 
 not to molest them or come near them." 
 
 " In nomine patris," droned the procession 
 behind him. Isidro and Jacinta came up with 
 them at the northeast corner of the Mission in- 
 closure. 
 
 Padre Tom^s loved guests and the exercise 
 239 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 of hospitality, but he had other affairs. He waved 
 the party of riders aside and proceeded with his 
 holy office. They fell in with children and dogs 
 tailing the procession, and so rode to the Mission, 
 saw the candles, censers, and effigy of the patron 
 disposed and Padre Tomas restored to his nor- 
 mal use. 
 
 "Padre," said Escobar, when he had intro- 
 duced himself and been well received, " I desire 
 you to give lodgment to this lady." The Padre 
 stared, seeing only a slim lad with a sullen air. 
 " I wish, also, that she may be suitably clothed 
 as becoming her condition, and in the morning 
 you shall marry us." 
 
 Isidro thought it well to be forward with any 
 business once decided upon. He saw a hundred 
 doubts, questions, protests, trembUng in the 
 Padre's countenance. He went on to forestall 
 them. " No doubt there are many things, Padre, 
 which seem to you to want explaining, but the 
 first account of this matter I owe the Father 
 President at Carmelo, to whom I am bound. 
 After that I shall be pleased to make all things 
 clear. For myself, I want nothing of you but a 
 
 240 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 meal ; we have eaten nothing since morning." 
 This was to Padre Tom^s a predicament as seri- 
 ous as for a maid to be riding about in man's 
 clothing ; moreover, a matter within his province, 
 and remediable. He felicitated himself that he 
 had planned something by way of addition to his 
 evening meal, — a little matter of stuffed fowl, a 
 dish of curried eggs, a pastry of wild strawberries. 
 Isidro's plan to marry the girl he had known 
 only as El Zarzo was not so much out of hand 
 as it appeared. It had come out of him all at 
 once like a shot, but there had been a night's 
 meditation back of it. Once out, it was sure to 
 be followed up in fact, for the youngster had 
 great respect for his own judgments, and honored 
 them with the act as often as possible. His atti- 
 tude toward women was informed by the evi- 
 dence of his time, — that they did not know 
 very well how to take care of themselves. The 
 girl was pure, — he was sure of that, — but in 
 the common estimate besmirched ; that was hardly 
 fair, and Isidro loved fairness ; otherwise he 
 would hardly have allowed Mascado his horse 
 and a rope. In much the same spirit he lent the 
 241 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 girl the succor of his name. He had a high and 
 mighty notion that scandal could not stick on 
 the skirts of an Escobar. Well, not if he was at 
 hand to see to it. As for the girl, she was hardly 
 in case to be consulted, having no one to take 
 her part, equally no one to forbid the banns; 
 and, being a girl, probably did not know what 
 was best for her. 
 
 So far, good ; he had yet to face his dedicate 
 calling and the will of Saavedra, in whose juris- 
 diction he stood. That checked him ; but as he 
 had never felt the need of a wife, the obligation 
 of having one sat lightly, and he reflected that 
 there had been those who had arrived at saintship 
 through a virgin marriage. He was honest enough 
 toward Saavedra to admit that virgin it must be 
 until he had heard the Superior's will in the mat- 
 ter. He looked to the sacrament to restore the 
 girl's esteem, but he glozed over the inference 
 that, as a good Catholic, if marriage made no 
 impediment to his priestly career, the girl would 
 still be bound. If he did not have her himself, 
 no other could. If he thought of this at all he 
 was not visibly moved to commiserate her estate ; 
 242 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 by which you will perceive that there was more 
 in the youth's heart, whether it was in his head 
 or not, than he was rightly aware. Of all his con- 
 traptions obligations, that of providing for the 
 girl stood uppermost; so he out with his pro- 
 posal, and the thing once shaped, stood to it. 
 
 Padre Tom^s was more than fluttered by the 
 circumstance. He had a very simple way of 
 arranging marriages among the neophytes, — 
 every year he stood the marriageable youths and 
 maidens in two lines, and if neither found any 
 objection to the party opposite, he married them 
 then and there, after which he deHvered a homily. 
 He had prepared one for this occasion overnight, 
 but found himself put out of calculation by the 
 high airs of Escobar, and the confession before 
 communion of both parties. They had a difficulty 
 just at the last, for the girl had no name by which 
 she could properly be married. But as she was 
 sure upon the point of baptism, and well grounded 
 in the Christian observances, — Isidro's work, — 
 it was settled by registering her under the name 
 of her foster father, Lebecque, with the place left 
 vacant for her Christian name until Isidro had 
 243 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 come back from the hut o£ the Grapevine, where 
 he purposed going. 
 
 Escobar had half an hour with his wife in the 
 Mission garden before he set out. The elevation 
 of the sacrament was still upon him, that and the 
 consciousness of having behaved much more hand- 
 somely than could reasonably have been expected 
 of him. It lent him sufficient grace to get smoothly 
 through with what might have been an embar- 
 rassing interview with a very pretty girl whom 
 he had known as a boy, married without consult- 
 ing, and was about to desert without compunc- 
 tion. The girl hardly came off so well, being in 
 bondage, poor child, to a harder master than the 
 marriage vow. But she was very pretty, as Isidro 
 found space in the preoccupation of his affairs to 
 admit. The clothes that had been provided for 
 her were all that the Mission afforded, — in fact 
 the holiday dress of the Senora Romero, wife to 
 one of San Antonio's three soldiers, — a chemise 
 of white linen, a neckerchief of fine drawn work, a 
 cloth skirt, and the universal rebozo. The smoke- 
 black hair was drawn back under a comb, and re- 
 vealed the slow, soft oval of the cheek and chin, 
 
 244 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 so fine and transparent and richly warmed, run- 
 ning into the pale brownness of the brow, the 
 black, deep-lighted eyes, invariably fine in her 
 type, under the delicately meeting brows. She 
 had a trapped look, — the look of a small hunted 
 thing at bay, and the curve of the mouth was 
 pitiful. Isidor admitted the haggardness as well 
 as the good looks, but it struck no spark out 
 of him. 
 
 " Wife," he said, for in fact he knew not what 
 else to call her, " you seem to have fallen into 
 good hands. The Senora Eomero is no doubt an 
 excellent lady. This leads me to beUeve you will 
 be quite comfortable while I am about other af- 
 fairs. I will go first to Peter Lebecque ; there 
 must be things which he should say to me neces- 
 sary to your proper establishment. Also I must 
 see Father Saavedra, for my leave-taking was 
 something uncourteous. I doubt not the good 
 Padre thinks me mad or dead. After that I can- 
 not tell what will become of me, but you, being 
 jny wife, need have no concern. I will come again 
 and see you safely and honorably bestowed, but 
 the manner of it I cannot at this time tell. It 
 245 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 will be somewhat as circumstance and the Father 
 President direct. In the mean time, I commend 
 you to God and Our Lady, to St. Francis our pa- 
 tron, and to the hospitahty of Padre Tom^s." 
 
 This was the substance of his speech, deliv- 
 ered at length in the pomegranate walk of San 
 Antonio's garden. Jacinta was dumb under it. 
 Such was not the custom of bridegrooms ; this 
 much she would have known without the excel- 
 lently voluble discourse on the nature of marriage 
 bestowed upon her by the corporal's wife with 
 the wedding clothes. She was the daughter of 
 a proud, sensitive man and a sensitive, passion- 
 ate woman, and, with her forest breeding, had 
 the instinct of a wild pigeon for straight cuts. 
 So she arrived at some very mortifying conclu- 
 sions. First, that by her boy's trappings, which 
 she had never thought to question, she had lost 
 esteem of very many people, among them Esco- 
 bar ; next, that much as he disapproved of those, 
 she was much more acceptable to him as Peter 
 Lebecque's lad than as what she now showed to 
 be ; most of all, that not now or at any time had 
 he acknowledged one pulse of the hot tide that 
 
 246 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 flooded her at the mere thought of him. She had 
 lain all night with quick heart, clinched hands, 
 and a maze of thought in which one thing only 
 seemed clear, — the wild creature's instinct to 
 seek cover and dissemble, never to let him know ; 
 the phrase had an echo to it as of some far reced- 
 ing wave in the crypts of consciousness, — the 
 heartbreak of Ysabel crying in her child. All 
 her energies were bent on that. She would have 
 liked to run away into the hills, to the free life 
 where she might never have word of Escobar, but 
 she knew that she would run back again in sheer 
 hunger for a sight or sound of him. One ques- 
 tion she allowed herself in the Mission garden ; 
 all the pride of the Castros rose up and braved 
 her for it. 
 
 " Senor," she said, " when we rode with 
 Mariano's sheep toward Pasteria you told me that 
 you were to become a priest and priests may not 
 marry." 
 
 " Why, as to that," said the young man, still 
 going smoothly on in the consciousness of irre- 
 proachable intent, " the Church is very explicit 
 as to continuing in the married estate, but many 
 247 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 of the apostles, I understand, and of the saints 
 not a few, have been married before taking or- 
 ders, notably St. Paul and St. Peter and Santa 
 Ceciha ; but that is a matter within the province 
 of the Father President." 
 
 "And what will become of me?" was the 
 cry that rose in the girl's heart and broke in a 
 thin bubble upon her lips ; she went dumb, — 
 answered by nods only, with dropped eyes and 
 folded hands. Isidro commended her discre- 
 tion, when the poor child was only miserable. 
 He kissed her hand at parting and found it 
 chill. 
 
 To say that Padre Tomas was astounded to see 
 the bridegroom ride away on his wedding morn- 
 ing was to say only half. He was even affronted, 
 and stood choking and staring to receive Esco- 
 bar's last instructions, delivered with the smooth, 
 courteous air which sat so well on the personable 
 youth. No doubt, thought the Padre, it was com- 
 mendable to show one's self subservient to the 
 Superior of the Order, and continence was a vir- 
 tue ; but if all men practiced it, how else would 
 there be souls to save and God be glorified in 
 248 
 
A WEDDING AT SAN ANTONIO 
 
 the multitude of his saints? Padre Tomas was 
 reputed to have contributed something to that 
 end. 
 
 Jacinta lay on her bed shaken with dry sob- 
 bing. Hot flushes sickened through her as she 
 recalled the Senora Romero's pointed advice and 
 sly allusions. In the weeks that followed she was 
 likely to learn the use of blushes and tears and 
 other woman's gear. 
 
 Isidro rode straight, with Arnaldo at his back, 
 to the place of the Grapevine, reaching it on the 
 afternoon of the second day's riding. He meant 
 to have some plain talk with the old trapper, get a 
 name for his wife and some satisfaction for his 
 chafed dignity over the affair of Juan Buiz, in 
 which you will remember Lebecque was named a 
 witness. 
 
 Trusting to Arnaldo's knowledge of trails, they 
 left the traveled road, el camino real of that 
 time, and went easily by a scantly wooded hiU 
 and a wide mesa, windy and high. This saved 
 horseflesh, but gained them nothing in time, for, 
 arriving early in the afternoon, they found Le- 
 becque from home. Isidro sat in the shade of the 
 249 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 vines and smoked cigarettes. The place and the 
 hour gave him a touch of homesickly longing for 
 the spirited, shy lad, mixed with the haunting re- 
 minder of pale beauty in a frame of smoke-black 
 hair. 
 
xvm 
 
 A COLD TRAIL 
 
 JHEN Valentin Delgado left Mon- 
 terey he went straight to Santa 
 Barbara, carrying urgent letters 
 from Saavedra and the Coman- 
 dante. With these he quartered 
 himself at the Mission, and set about providing a 
 daughter for Castro, an heir for the Kamirez 
 fortune, and a wife for himself. 
 
 It was a cold trail. The occasion of Dona 
 Ysabel's death was sixteen, nearly seventeen 
 years gone, and had occurred at a time when 
 every man dealt with trouble at his own door, 
 with little attention to spare for the affairs of his 
 neighbors. Dona Ysabel had kept matters close, 
 leaning much on the woman Elisa, who had been 
 her nurse and followed her up from Mexico. 
 Jesiis Castro was not at that time Comandante, 
 and his family not so much in the public eye. Of 
 the few matrons then at the Presidio some sur- 
 251 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 mised that Seiiora Castro had a child, but believed 
 it to be stillborn, as might easily have been the 
 case, for the poor lady was known to be ailing. 
 It appeared, finally, there were but two people 
 who had personal knowledge of the girl, if girl 
 it was, born to Dona Ysabel : Padre Bonaventura, 
 at that time resident at Santa Barbara, now at 
 San Gabriel, and an Indian woman, Louisa, who 
 with Elisa constituted Dona Ysabel's household. 
 Elisa was dead in the same month and of the 
 same disorder as her mistress ; the other woman 
 was, if alive, nobody knew where. Delgado went 
 and looked at the tall dross which Castro had 
 caused to be erected over his wife's grave, but 
 got nothing from that ; went and talked with as 
 many as remembered the beautiful and unhappy 
 Ysabel ; got plentiful comment on the relations 
 of Castro and his wife, but nothing more ; 
 then, by Padre Garcia's advice, went to San 
 Gabriel. 
 
 Padre Victorio Garcia, resident at Santa Bar- 
 bara, was an astute man, and knew his neophytes 
 very well. 
 
 " You can do nothing here," he said to Del- 
 252 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 gado ; " this people cannot be made to stand and 
 deliver in a court of inquiry. They are like the 
 quicksands that lie up the coast. You throw 
 a stone and it goes quickly out of sight ; the 
 surface is smooth as cream, but underneath the 
 sand it works — works; if you wait long enough 
 it will cast up your stone again. So with my 
 people. Get you to Padre Bonaventura ; I will 
 cast a few stones. In time something may be 
 brought to light, but you must leave it to me." 
 
 Delgado went south, a brilliant figure trailing 
 along the hard wide path of the King's Highway. 
 He saw Padre Bonaventura, and heard from him 
 what he already knew from Castro, but with more 
 color and detail. How, during the time of the 
 pestilence, there had come a cry in the night — 
 "though, indeed, the nights were like the days 
 for labor," said the Padre — to come to a new- 
 born child that might not live. He f oun d the child 
 at Dona Ysabel's and baptized it, saw it carried 
 out of the room by an Indian woman, and never 
 laid eyes on it again. The mother he found very 
 iU, judged that she had the fever upon her at 
 that time. Some days later he was at her deathbed, 
 253 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 but her confession was so strange that, believing 
 it mixed with dehrium, he gave it insufficient 
 heed, — " for I was much worn with watching, 
 and my people died like sheep," said the Padre, 
 — and in the midst of confession she died. The 
 nurse Elisa had died the same month without the 
 holy office, as too many died in that pestilent 
 time. Afterward it was discovered that no one 
 knew about the child, not so much as that there 
 had been one. 
 
 Delgado felt he had helped himself very little, 
 but he stayed a while and looked about him in 
 the city of Our Lady Queen of the Angels, even 
 at that time shortened to Los Angeles. 
 
 That accounts for eight of the nineteen days 
 of his journeying. Returned to Santa Barbara, 
 he found that some of Padre Garcia's castings 
 had come up again. During the time of the pes- 
 tilence many small parties of neophytes had taken 
 to the hills, hoping to escape it, but, carrying the 
 infection with them, spread it in the wUds. Later 
 the remnant came back again. It was now re- 
 ported that the woman Louisa had been one of 
 these fugitives. 
 
 254 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 " Had she a child ? " cried Delgado. 
 
 " No," said the Padre, — " no chUd, but her 
 sister had." 
 
 "Well — " began the youth. 
 
 Padre Garcia held up his hand. " I have ex- 
 amined the records of the Mission, which were 
 regularly kept except for the time that the fever 
 raged highest, and I find that this sister — Juana 
 her name was — had indeed a child of her own, 
 a boy ; but I find that about ten days before 
 the death of Senora Castro that child also died 
 at the age of four months." 
 
 " You think, then " — Delgado began. 
 
 " I think, my son, we will wait ; the stones are 
 not all in." 
 
 Delgado waited and looked about him. It 
 seemed impossible that the child could be alive, 
 or if alive that they could find it again, or if 
 found, it should prove Ysabel's chUd, — three 
 good chances that he must make another cast 
 at fortune ; and while he looked at the Mission 
 stock and fields, speculating what pickings there 
 would be when these were removed from the care 
 of the Franciscans to the civil power. Padre Gar- 
 255 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 cia brought him news. One of the neophytes, 
 who had been a renegade in the hills three years 
 since, reported having seen the woman Juana 
 ■with a French trapper in the wooded regions of 
 the Salinas. 
 
 "Stale news," said Delgado; "and the child?" 
 The Indian remembered to have seen none. 
 " Bad news," said Delgado again ; but with 
 it he made an end of Padre Garcia's meddling 
 with the affair, and set out with an Indian packer 
 and a guide to look for a French trapper with an 
 Indian wife northward in the Salinas hiUs. He 
 meant to find a daughter for Castro in any event. 
 There were not so many people answering to that 
 description that he was likely to go far afield. 
 He left the main road, struck into white, shallow 
 trails, followed them until they ran into springs 
 or melted in wind-shifted sand ; went large and 
 wide of any trail, inquired of chance-met Indians, 
 slept one night at the Mission San Luis Obispo, 
 slept seven in the open, struck false trails and 
 followed them to confusion. He saw the young 
 quail come trooping down to springs in the gray 
 morning, saw the young fawns hidden by their 
 
 256 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 mothers in long grass, saw a great tawny cougar 
 laid asleep on a limb above a slaughtered deer ; 
 he grew saddle-weary and sore, tore his finery 
 in the chaparral, wet it at roaring fords, and 
 came out at last at the hut of the Grapevine and 
 Peter Lebecque. His dress was much the worse ; 
 he had lost the air and affectation of the capi- 
 tal; he had a network of fine wrinkles about his 
 eyes from much staring in the sun, all of which 
 helped him with the trapper. Delgado had the 
 wit to deal openly with the old man, told him 
 straightly who he was, what he sought, and all 
 his intent except marriage, upon which he would 
 in no wise commit himself until he had seen 
 the girl. Lebecque heard him, peering shrewdly 
 from the shaggy pent of his brows, but made 
 no offer to open his own budget until they had 
 eaten and had two thirds of a bottle between 
 them. 
 
 " It is true," he said, " I am a French trapper, 
 and I had a woman from the Mission Santa Bar- 
 bara." 
 
 " And she had a child, not yours? " 
 
 "She had a child." 
 
 257 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 « A girl?" 
 
 " A girl." 
 
 " Where is she now ? " 
 
 " At Monterey." 
 
 "Monterey! Since when, senor?" 
 
 " A month since." 
 
 Delgado began to fret visibly at the madden- 
 ing, slow dribble of the old man's talk. " Mon- 
 terey, a month, impossible ! It is not three weeks 
 since I left there, and neither Saavedra nor the 
 Comandante had an inkling of it." 
 
 " Listen," said Lebecque ; " it is a long story, 
 but if good comes to the girl by it, let it be. 
 Forty years I have trapped and hunted north 
 and east in the country of deep snows. But I 
 grow old, and my bones ache, so I have come to 
 this land where the pelts are not so good but the 
 living easier. Seventeen years ago I found me 
 these hills; then I looked for a woman and a 
 place to build me a house. I took my time for 
 that." The old man spoke slowly, his words 
 dropped from him like the dropping embers of 
 his fire, as if each phrase lit for a moment some 
 picture glowing for him in the ashes of remem- 
 
 258 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 brance. The fashion of his speech altered as he 
 talked from past to vivid present and into the 
 past again as the picture faded. " At that time 
 I passed through the hills that rise up behind the 
 Channel Waters. I was two days out from Santa 
 Barbara, meaning to go no nearer, for I had 
 heard a waif word that they had a fever there. 
 The Indians were afraid and ran to the moun- 
 tains, but the pestilence camped upon their trail. 
 I went still in the wood and kept close, for I 
 had no wish to meet with them. Toward the end 
 of one day I heard afar off a strange mewling 
 cry. Up to that time I have thought to know the 
 cry and the talk of all creatures in the wood, but 
 this is new to me. AU that place was thick with 
 flowering scrub, making slow going. I kept on 
 in it, following that cry, for I am a fool and 
 know not the cry of my own kind. It grows 
 dusk, and I come out at last in a cleared place 
 under a madrono, and see something move on 
 the grass which makes that cry. I look and find 
 it is a babe. Sacre dam ! Well, I look about, 
 and across the open place is a dead woman. One 
 sits beside her that has her head sunken on her 
 259 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 knees, her hair is fallen forward and has ashes 
 smeared upon it. I am not sure she is not dead 
 also, but I put my hand upon her and she looks 
 up. I think she has the fever upon her, but pre- 
 sently she makes the sign to me for food, and I 
 see that she is starved. I had not the speech of 
 the Channel Indians, but she had a few words 
 of Spanish, and we made out with that. After 
 she had eaten she crawled to the child and put it 
 to her breast, and so told me a little of her con- 
 dition. She was of the Mission Santa Barbara, 
 she and the dead woman, her sister, and five 
 others who had come away from the plague. 
 They had tried the God of the Padres, but now 
 that the sickness had come on them they knew 
 that it was not good. So they would go back to 
 their own gods, but the Wrath followed them. 
 Her sister had sickened, and the rest of the party 
 had run on in a greater fright. But Juana, my 
 woman, stayed by her sister three days until she 
 died. Now she said she would not go back to 
 the Padres lest the anger of her gods should 
 bring a worse thing upon her. The God of the 
 Padres, she said, was a great God, but He could 
 
 260 
 
A COLD TEAIL 
 
 not keep off the fever. It may be so ; myself I 
 have no god. I take my chances with the beasts 
 of the field ; gods are for women and priests. 
 Well, I buried the dead woman, and Juana, when 
 she had eaten again, followed on my trail with 
 the child ravening at her shrunken breast ; for I 
 said, if the fever will not drive her from her sis- 
 ter, will she not be faithful to me ? 
 
 " "What else ? " 
 
 Lebecque left off his story to sit with his 
 hands between his knees ; aU that showed of him 
 was the red spark of his cigarette winking in the 
 dark. Outside the moon, nearing her prime, 
 flooded the swale, and made a long bright splash 
 through the door, but no smallest ray pierced 
 the tight roof of leaves. The dogs whined in 
 dreams upon the floor, no shrill night insect 
 rippled the silence, no leaf stirred the surface of 
 the great lake of Ught that lapped this lonely 
 isle of shade. 
 
 Delgado began to move uneasily. 
 
 "The child? "he said. 
 
 « Oh, the chUd ! " The old man fell into the 
 drone of reminiscence. " It was a puling brat ; 
 261 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 I saw soon enough that it was no Indian, but I 
 supposed its father might have been one of the 
 gente de razon ; but as I have said, the woman 
 and I had not much speech together. I was so 
 much the better suited. I saw that Juana wished 
 not to go near the Mission again, and thought it 
 was for fear of the Padres, but afterward I 
 understood that it was on account of the child. 
 By degrees, when the girl was growing up, she 
 told me about it. Juana's husband was employed 
 at the Presidio, and they did not live in the 
 Mission. They had a child, and a sister of my 
 woman worked at the house of one of the officers. 
 When the fever came on Juana lost her husband 
 and child, and at that time her sister bade her 
 not let the fountain of her breast dry up, as her 
 mistress was about to become a mother, and there 
 was reason to believe she could not nurse her 
 child. Afterwards her sister came in the night, 
 for the child was born untimely, and the mother 
 had the plague. They laid a vow upon her never 
 to tell from whence she had the brat, nor to 
 speak its name. So when they came away to the 
 mountains, for the mother died, her sister put a 
 262 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 double vow upon her never to tell, never to 
 speak the name ; and she never did. 
 
 " But did you never think ? " 
 
 « Think ! What should I think ? I had my 
 traps to think of. Juana, I know, thought it a 
 love child, whose portion was disgrace. I remem- 
 ber she said the lady's husband was from home. 
 But at the last my woman was troubled in mind 
 in her dying sickness; it was then she told me 
 most; she wished to have a priest, but before 
 an Indian could be found to fetch one she was 
 dead." 
 
 " And the child? " insisted Delgado, 
 
 " The child. Yes. As she knew her to be 
 baptized, Juana would never give her another 
 name, only such foolish woman's talk as Sweet- 
 water, Bright Bird, Honey-flower; but as she 
 grew and proved to have a pricking tongue we 
 called her the Briar. It was a good name. Well, 
 she grew into a slim maid, and a month since I 
 sent her to Monterey to the Father President." 
 
 " The Father President is at Carmelo," said 
 Delgado. " But were there no marks, nothing 
 by which she should be known ? " 
 263 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " There was a packet, papers, I think, but in 
 the Spanish, which if I make shift to speak I 
 have no skill to read. She is in Monterey by 
 now." 
 
 That was as much as Lebecque would say and 
 as much as Delgado wanted. He itched to be 
 on the road. If the girl had gone to Saavedra, 
 she would by him be made known to Castro, and 
 the young man lose that advantage. He must be 
 forward now with his corroborative narrative if 
 he wished to continue in the aflPair. There must 
 be two or three young men in Monterey ready 
 to pay court in any promising quarter if Del- 
 gado were not there with his modish airs to put 
 them out of countenance. He was silent a long 
 time, considering his advantage. As for Le- 
 becque, it had given him a start to learn that 
 the girl had not been heard of in Monterey, par- 
 ticularly that he had gotten out of the young 
 man unawares that Escobar had arrived, and 
 Delgado had met him there. If the girl was 
 Castro's daughter, and, putting the young man's 
 account with his, it looked to be a fact, why had 
 not the papers revealed it ? Long practice of 
 264 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 cunning against suspicious creatures of the wood 
 had made the trapper cunning with his own 
 kind. Escobar had not known when he left the 
 Grapevine that El Zarzo was a maid. But how 
 if he had found it out ? Or Saavedra might he 
 keeping the girl in the background for Jesuitical 
 purposes of his own. Priests, thought Lebecque, 
 might be caught at such tricks. Again, it might 
 be that the packet had told nothing, or that 
 the girl, who was not without wit, might have 
 reasons of her own for keeping a stiU tongue. 
 The old trapper had knowledge that the girl 
 would not be helped by Delgado's knowing that 
 she had traveled up to Monterey with Escobar in 
 a boy's disguise, — good enough reason for say- 
 ing nothing. Better reason, if reason were want- 
 ing, in not knowing how matters really stood 
 with the girl. More business was marred by too 
 much talking than by too little. The trapper 
 shrugged his shoulders, and next morning 
 watched Delgado strike out toward the Mission 
 road, and San Antonio de Padua, where he would 
 sleep the second night. Lebecque was glad to 
 see him go. Since El Zarzo had left him the old 
 265 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 trapper had the minding of the flocks, and found 
 it little suited to a man of his quick and restless 
 habit. His natural grumpiness, startled out of 
 him by Delgado's news of -the night before, re- 
 turned upon him with the light, and prompted 
 him to one rankling shaft which, though it was 
 directed toward estabUshing the girl's identity, 
 was planted in Delgado's mind. 
 
 ''Senor," he said, when Delgado was up in 
 saddle, and the flock fretting for the start, " if 
 the girl is not immediately found, inquire of 
 Seiior Escobar ; he may be able to tell you some- 
 what." 
 
 " Now, what in the saint's name do you mean 
 by that?" cried Delgado; and he was half in 
 mind to stop and force an explanation ; but the 
 blether of the sheep rose up and cut ofE his 
 words. 
 
 Escobar, working across the hills by a Httle- 
 used trail, failed to meet Delgado, and dropped 
 from it into the canon of the Grapevine the day 
 following, in the early afternoon. Lebecque was 
 out with the flock. Isidro sat in the shadow of 
 266 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 the hut, and recalled how he had first seen it 
 and in what company. As often as he thought 
 of the Briar his heart warmed toward the lad, — 
 always the lad, — never the cold, stiU girl by 
 the pomegranate hedge in San Antonio. Toward 
 evening he heard the sheep working up by the 
 creek, — soft bleating and the barking of the 
 dogs, mixed with the noise of the water roaring 
 out of the gap. It served to cover the light, 
 accustomed step of Lebecque as he came around 
 the corner of the hut and stood looking down at 
 him with beady, querulous eyes. The contained, 
 curt speech of trappers and mountaineers, and 
 such folk as live much out of doors, is not al- 
 ways to be accounted for as lack of breeding, 
 but rather the gain of that swift sense that 
 seizes upon reaUties. Not requiring the accus- 
 tomed approaches of polite greetings, Lebecque 
 did not use them. His glance took in the hand- 
 some, indolent length of the young man, and 
 much more beside. Said he : — 
 
 " What have you done with her ? " 
 
 " Married her," said the youth. 
 
 "By the Sacrament?" 
 267 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " By the offices of Holy Church," said Isidro. 
 
 Said Lebecque, " When ? " 
 
 "Yesterday at Mission San Antonio." 
 
 " Where is she, then ? " asked the old man. 
 
 " There, at San Antonio." 
 
 " And you — are here " — 
 
 Lebecque looked him up and down. Then he 
 took off his cap, which was o£ wild skin with the 
 tail hanging down ; he made a low bow. 
 
 " Senor, permit me," he said ; " you are a 
 beautiful fool." With that he turned heel and 
 was off to his flock. Isidro's good humor was 
 proof against this. He smoked cigarettes and 
 waited for the sun to go down. Lebecque came 
 back after a while and raked up the ashes of 
 his fire. 
 
 " Since when have you known her a maid ? " 
 said he. 
 
 " Since Mascado ran away with her." 
 
 "What — what! Did he dare? The rascally 
 half-breed, the " — Lebecque's epithets were, no 
 doubt, permissible in his time. He choked and 
 gasped. " Did he harm her ? Did he lay hands 
 on her ? " 
 
 268 
 
A COLD TRAIL 
 
 " I saw to it that he did not." 
 
 " Tell me," said Lehecque. 
 
 Tsidro gave him an account of the affair at 
 Las Chimineas. The old man shook with laugh- 
 ter between fits of rage. 
 
 " But you did wrong, senor ; you should have 
 killed him," said he. 
 
 Isidro let him believe that he had first discov- 
 ered the boy to be a girl in the meadow of the 
 chimneys. Now that she was his wife he shrank 
 from mentioning the encounter with Delfina. 
 
 Lebecque warmed to him so much for his vic- 
 tory over Mascado that he out with Delgado's 
 story and his own, putting them together con- 
 vincingly. Isidro took it aU easily enough, as 
 one accustomed to the favor of gods ; no doubt 
 he thought he deserved it. His marriage took 
 on the color of romance, to which his facile mind 
 shaped itself. He began to picture how he should 
 deliver the girl to the Comandante, with what 
 circumstance and what an air. Lebecque, watch- 
 ing him, began to snort with impatience. 
 
 " Seiior," he said, " permit me again ; you are 
 a fool. Here is Don Valentin gone to Monterey 
 269 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 with the news to spread it all abroad. Here are 
 you departed, by your own account with scant 
 leave, into the hills with the girl. Who knows 
 that she is still a maid ? Who knows that you 
 have married her, — and deserted her at the 
 altar? You, also, by your own account, in the 
 way of being a priest! AU Monterey will be 
 humming like a hive. Think you Castro will 
 thank you for this, or Saavedra ? Best get you 
 back to your wife and to Monterey with all 
 speed. By the mass, but you will find a hornet's 
 nest if you are overlong on the road." 
 
 Escobar saw the force of that. If he would 
 make this marriage perform the service he in- 
 tended in saAong the girl's good name, he must 
 be forehanded with his news. By the break of 
 day he was out with Arnaldo beating about for 
 a trail which should take them a short cut to 
 Monterey. His wife he thought safe in person 
 at San Antonio. To save her reputation he rode 
 to Saavedra at Carmelo. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE CAPTURE 
 
 gjes>Z<s>^€l®3J^B0M Peter Lebecque's hut and 
 ^;(m^^^;fe} the Canada de las Vinas Isidro 
 
 1^ and the tracker climbed up stead- 
 
 I® . . . 
 
 ^^jJ^t^^'^ ily by the swelling hill-front, see- 
 
 ^<S>X®M®X®^ ing the isle of vines dwindle and 
 shrink at the bottom of the swale. The spring, 
 which had been a lusty beauty when Isidro rode 
 first through that country, was now running fast 
 to seed. No rains would come that way again 
 for a good three quarters of a year. Wild oats 
 and alfilaria curled sun-cured on the eastward 
 slopes ; stubbly growth of shrubs on the west, 
 favored a little by far-blown dampness of the sea, 
 hinted at their ashy midsummer hue. Streams 
 rippled shallowly at the fords; young of wild 
 creatures of that season's htter began to run 
 freely in the chaparral. The trail went sidUng 
 on the flanks of the hills, and at each upward 
 turn flung them a wider arc of boss and hollow, 
 271 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 drowned by a blue mistiness that thickened on 
 level mesas to the waters of mirage. The crests 
 of the hills were mostly bare to the windy flood 
 of cooler air, but a wood of oaks, buckeye, and 
 madrono swept about their bases and lapped up- 
 ward in sheltered coves along the water coiu^ses. 
 Their outlines showed dim and indistinguishable 
 through the haze, like clumps of weed at the 
 bottom of full, stiU bays of sea water. Out of 
 one of the pools of leafage which lay below 
 them, and yet overlooked in its turn a consid- 
 erable stretch of sunken rolling land, rose up 
 a column of thin smoke, pale against the dark 
 blueness of the wood. 
 
 " Indians at last," said Isidro. " I began to 
 think it true, what I heard at San Antonio, that 
 they had left this country to harbor with Urbano 
 in the Tulares. And look, another." Faint and 
 far the second wisp of smoke rose up straightly 
 and fanned out into the still atmosphere. The 
 next turn of the trail showed them a third. 
 
 " Signal fires," said Arnaldo. " Now what the 
 devil will they be about ? " 
 
 By the middle of the hot morning the riders 
 272 
 
THE CAPTUEE 
 
 had sighted five pillars of white smoke that 
 neither increased nor grew less, but welled up 
 from steadily tended fires, wagged a little at the 
 impulse of an unfelt wind, broke high up against 
 a level of cooler air, and rolled out along the sky. 
 Later in the day Arnaldo pointed out a party of 
 Indians in hunting gear on the trail below them, 
 but when the two men came up to the place the 
 hunters had melted like quail into the chaparral. 
 
 They rode all that breathless morning, follow- 
 ing the looping and sagging of a shallow trail, 
 but in the main rising toward the crest of the 
 Santa Lucia, and then lay by for a long siesta 
 while the horses fed. They made it long by in- 
 tention, purposing to ride by the light of the 
 moon, which was nearing its prime and rose early 
 on the red track of the sun. With this in mind 
 they kept saddle in the pure pale twilight of high 
 altitudes, and on until the full yellow orb rose up 
 and walked along the hills. 
 
 They rode through a longish shallow valley, 
 open in the middle by a blind sunken water 
 course, but having a thick strip of wood along the 
 
 bases of the hills. Shortly before moonrise, while 
 273 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the earth under foot still melted into dusk, and 
 the sky whitened to the nearing light, they be- 
 came aware of a flutter and a hint of motion, a 
 whisper and beat translating itself to the sense 
 without sound. It came out of the wood ahead 
 of them on their right ; it seemed to roll along 
 the earth, and underlaid, yet was a part of, the 
 multitudinous small noises of the night. It grew 
 as they gave it attention, and came sensibly from 
 a close-grown tongue of wood that ran into the 
 open hollow, and resolved itself into a wailing 
 croon, supported by a soft pounding pulse of 
 sound. The wail flared and waned and fell ofE 
 like the flame of wood fire, gUnts of which began 
 to show between the close stems of trees. The 
 padding was muffled and incessant. The two men 
 dropped their spurs on the saddle-bow ; they crept 
 forward until they found a peephole in the screen 
 of leaves. In a cleared grassy place lit by a brush- 
 wood flare figures came and went like puppets 
 in a showman's box. Figures of Indians, naked 
 except for trappings of beads and feathers and 
 stripings of gaudy-colored earths. Huge coronets 
 of feathers of the chaparral cock, the corredor 
 
 274 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 del camino, surmounted their heads and streamed 
 down the naked backs. They wore kilts woven of 
 fine feathers of water fowl ; necklaces of beads, 
 bears' claws, elks' teeth, and bits of bright shell 
 hung down over painted ribs and glittered intei^ 
 mittently with flashes of the fire. The earth under 
 their feet was beaten to an impalpable dust. 
 
 " Big Medicine," whispered Arnaldo under the 
 click of rattles and the steady drum of heels. 
 Flashes from the fire showed, besides the dan- 
 cers, circles of squatting savages whose spirits, 
 raised by the hypnotic movement and beat of the 
 ceremonial dance, fluttered in their throats. Ar- 
 naldo the tracker drew Isidro softly by the sleeve 
 and backed away toward the horses. 
 
 " What do you think ? " whispered Escobar. 
 
 " Devil's work," said Arnaldo, and crossed him- 
 self as a good Christian ; after which he delivered 
 himself as a man of sense. " It is not the time 
 of their regular dances. If they do it now it is 
 because they have some business afoot." 
 
 " Think you they were Urbano's men ? " 
 
 " Who else ? One was the renegade Manuel ; 
 I knew him ; and he that had the feather coat on 
 275 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 his shoulders was a Channel Indian. Three others 
 were Tuolomnes. Where else will you find the 
 slum of all the tribes except with Urbano ? They 
 are not drawn together by love of each other, but 
 for love of mischief." 
 
 "What can they do?" 
 
 " Set on some silly shepherds with their sheep, 
 run off a few of the Mission beeves, entice a few 
 neophytes from the Missions." Arnaldo had not 
 a great opinion of the native tribes of Alta Cali- 
 fornia. They let the priests sit too easily on their 
 necks, and were frightened by the popping of 
 firecrackers. 
 
 The two men rode on in the trail, and the moon 
 rose new washed from the sea. The trail lay 
 mostly in open ground and was not hard to seek. 
 Twice in the fringe of the woods they saw lights 
 low and twinkling on the ground. 
 
 " We must by all means keep on until we have 
 crossed the ridge out of this country," said Ar- 
 naldo. "To-night they are busy with dancing, 
 but to-morrow they may take a notion to stop us, 
 particularly if they mean raiding in the direction 
 of Soledad or Santa Cruz." 
 276 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 Isidro had no mind for such an interruption 
 to his affairs. They kept on after this until they 
 struck the wood again and the beginning of ris- 
 ing ground. Here they dismounted, for the trees 
 were low and grew all abroad with gnarly boughs. 
 The trail went faintly among them with many 
 windings. Isidro whistled softly to himself while 
 the tracker puzzled out the way. 
 
 " No noise, senor," said the tracker. Isidro 
 stopped short. They went on for a quarter of an 
 hour in the hot dark. Outside of the fence of 
 trees the earth was gloriously light. Arnaldo be- 
 gan to halt at intervals and make signs of Hs- 
 tening. 
 
 " Heard you anjrthing ? " he whispered. 
 
 " A cricket chirp and a wakeful bird." 
 
 "Nothing else?" 
 
 " Nothing else." 
 
 "Move on a little." 
 
 Presently Isidro heard. Out of the dark a slow 
 padding on the fallen leaves seemed to follow 
 them. They stopped, it stopped ; they went on, 
 it began again, — a mere whisper of sound. 
 
 " Man or beast ? " Isidro asked. 
 277 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 " Dios sahe," shrugged the Indian. They 
 went on steadily for another quarter of an hour 
 and heard no more of it. 
 
 " It must have been a bobcat or cougar," said 
 Escobar. 
 
 " Perhaps so ; keep as much in the shadow 
 as you may." 
 
 Where the wood was thin and straggling it 
 was clearly no night for men who must make way 
 cautiously to be abroad in. Bounding a blunt 
 cape of hills they came suddenly on a camp of a 
 dozen savages asleep, or smoking and a-doze. 
 Arnaldo's horse knew the trick of stillness fol- 
 lowing a certain touch on his shoulder ; but the 
 other, winded a little, for the ground rose steeply, 
 drew in his breath until the saddle-girth creaked. 
 Several of the Indians sat up alert, but a ruffle 
 of wind among the leaves smothered all smaller 
 sounds and covered the retreat of the horsemen. 
 Now they were forced out of the trail and went 
 heavily through the brush, smelling trouble on 
 all sides. A group of ponies feeding in a mea- 
 dow snorted recognition to their horses, and got 
 a smothered whinny in return. Arnaldo swore. 
 278 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 Isidro, never so merry as when he had need of 
 all his wits, laughed under his breath. 
 
 " No laughing matter," said the tracker ; 
 "there must be threescore of the swine here- 
 abouts. They might object to you getting on 
 to Monterey." 
 
 " What wiU we do ? " 
 
 " What we can ; just ahead of us is a good 
 level stretch ; make the most of it." 
 
 They put their horses at a jogging trot ; this 
 lasted until the close growth of scrub and trees 
 forced them to a slower pace. Instantly the long 
 padding tread came out of the dark, following. 
 It was Ught on the grass, but not so light that 
 no twig snapped under it and no leaf rustled. 
 Now and then they heard the swish of a bent 
 bough springing back to place. 
 
 " Bungling work," said the tracker; then he 
 laid hand lightly on the other's arm. Forward a 
 stone-cast, the moon glinted on what was neither 
 leaf) nor bark, nor stone. Across the grass the 
 broken and dappled light through the latticed 
 shadow of the trees was cut ofE and reappeared 
 as under a sliding screen. 
 279 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 "ThedevUr' said Isidro. 
 
 " Evidently," shrugged the tracker. 
 
 The wood was full of hints of presence, sense 
 of movement, little prickings of the flesh, uneasy 
 sniffs of the horses. The trail ran here in an 
 easy swale narrowly between two great bluffs of 
 stony earth. The wood, pinched to a file of scant- 
 limbed pines, ran between them and spread into 
 a pool of dark beyond. The defile, opening to- 
 ward the moon, was searched and rifled by the 
 light. It was not a bowshot wide from wall to 
 waU. Beyond this a little way lay an open coun- 
 try affording no cover for spies and the chances 
 of swifter travel for the horses. Riding toward 
 it Isidro and the tracker started a herd of deer, 
 does with young fawns, feeding by a spring. 
 The does threw up their heads to snuff the 
 tainted wind and began to trot steadily toward 
 the pass. But here their fine sense served them, 
 and the men behind them, an excellent turn. 
 At the mouth of the defile they swerved, halted, 
 and wheeled, struck a brisker pace, avoided 
 the pass, and disappeared in a dry gully toward 
 the hills. 
 
 280 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 " Where the deer will not go there is no going 
 for us," said Arnaldb ; " wait." 
 
 He flung off his horse into the thickest shadow. 
 Isidro held both bridle reins and waited, heard a 
 night bird call and the wind tread lightly on the 
 creaking boughs of pines, saw the shadows shrink 
 as the moon rode higher, saw small furry things 
 come out in the light and play ; at last saw the 
 tracker rise up out of the dark without a sound. 
 
 "WeU?" 
 
 " Senor, you wish to get to Monterey with all 
 speed ? " 
 
 Isidro thought of the case in which he stood, 
 — of his breach of behavior to Saavedra, of Del- 
 gado hurrying to the Comandante, of Delfina — 
 " By the mass, yes ! " he cried. 
 
 " Do as I say, then," said Arnaldo ; " the 
 moon is too much for us." He led the horses 
 with unconcern back to the spring where the deer 
 had been drinking and threw off the saddles. 
 
 " Make as if to camp," he said, " and lie down 
 as if to sleep, but do not sleep ; keep your pistol 
 close." 
 
 They lay down to watch the ebb of the moon- 
 281 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 light and the slow oncoming of the tide of shadow 
 that reached its flood some hours before dawn. 
 They heard no more of any Indians, but no deer 
 came that way, by which they judged there must 
 be men about in the canon below them and in 
 the pass above. When the moon was low and 
 the black splotches of forest began to run to- 
 gether in the bottoms of the canons drenched in 
 shadow, they began to move again with incredi- 
 ble stillness, drawing out of the wood toward the 
 bare slopes of hiU up the gully by which the 
 deer had gone. Nothing moved behind them but 
 the light wind in the leaves ; before them they 
 had the steep tireless scarp of the hill. They 
 would ride a little, and then Arnaldo would quest 
 forward on his feet a Httle, exploring the way, 
 incredibly tedious, but they had no serious im- 
 pediment. Once Isidro's horse struck a loose 
 stone that went rolling and rattling to the bot- 
 tom of the hill with a small avalanche of coarse 
 gravel and set their hearts pounding with appre- 
 hension, but no alarm followed it. They came at 
 last to open country about moonset, found it firm 
 under foot and admitting of some speed. They 
 282 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 began to go down presently, and by dawn had 
 come to clumps of thin pines and dwarfish oaks. 
 They rode and saw deer bedded unstartled in the 
 fern, and all the ease of wild Ufe, warrant that 
 no men had lately passed that way. A million 
 wild pigeons began to stir and voice the bluish 
 light of dawn ; their calls and the incessant 
 rustle of their wings rolled together like soft 
 thunder among the trees. The two men pushed 
 their jaded horses, breakfasting, without Kght- 
 ing, on jerke of wild venison which they had 
 from Peter Lebecque, reached the foot of the 
 grade, struck the level of a valley, crossed it 
 three hours after sunrise, and in th6 hot palpi- 
 tant forenoon began to wind and turn in the in- 
 tricate shallow canons of low hills. They had 
 come upon no camps nor fresh trail of Indians, 
 saw no signal fires nor any sign of pursuit ; not 
 so much as a crow flapped or a jay squawked 
 suspiciously away from the trail. 
 
 "The rogues are behind us," said Arnaldo, 
 "we have thrown them off our trail; neverthe- 
 less, we must get on to Monterey. We shall 
 have a word for the Comandante." 
 283 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " What word ? " said Escobar, thinking of his 
 own affair. 
 
 " There were no women among them. Some 
 of them had guns ; they have been trading with 
 the Russians. It will take more than holy water 
 to keep these bears away from the calf-pens of 
 the Padres," Arnaldo chuckled. 
 
 " Do you think they are for San Antonio ? " 
 
 "That or Soledad; they might reach either 
 easily from where they are now camped. They 
 may have accomplices among the Mission neo- 
 phytes. The word that has gone about that the 
 Padres are to be sent out of the country has 
 bred maggots in their heads." 
 
 " And what," said Isidro, " if that word were 
 true?" 
 
 " Eh," said the tracker, " they are swine ; they 
 will return to root in the earth where they were 
 bred." 
 
 "They have been made Christians, and the 
 Padres have taught them to save their souls from 
 hell," said the young gentleman, who still had 
 thoughts of becoming a padre himself. 
 
 Arnaldo showed a dry and twinkling mirth. 
 284 
 
THE CAPTURE 
 
 " Manuel," he said, " was a Christian. I re- 
 member an Easter when he served the mass. 
 That was he you saw last night, with the rattle 
 of ram's horn and a bear's teeth grinning on his 
 shoulders." 
 
 They were both beginning to weary of the 
 ride. The horses drooped and looked hungrily 
 at the grass by the water courses. The air in 
 the close little canons was still and hot. 
 
 " Dios ! but I could sleep," cried Escobar, 
 yawning. 
 
 " Sleep, then," said the tracker ; " here is 
 feed for the horses." 
 
 They unsaddled, set the horses to the stake 
 rope, crept themselves under the low screen of a 
 live oak that dropped its branches to the ground. 
 The hills were sunk in a midday drowse. That 
 was a time when, except for some such seldom 
 mischance as had fallen to them the night before, 
 a man might He down and sleep under any tree 
 in Alta California, and take no account of risk 
 or time. As the mood of the land never swayed 
 much between the extremes of heat and cold, 
 fury and calm, it bred even in its savage races 
 285 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 an equable and tractile mind. If the Franciscans 
 found great scope for material advantage they 
 found little for martyrdom. It is a tradition 
 that bullocks' blood went to the cementing of 
 adobe foundationsj but little was shed of another 
 sort. 
 
 Isidro and the tracker had expected no harm 
 the night before but an annoying detention and 
 interruption to the former's afEairs; therefore 
 they slept heavily, that danger over, and woke 
 past noon to find Mascado sitting over them, 
 very still, with Escobar's pistols laid across his 
 knees. 
 
XX 
 
 IN WHICH JACINTA RIDES TO 
 MONTEREY 
 
 HE Franciscans of Alta California 
 in the year when Isidro Escobar 
 jj™, should have begun his novitiate sat 
 ^^ tight, kept the affairs of the Mis- 
 sions in close order, and prayed or plotted, 
 as their vocation lay, against the decree 
 of secularization. The prayers, it seemed, 
 found no advocate. The plots, like that of 
 Saavedra's for turning the family of Esco- 
 bar to priestly use, took a color, perhaps, from the 
 lotus-eating land, were large and easy and too long 
 in execution. For the most part they kept a quiet 
 front in California, and trusted to the Brother- 
 hood in Old Mexico. At that time of tedious com- 
 munication it was hardly possible for the Padres 
 of the Missions to know how nearly their college 
 of San Fernando was demolished by the unfriendly 
 KepubUc. The possibility of swift revolution that 
 287 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 harbors in Latin blood, their faith in St. Francis, 
 strengthened by long immunity amid conflicting 
 decrees, prompted to a cheerful view ; but being, 
 on the whole, accustomed to let no event meet 
 them unprepared, they made ready for seculariza- 
 tion, in case they found no way of avoiding it, 
 according to their several notions. It was believed 
 in some quarters that the Franciscans were con- 
 verting the herds and flocks into coin, which was 
 sent out of the country ; it was known that others 
 went about fitting the neophytes for the change 
 by new and tremendous labors, or by larger free- 
 dom and greater responsibility. These are the 
 pipes of history, the breadth of whose diapason 
 sets many small figures going to various measures 
 like midges in the sun. They go merrily or 
 strenuously, with no notion of how they are 
 blown upon ; but let the great note of history be 
 stilled, and they fall flat and flaccid out of the 
 tune of time. If you would know how Demetrio 
 Fages and the Comandante, how Isidro and Mas- 
 cado, Peter Lebecque and his foster child, called 
 the Briar, played out their measure, you must 
 know so much of the note of their time. 
 
 288 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 Chiefly, then, you will understand howSaavedra, 
 being troubled and a little offended at Isidro's 
 disappearance immediately following the Father 
 President's great labors in his behalf, could not 
 on that account delay his annual visit of coun- 
 sel and inspection to the Missions, where affairs 
 stood in the case I have stated. 
 
 When Padre Saavedra left his conference with 
 Castro he looked about first for the young man, 
 and learned that he had last been seen walking 
 upon the beach below the town. The Padre him- 
 self started in that direction, saw only the chil- 
 dren racing with the tide, took a turn about the 
 streets, and saw nothing of the young man, sent 
 Fages, still nothing ; whereupon he concluded 
 that Isidro had preceded him to Carmelo, and 
 leaving his secretary to attend to some small 
 matters, rode back to the Mission. Here the Pa- 
 dre's slight annoyance grew into a measure of 
 unease as the day passed and no Escobar. At 
 noon, when the Indians came up from the field, he 
 learned that two hours since the youth had sent 
 for his horse and saddle ; reminded by that of 
 the lad Zarzito, he sent to seek him in the hut of 
 289 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 Marta, and learned that nothing had been seen 
 of him since the evening before. The report 
 served to give an edge to the Father President's 
 alarm. Then about the hour of vespers came the 
 secretary choked with news ; he could hardly de- 
 liver it at once, turning and smacking it upon 
 his tongue. He had been with Delfina, and 
 learned things of Escobar that fell in pat with 
 his own desires. Fray Demetrio had a dull sort 
 of climbing ambition, which he thought threat- 
 ened by the proximity of the young gentleman, 
 and had the natural gratification of the baser 
 sort of men in seeing others brought down. As 
 he stood twiddling his thumbs in the presence 
 of Padre Saavedra, his expression of pained 
 virtuosity would have done credit to the wooden 
 image of a saint. 
 
 Senor Escobar, he said, had last been seen 
 riding eastward from Monterey in company with 
 Arnaldo the tracker. 
 
 " Heard you anything of his errand ? " 
 The secretary cast up his eyes. " It is thought," 
 he said, "that he rides upon the trail of that 
 brand of the burning, Zarzito." 
 290 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEEEY 
 
 " Ah yes, the Indian lad ; what of him ? He 
 has not been seen since last evening." 
 
 The Padre's tone was one of gentle wonder- 
 ment. Fages took his opportunity deliberately, 
 watching from under cover of his stubby brows. 
 
 " Your Reverence," said he, " it is shown by 
 the most credible of all testimony, an eye-witness 
 in fact, that El Zarzo was taken forcibly and car- 
 ried away by an Indian yesterday at dusk from the 
 beach below the calabozo. It is further averred 
 that Senor Escobar has gone in search of them." 
 
 Saavedra revolved this for a little space ; he 
 was not one to make gossip with an underling. 
 
 " Senor Escobar was concerned for the lad's 
 soul," he said at last, " and his zeal outrunneth 
 discretion. But strange that an Indian should by 
 force carry off another Indian, especially a lad." 
 
 "Especially," said the secretary, "if a lad." 
 The turn of his voice upon the supposition was 
 slight but pregnant. Saavedra put out his hand. 
 His instincts were quick; perhaps he had seen 
 Fages at mischief before now. 
 
 " Demetrio, Demetrio, Demetrio," he said, 
 three times, and the first was the cry of his heart 
 291 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 to be spared unhappy news, the second was a 
 priestly reproof against malice, the last a com- 
 mand. J 
 
 The secretary understood that he was now free 
 to deliver aU Delfina's adventure, a little colored 
 by the tone of the minds through which it passed. 
 The shame of the whole relation he took for 
 granted ; as, in fact, did the Padre ; as any one 
 of that time must have done. Saavedra was both 
 hurt and sick; such duplicity, — to make him- 
 self a warrant for the girl's lying at his door, 
 the pretense of concern for El Zarzo's soul ; 
 let alone his sacred calling, the boy's breeding 
 should have saved him from such an offense to 
 hospitality, — the case for Escobar was black 
 enough without that. Walking out in the garden 
 with his deep concern, he passed the hut of Marta, 
 and paused before it. 
 
 " My daughter," he said, " how long have you 
 known that El Zarzo is a girl ? " 
 
 The woman looked up with something quick 
 and apprehensive in her eyes. " Padre, from the 
 beginning," she said; going on defensively, an- 
 swering the rebuke of his gaze, " she was newly 
 292 
 
JACINTA EIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 from the hills, she brought me news of my son. 
 I had not seen him for two years," she finished 
 simply. 
 
 The Padre turned away, pacing slowly between 
 the vineyard and the pears, baffled and hurt at 
 heart. 
 
 The next day, with no further inquiry about 
 Escobar and no message left for him, Saavedra 
 started toward Santa Cruz, to visit the missions 
 that lay northward. By so doing he missed meet- 
 ing with Delgado, who came up from San Anto- 
 nio two days later with the young wife of Escobar 
 in his train. 
 
 Valentin Delgado could be trusted not to miss 
 a pretty girl anywhere, much more if he found 
 her where he had looked to find only priests, a 
 corporal, ar private soldier or two, and some hun- 
 dreds of Indians. He saw her first in the evening 
 glow walking in the pomegranate path of the 
 Mission San Antonio where he had put in for 
 the night. A light wind shaped her clothing to 
 her young curves as she walked, the rebozo had 
 fallen back from her head, her hands were folded 
 at her throat. Delgado arranged his cloak, set 
 293 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 his hat a-cock, and sought Padre Tom^s. In an 
 afEair of ladies he judged the round priest the 
 better man. But what he heard put all thoughts 
 of gallantry out of his mind. The slim crescent 
 beauty was no senorita, but the Seiiora Escobar. 
 That was the name that pricked all Delgado's 
 wits forward. " If you do not find her," said 
 Lebecque, " ask Escobar." 
 
 The whole story of the virgin marriage gushed 
 from Padre Tom^s of the Stripes like a living 
 spring, a strange thing to tell and a new ear to 
 hear it, following on a comfortable meal ! He had 
 not enjoyed himself so much for a long time. 
 The hour enticed to companionable talk ; Indians 
 in the cloister began to croon a hymn. The young 
 straight figure paced up and down by the pome- 
 granate hedge that stood out sharply against a 
 saffron sky. Delgado drained the Padre dry of 
 news, learned how the girl was no maid, being 
 married, and no wife, being deserted at the 
 church door ; went so far as to be sure that the 
 Padre was sure the marriage was a cloak for no 
 unchastity, but no farther. Padre Tomas knew 
 nothing back of the hour when Isidro and the 
 294 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 girl came riding out of the wood ; or, if he knew 
 it, kept it under the seal of the confessional. The 
 young man did not, therefore, open his own bud- 
 get at that time. He must know how Escobar came 
 by the girl ; was she the same reared by Peter 
 Lebecque's Indian wife in the hut of the Grape- 
 vine, called, because of her pricking tongue, " the 
 Briar " ? The Padre helped him there. 
 
 " And she had not even a name, this beautiful 
 one ; yes, she is beautiful ; even I, a poor brother 
 of St. Francis, can see that; so we wrote in the 
 register the name of her foster father, Lebecque, 
 nothing more. The young man was to bring a name 
 on his return ; that was the purpose of his going, 
 that and some business with the Father Presi- 
 dent. So I understood. But it was most irregu- 
 lar ; Padre Carrasco was of the opinion that I 
 should have withheld the sacrament. But I hold 
 that since the girl was plainly a Christian she 
 must have had a name, though it was for the 
 time mislaid, as you might say." 
 
 Still Don Valentin kept his thought, — took a 
 whole night, in fact, to set it out in his mind. 
 By morning he had it shaped thus : that, not to 
 295 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 be balked of all reward, he would take the girl to 
 her father ; and, as for the un consummated mar- 
 riage, there might be more doing. The girl was 
 still her father's ward, — under age, married with- 
 out his consent, — ravishment, married out of her 
 name, — false pretense, only half married at that ; 
 no knowing what might come of it. The first 
 thing was to get her out of the way of Escobar, 
 who deserved it for being a fool. 
 
 Soon after the hour of compline he set Padre 
 Tomas's ears tingling with more news than he had 
 heard during his incumbency of San Antonio. 
 Here, as at Peter Lebecque's, he told his story 
 very much to the point, and so convincingly that 
 within half an hour he had the girl in to hear it 
 in the Padre's parlor, where the chief furniture 
 was plaster saints in niches blackened by candle 
 smoke. She came stilly, keeping close by the 
 wall, a little pinched about the mouth, but with 
 level eyes, young limbs, lithe and quick, unaccus- 
 tomed to the trammels of her dress. The corporal's 
 wife had stuck a pomegranate blossom in the smoky 
 folds of her hair ; it served to warm a little the 
 pure pallor of her skin. 
 
 296 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 " Eh, come, come, child ! " cried Padre Tom^s 
 de las Penas when he heard her in the corridor ; 
 " come and see what we have for you ; come and 
 hear a tale. Ah, ah ! Our Lady and St. Francis 
 have been working for you. Is it a name you 
 lack ? Well, you shall have it, and not only a 
 name, p, most honorable name, but a family, a 
 father in short, a notable and worthy parent, and 
 not only a father, but a fortune, estates, immense ! 
 Ah, all this for a beautiful young woman who 
 has already a handsome husband ! " Delgado 
 looked at him rather sourly for this. The girl 
 simply stared ; the breath came through her 
 parted Hps like a child's. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down ! " cried the Padre ; " you 
 shall hear." She sat on the edge of the carved 
 bench boyishly. The corporal's wife trailed in 
 her wake as a duena, plumped down beside her, 
 untangled a fat arm from her rebozo, and held 
 one of the girl's hands. It was doubtful if Ja- 
 cinta understood aU the explanations, but she 
 answered their questions plainly enough. She 
 was the French trapper's foster child. She had 
 known that the Indian woman was not her mo- 
 297 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ther, but she would always call her so. It was 
 her mother's wish that she should go dressed as 
 a boy. In that fashion she had left Canada de 
 las Uvas a month back. So far she was docile 
 and apt, but if they questioned her upon her life 
 in Monterey, and how she came to be riding into 
 San Antonio de Padua with Senor Escobar from 
 an easterly direction, when Monterey lay north 
 and west, then she fell dumb. Her Indian train- 
 ing wiped all vestige of expression from her face, 
 set her eyes roving past the plaster saints and 
 the candles, out of the deep casement toward 
 the Mission fields. Curious as Delgado and the 
 Padre both were, they had to let her be. The 
 young man, watching, thought her not so much 
 cold as childish, immature, a great beauty, and 
 plainly a Castro. The puzzle of the last two days' 
 work had drawn proud lines of pain such as he 
 knew in the Comandante's face, knit the fine 
 brows, and tightened the small mouth. The like- 
 ness came out wonderfully when one looked for 
 it. But Don Valentin thought her what she was 
 not, timid and awed by his splendid appearance. 
 She looked not so much at him as at his em- 
 298 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 broideries and the turquoise in the cord of his 
 sombrero. He thought her dazzled when, in fact, 
 the little god of love had made her blind. The 
 young man took a high hand, — the part became 
 him, — showed letters from Castro delegating 
 parental authority, required that the girl be de- 
 livered to him and by him to the Comandante. 
 The Padre boggled at that ; the lady had been 
 left expressly in his charge by her husband. Hus- 
 band, ah, husband, is it ? 
 
 "A word in your ear. Padre; how can the 
 young man be a husband and he a priest ? If not 
 actually beginning his novitiate, at least dedicate, 
 bound." Delgado had heard that story at Mon- 
 terey. " Did he not teU you at parting that he 
 had business with the Father President? Ay, 
 truly. What sort of a husband is it that leaves 
 his wife at the altar, tell me that ? In fact, the 
 fellow dared go no farther." Under such skillful 
 handling the marriage assumed the proportions 
 of a crime with the Padre as accomplice. The 
 young man checked ofE the points of offense as 
 you have heard them. The Padre polished his 
 rosy countenance until it shone with perplexity, 
 299 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 but it came to this, that he would do nothing 
 without consulting his confrere Reyes Carrasco. 
 Padre Carrasco being at that moment in the far- 
 thest precincts marking out cattle for slaughter, 
 the business hung in suspense until the evening 
 of that day, as was in keeping with the move- 
 ment of that time, nobody suffering inconve- 
 nience on that account. 
 
 Padre Carrasco was as shrewd as dry. He 
 came in with the skirt of his cassock tucked 
 under his girdle, and gave it as his opinion that 
 the lady's husband could not but be gratified by 
 his wife's good fortune, and seeing he had al- 
 ready gone to the capital it could do no harm 
 for her to meet him there ; but, nevertheless, the 
 lady should have her own free will to go or stay. 
 Jacinta, when she was called to counsel, said 
 very quietly that she would go to Monterey. It 
 seemed to her the quickest way to Escobar. 
 
 " Seiiora," said Don Valentin on the road, 
 edging his horse as near to her as the way al- 
 lowed, "let me beg you to draw your rebozo 
 closer about your face, otherwise I do not know 
 300 
 
JACINTA RIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 how we shall get to Monterey; your beauty 
 sends my wits astray." 
 
 " In that case," said Dona Jacinta, " you had 
 best ride a little distance forward." 
 
 " Useless," he said, pranking his horse across 
 the trail ; " the music of your voice draws me 
 back again." 
 
 " So we shall get on faster if I do no talking," 
 said she. 
 
 " Ah, cruel, cruel ! " he sighed. 
 
 The lady was out of tune with such pointed 
 blandishments. At the crossing of a brook he 
 ofPered her drink from his own silver cup, though 
 the strictest behavior owed the first attention to 
 Senora Romero, the duena. 
 
 " Drink, most beautiful," said the young man, 
 " and no other shall drink after you." 
 
 " It would be a pity," said she, " on that ac- 
 count, to spoil so excellent a vessel." And she 
 waited until the corporal's wife had done with 
 her gourd. 
 
 "It is not for nothing you were called the 
 Briar," said Delgado, and he put up his cup. 
 Finding he made no way with her by compli- 
 301 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ments, he left off teasing his horse, and talked of 
 the family of Ramirez, their estates and fame, to 
 which she listened with patience and collected 
 looks. He had a guitar in his pack, a necessary 
 part of a young gentleman's baggage, which he 
 fingered skillfully, letting the bridle rein hang on 
 the saddle-bow. It was a warm day livened by a 
 damp wind. Westward a bank of roundish cloud 
 reflected a many-tinted radiance from the sea. 
 The rim of his sombrero made a half moon of 
 shadow on his face as he tilted up his chin for 
 singing; the light warmed his throat ruddily 
 and glinted on the jewel in his hat. He sang an 
 aria called "The Dove," and "La Nocha esta 
 Serena," but got no notice from the lady until 
 he struck into a little tender air of absent love, 
 which Escobar had used to hum wordlessly under 
 his breath. That fluttered her, as Don Valentin 
 was quick to see, so he rode, singing, while the 
 cavalcade jogged forward to the twanging of his 
 guitar, well pleased with himself and revolving 
 many things. 
 
 The trail ran from San Antonio de Padua to 
 Nuestra Seiiora de la Soledad, with a branch run- 
 302 
 
JACINTA KIDES TO MONTEREY 
 
 ning off toward Monterey, uniting again at Santa 
 Cruz. Delgado, who had reasons of his own for 
 prolonging the way, chose to go by way of Sole- 
 dad, and Dona Jacinta made no objection. 
 
XXI 
 
 A MEETING 
 
 ■k|rj*LL the splendid effects, it seems, 
 L| are saved for nature's own per- 
 ►l formances, — sunset glow, long 
 -o<.i>»»««o».««<»^ thunder of the surf, loud thunder 
 SSlvl^^MP^Jpil of the hills, the poppy fires of 
 spring, a white star like a torch to usher in a 
 crescent moon ; but men's great occasions go 
 shabbily, out of tune, with frayed settings, 
 cheapened by the hand that pushes them off 
 the board. Events that the passions of a whole 
 life lead up to come in with a swarm of small, 
 stinging cares hke gnats ; compensations are 
 doled out by halfpence. 
 
 For sixteen years the interests of the Coman- 
 dante found nothing to fix upon, his affections 
 no point of departure. The ichor of kindness 
 curdled even in his dreams. It made him a mar- 
 tinet in discipline, and a friend merely of his 
 friend's buttons. The habit of perfect behavior 
 
 304 
 
A MEETING 
 
 put him througb the motions of taking an inter- 
 est in men, but there was plainly no heart in it ; 
 naturally this got him misunderstood. He was 
 thought too cold to have cared greatly about his 
 wife, but it was, in fact, the caring that had left 
 him frozen. The renewed hope of his child had 
 come upon him suddenly, and reached a mar- 
 velous growth. It was not that he wished more 
 strongly to find her since she was the heiress of 
 Eamirez, but when she was only Ysabel's child 
 the hate of Ysabel had seemed to balk him in 
 his search. For himself he had not the heart for 
 going on with it, but Ysabel would have wished 
 the girl to come into the inheritance. Therefore 
 as he wished to please his wife, still personal 
 and dear, the reasons which before had warded 
 him off now led on. He had really believed 
 his daughter dead all these years. It occurred 
 to him now that this wanted proving at several 
 points, — an excuse for hope. Then came the 
 discovery of the certificate in the almsbox, and 
 hope flared into conviction. She lived, bone of 
 his bone, commingling of his flesh and that of 
 the dearly loved. Ah, Christ ! but he had done 
 305 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 something; her hate had not been proof against 
 that, — made her body bud and bear fruit; 
 struck a soul out of her soul as a spark is struck 
 out of cold steel. His very thought at this point 
 was choked and incoherent. He was in the ex- 
 alted mood of a man hearing first that there is 
 hope of issue of his love. He had thoughts, if 
 Delgado's mission came to nothing, of resigning 
 his command to make a pilgrimage through the 
 inhabited coast of California until he should find 
 her. And while he quivered with expectancy, 
 Jacinta came in upon him in a manner least to 
 be expected, with the advent of more than ordi- 
 dinary official pother and distraction. 
 
 It happened in this way : on the night that 
 Valentin Delgado and his party lay at Mission 
 Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, a band of twenty 
 mouijted Indians had descended from the hills, 
 crossing the river above the Mission, and run off 
 twice as many head of cattle from the Mission 
 fields. It was surmised that the men must have 
 been Urbano's following, rag-tag of all the tribes, 
 their leader himself a renegade from Santa Clara, 
 and late harboring in the tule lands about the San 
 306 
 
A MEETING 
 
 Joaquin River. Small losses of cattle had been 
 laid on his shoulders before, but on this occasion 
 it appeared that he must have had an accomplice 
 within the Mission. The theft was not discovered 
 until after the hour of morning service, as late as 
 nine o'clock, to be exact, which gave the maraud- 
 ers a good ten hours' advantage. It was true of 
 the Franciscans that they not only preached peace 
 and good will to the native Calif ornians, but prac- 
 ticed it. Their conquest of five hundred miles 
 of coast was accomplished almost without blood- 
 shed, and maintained without soldiering, unless 
 you gave that name to the corporal and two or 
 three privates stationed at each community of five 
 to fifteen hundred Indians. Six soldiers was a 
 very large number to be employed at any Mission, 
 and Soledad, lying nearest to Monterey and the 
 Presidio, had only two. Immediately on the dis- 
 covery, the corporal and his man, a deserting sailor 
 who had enlisted to escape being forced to sea, 
 with two trusted neophytes, set about tracking the 
 plunderers, and a rider was sent to Monterey to 
 the Comandante. This was a case in which the 
 Padres could confidently expect military aid, for 
 307 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 if the Indians began to plunder the Missions un- 
 punished they would not be kept long from the 
 towns. The courier started at once, and half an 
 hour later, a little delayed by the flutter at So- 
 ledad, Delgado and his party set out, riding lei- 
 surely and making a comfortable camp at noon. 
 Delgado was not so talkative as yesterday, 
 considering how he would present the girl to 
 Castro to put himself in the best light. It stuck 
 in his mind that the month when the girl strayed 
 about Monterey with Escobar, in boy's clothing, 
 covered more than mere freakishness. Padre 
 Tom^s thought otherwise, — but the Padre also 
 believed in miracles and holy water for bears. 
 Privately he thought the fat priest a credulous 
 fool. Don Valentin wished to marry the girl if it 
 proved feasible ; but though he could contemplate 
 a marriage for advantage without love and not be 
 singular in his time, he was too much sopped in 
 the chivalric notion of his type to admit a wed- 
 ding without honor. He held the girl's marriage 
 with Escobar a knot to untangle, or a reasonable 
 excuse for drawing back if she should prove in 
 his estimation damaged goods. 
 
 308 
 
A MEETING 
 
 The young man was not so sure if it came to 
 a wedding it would be altogether without love* 
 He had kindled a fire under his imagination with 
 her romantic story, the glamour of her wealth and 
 her promise of beauty. Lastly, he marveled to 
 find her manners not so much unfit for her station 
 as might have been expected. Something she had 
 caught from Escobar, electrified by the fineness 
 that made him adorable. But beyond that, the 
 Indian woman, remembering whence the girl had 
 sprung, had denied her own instincts to bring up 
 the child in the image of the dominant race. By 
 great pains and tremendous labors of an elemen- 
 tary mind Castro's daughter had been nurtured in 
 an exquisite personality, — labors beyond her own 
 power to divine, — so that afterward, when she 
 had come to the prime of her charm and bodily 
 beauty, she was pointed out and accustomed to 
 believe herself fit for her exalted station chiefly 
 by the prerogative of birth. 
 
 Jacinta's thoughts on this day of riding to- 
 ward Monterey did not run so far back as the 
 time of her foster mother, hardly so far forward 
 as the home of her father ; beginning, in fact, 
 309 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 with a day when a herd boy under an oak saw a 
 glorious youth come out of the wood, driving 
 Mariano's sheep. She understood how it was 
 that Castro should be her father; she had seen 
 him about the Presidio, and vaguely prefigured 
 his relation to her ; but her experience hardly af- 
 forded the stuff for imagination. She gathered 
 from the corporal's wife that the rise in her for- 
 tunes must give her new value in her husband's 
 eyes ; but as she had never felt servility in the 
 first estate she had no elation in this. Whatever 
 her husband's disposition toward her, her passion 
 was still too virginal to form a wish. In her first 
 dream of their life together he should have been 
 a priest rapt from the world, and she should serve 
 him and lie at his door. Inasmuch as the cir- 
 cumstance of her birth jostled this dream, she 
 found it vexatious and confusing, and she lacked 
 material for shaping a new one. Chiefly she 
 burned with the thought that as Escobar had 
 said he would go to Monterey she would meet 
 him there. The air was charged with the sense 
 of his presence. She made scant answers to Don 
 Valentin's curtailed compliments, each being 
 310 
 
A MEETING 
 
 busy with thought ; and the corporal's wife, hav- 
 ing all the conversation to herself, made the most 
 of it. So they rode until they heard the sound 
 of the sea and dogs barking in the streets of 
 Monterey. 
 
 Plain folk had not yet lost the zest of life in 
 Alta CaUfornia. Nearly all the town was out 
 in the plaza, helping to make ready the detach- 
 ment for Soledad with the joyous volubility and 
 deft-handedness of the Latin race. Castro was 
 settling a hornet's nest of small matters in his 
 room with the balcony overlooking the sea. 
 
 In the midst of it, while he leaned his head upon 
 his hand for weariness, there came a great knock- 
 ing at the outer door, and a quarrel of voices, — 
 his orderly's and another lofty and contained. 
 He heard the babble fall ofE to a note of amaze- 
 ment and gratulation and the feet of his house- 
 hold running toward the door. The Comandante 
 turned expectantly to meet fresh news from 
 Soledad, and felt a warning precede it down the 
 passage ; a warmth and glow that settled at his 
 heart, a presage of satisfaction. The bustle 
 halted a moment outside his door, which, before 
 311 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 he had done wondering why the noise should be 
 mixed with the sweep of women's skirts, was 
 flung open by Delgado. The caballeros of that 
 time loved flourishes ; Don Valentin led the girl 
 forward by her finger-tips, and swept up to the 
 Comandante with a great bow. 
 
 "Your daughter, senor." Then he fell back 
 in an attitude to note the effect. 
 
 Castro saw only a slim figure, straight and 
 illy dressed, and his own chilled spirit looking 
 at him out of the eyes, mouth, and brow of Ysa- 
 bel, his wife. He grew rigid ; his hand fluttered 
 and strayed toward a drawer where certain papers 
 lay with some cherished trifles of his wife's. 
 
 " Jacinta — Jacinta," he said whisperingly, 
 for now he had the name by heart ; and then, as 
 the resemblance smote home to him, " Ysabel, 
 Ysabel." 
 
 " Ah," cried Delgado delightedly, " you see a 
 likeness ? " 
 
 Castro got up drunkenly and went across to 
 
 her ; his breath was short and labored ; aU his 
 
 motions dragged as with a weight. The girl 
 
 stood still and cold ; drooping now with fatigue, 
 
 312 
 
A MEETING 
 
 her arms hung down straight at her sides. The 
 Comandante took her by the shoulders and con- 
 strained her toward him. The room was close 
 and warm ; blue flies buzzed at the pane. Dust 
 of travel, saddle weariness, the smell of provender 
 and horse blankets being doled out in the quarters 
 below, obsessed the sense of them all. The hour 
 fell flat and dry. Castro began to work his lips, 
 gray and trembling, but seemed not to understand 
 that he brought out no words. Suddenly, jarring 
 the stillness, rang out the trumpet call to evening 
 drill, which Castro was used to have in charge. 
 Military precision, the use of old habit, held and 
 stood the Comandante in the stead of tears. 
 They saw the motions of his face, and understood 
 them for the excuses which he believed he had 
 delivered. The man sank into the Comandante 
 as a sword is dropped into a sheath. He turned 
 stiffly and went out. 
 
 So the first hour which Jacinta passed in her 
 father's house was spent sitting on a bench in the 
 bare little room, with Senora Romero surprised 
 into stillness, and Pelgado walking up and down 
 beside her. 
 
 313 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The necessity of providing his daughter and 
 her company a meal and beds steadied Castro, 
 and carried him through an hour or two until 
 he could hear Delgado's story. Jacinta admitted 
 every point as far as it touched her knowledge, 
 and recognized the packet as the one she had 
 brought up from Peter Lebecque. But Castro 
 needed no other warrant than her looks. Com- 
 munication between them was still dry and un- 
 fruitful. He kissed her forehead only for good- 
 night, and she endured it. 
 
 The detachment, twelve men and an of&cer, got 
 off for Soledad by sunrise, which for that time 
 was unusual dispatch. The Presidio returned to 
 its level round, and news of Castro's daughter be- 
 gan to spread about the town. But the two came 
 no nearer each other. Jacinta was always at a 
 window looking out, hungering amid the strange- 
 ness for a sight of Escobar ; restless, starting at 
 small sounds, close upon the verge of tears, not 
 recognizing her own state. Castro would be al- 
 ways edging in her direction, not enduring to have 
 her out of his sight, and wondering at the dry- 
 ness of his own heart. Toward the middle of the 
 314 
 
A MEETING 
 
 afternoon he found her on the balcony with the 
 rebozo off her neck for coolness, and he saw 
 the cord that held the medal about her slender 
 throat. 
 
 " What is this, daughter ? " he said, with his 
 hand upon her shoulder, yearning toward the 
 proper intimacy of their relation and not daring 
 much. 
 
 " I have always worn it," she said. " Juana 
 told me it belonged to my baptism. I have never 
 had it off." 
 
 Castro drew it out and held it in his palm, 
 warm from her bosom. Then he knew it for 
 Ysabel's, and thrilled to it as to Uving touch of 
 her. He kissed it, murmuring to it broken words 
 of endearment, and laid his head upon the rail- 
 ing before him, kneeling on the floor, and cried. 
 The girl was in a mood to be touched by his 
 grief ; sick with longing, strange, tired with new 
 habits, she began to gasp ; tears fiUed her eyes, 
 brimmed over and ran abroad on her cheeks as not 
 having learned the way ; filled and brimmed over 
 as the pool of a rain-fed spring. Her father heard 
 the drip of her tears on the floor, reached out and 
 315 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 drew her in ; kneeling they sobbed together. 
 Jacinta's tears were purely hysterical, but Castro 
 mistook them ; they mingled with his and washed 
 the wounds of her mother's hate. 
 
 The Comandante began to be inordinately 
 fond of his daughter, touched the earth only at 
 the points that served her. He ransacked the 
 shops, and obtained extraordinary trading privi- 
 leges for a Yankee vessel on the mere intimation 
 that it carried women's fardels for barter. Senora 
 Romero was sent home with a handsome present, 
 and the wife of one of Castro's lieutenants estab- 
 lished Jacinta's duena and adviser. Old Marta 
 of the Mission Carmelo was brought over to be 
 her personal attendant ; it was the only prefer- 
 ence the girl made in her new situation. 
 
 No one but the Indian woman and Delgado 
 knew of the wedding at San Antonio, and their 
 mouths were effectively stopped by self-interest, 
 for this was the one thing at which Castro's 
 gorge rose. Jacinta had told him very simply 
 how it came about, — the capture, bondage, and 
 delivery, Isidro's discovery of her sex, the young 
 man's high airs, and the virgin marriage, — all 
 
 316 
 
A MEETING 
 
 except the one important item that she loved- 
 him. A certain crisp manner of speaking and 
 a boyish straightforwardness where one would 
 look for blushes and tremors carried no informa- 
 tion. The Comandante had the sense to see 
 that if this story of boy's dress and Mascado ever 
 got abroad, the marriage would prove the best 
 cure for the girl's blown fame. He could appre- 
 ciate Escobar's chivalry so far, but he stuck at 
 the desertion. Was she good enough for bell 
 and book, and not good enough for bed and 
 board — the daughter of a Ramirez ! — By the 
 mass ! Here he would fall to conning the insin- 
 uations of Don Valentin, to whom he was as 
 extraordinarily grateful as he was fond of his 
 child. Certainly there was reason enough for 
 this unconsummated marriage to be set aside if 
 reason ever was ; and Delgado was the better 
 match. Saavedra, when he returned from the 
 north, would have something to contribute. Cas- 
 tro had dispatched letters asking to be relieved 
 from his command, to accompany his daughter 
 to Mexico in the settlement of the estate, and 
 nothing need be arranged until that time. 
 317 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 As for Jacinta, she took all her new life 
 alike, as the caged animal takes the cage and 
 the hand that feeds it. She was very stiU, espe- 
 cially through the day, when she was under her 
 father's hand. This was the manner of their life 
 together : they would have chocolate in the patio 
 of a morning ; then, while her father left her for 
 his ofBcial labors, she would go about the house 
 with Marta, making great concern of the house- 
 keeping, of which she knew very little. Castro 
 would be running in and out all day to make 
 excuse to see her. After the siesta she would sit 
 for an hour or two with the lieutenant's wife, 
 learning the mysteries of the toilet and needle- 
 work, of which she knew nothing at all. At the 
 evening meal the Comandante sat long over his 
 wine, sometimes in the patio, sometimes in the 
 little balcony overlooking the sea. Then Don 
 Valentin would come in and make conversation 
 suited to ladies' company. He would bring his 
 guitar and sing tender and passionate airs to 
 which the girl was glad to listen. It was so she 
 learned the phraseology of love. But when the 
 house was shut and all Ughts out in the town, a 
 318 
 
A MEETING 
 
 wood mood came upon her. She could not sleep 
 within walls at any time, but had her cot brought 
 out to the patio under a vine ; there she would 
 lie, and the Indian woman crouch by her head ; 
 or at times she would pace the length of her 
 cage with inconceivably light tread, and always 
 they would talk. Now they would say how it 
 would be in the forest at that hour, and what 
 would be doing at certain dark pools where the 
 wood creatures came to drink, or what roots or 
 berries were best at that season, and the virtues 
 of certain herbs. Other times the girl would de- 
 spoil herself of tenderness and babble of Isidro 
 and the joy of their riding, riding in the pleasant 
 weather ; now it would be the slow open heath 
 of Pasteria with the shepherd fires and flooding 
 moon ; now a sudden small bluster of rain that 
 sent them to shelter under a thicket where there 
 was a smell of moist earth, and all the grass was 
 wet; then the stony slopes of wild lilac that 
 slapped the horses' flanks, and the sea fog drlEt- 
 ing in. At times she fell sick with longing, 
 lying dry-eyed and dumb ; then it would be 
 Marta who showed her straightly how a man's 
 319 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 love is taken and kept, and how a woman must 
 give wholly without seeming to give all. Also it 
 was ordained that as a man grew weary of kiss- 
 ing there would be young mouths at the breast 
 to draw out that pain, so that if women had the 
 worst of it in loving they had afterward the 
 best. 
 
 " A lover is a great lord," she said, " but a son 
 is a greater. Wait, most beautiful, tiU you have 
 borne a son." The poor girl owned to herself 
 there was little chance of that, and, in fact, she 
 hardly asked so much. But the time wore on, and 
 Escobar did not come. Then her pride began to 
 be awake. She saw her father deeply fretted by 
 Escobar's lateness, which he took for scorn. At 
 last he ventured to speak to her of it, and once 
 opened between them it was Hke fire out of cover. 
 He perceived her hurt, which was reaUy the 
 wound of latent womanliness at being so lightly 
 set aside, for she knew nothing of family pride 
 and Kttle of caste. It was enough for Don Jesiis 
 that she suffered at all, and he fumed accordingly. 
 
 All Jacinta's pride was not to be found want- 
 ing in anything befitting the wife of an Escobar. 
 320 
 
A MEETING 
 
 If resentment was proper to her station, she must 
 make a show of it at whatever cost. So she took 
 arms against her love to make herself more worthy 
 of her lover. In this she followed Castro's lead. 
 It is fair to say that of Don Valentin's courting 
 she apprehended not a whit. When her father 
 hinted at the possibility of a dissolution of the 
 marriage she assented, believing in her heart that 
 so Escobar wished. Affairs, being in this posture, 
 remained without alteration until at the end of 
 ten days they had word from the detachment 
 following the cattle thieves in the hOls eastward 
 from Soledad. 
 
xxn 
 
 A WOED FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 'Eli 
 
 ^^^^mSNE allows to the flight of wild 
 |iFiBfli|Sj pigeons, darkening the sky for days, 
 f| ^jBy flW a prescience germinating singly in 
 — ''^*^i=^ each bluish breast at the same hour, 
 Jjl as gilias blow in instant myriads upon 
 the spur of spring. Wild geese clang up- 
 ward from the Tulares as recurrently as 
 grapes ripen in the wood at the set time 
 of the year ; but when men begin to sway 
 together, to move in companies and ex- 
 hibit in widely scattered parts froth of the 
 same churning desires, we are far to seek for the 
 cause of it : usurpations, extortions, Pentecost or 
 Judgment of God. It is all devil or Holy Ghost. 
 So the Franciscans laid the mutinies, fallings off, 
 and infringements of the savages to the first 
 mentioned ; even so the tribes braved themselves 
 for such trespass by commerce with their disused 
 gods. No doubt the god of the water-fowl and 
 322 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 the wood pigeons would have served as well in 
 either case. 
 
 About the middle of the month of waning 
 bloom the free Indians drew to cover in the stony 
 winding gullies of the mountains, about forty 
 true born and a half-dozen mestizos and mongrels, 
 led by Urbano, who had Mascado for his right 
 hand. They made medicine daily ; smoke of 
 council fires went up by night, and the click of 
 rattles sounded through the wood with singing 
 and exultation. The presage of their triumph 
 rose like an exhalation from their camps, and 
 settled over the Missions, where thousands of 
 their blood had taken on the habits of a gentler 
 life, swung censers for medicine sticks, had scap- 
 ulars for fetiches, and prayed to the One God 
 prefigured in a wooden doll. If the new faith 
 went deeper it was not so deep that the roll of 
 the ceremonial drums struck no chord under it. 
 After the news of the skirmish at Las Chimineas, 
 the neophytes kept close. By all accounts only 
 rabbits and appointed couriers ran on the road 
 between Soledad and Monterey, but the wood 
 began to leak. Hints of distraction crept into 
 323 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the Missions; old men had glittering eyes and 
 talked cautiously in corners. Scraps of news 
 ■with no mouth to father them drifted from Car- 
 melo to the town and were guaranteed by courier 
 two or three days later. It was whispered that 
 Marta had news of her son, for whom she kept a 
 candle burning before San Antonio and the Child. 
 She went that day walking over from Monterey, 
 and took away the candle from the little altar of 
 Carmelo ; she may have thought the saint inatten- 
 tive, or perhaps that her son did well enough for 
 himself where he was. She went straight to the 
 blessed candle, snuffed it out, and hid it in her 
 bosom. Unprecedented behavior ! None saw her 
 but an altar ministrant who dared nothing by 
 way of interference ; the chief's daughter had a 
 commanding walk, and the manners of royalty 
 grew upon her in those days. Her eyes were 
 bleak with memories, at other times bright and 
 hot. She would be about the house crooning old 
 songs, and would fall into set, unconscious stares. 
 Of evenings they heard her chant low and wildly 
 when the moon was up and a light wind came in 
 from the sea. The sound of her singing mixed 
 
 324 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 with the strumming of Don Valentin's guitar, 
 and pierced Jacinta like a call from the wild. 
 Then she wearied of love and its sickness, and 
 would make occasion to slip away to Marta and 
 talk of her life at the Grapevine before Esco- 
 bar came. Out of sheer kindness she would recall 
 hunting exploits of Mascado's, of which the older 
 woman was greedy. There was much gossip of a 
 hero-making sort afloat concerning him at Car- 
 melo, where the Padres kept the smoke of incense 
 going aU day, increased the service of the mass, 
 and had serious thoughts of attaching a pen- 
 ance to the singing of native songs. But the 
 time drew on to the dark of the moon, when no 
 dog howls and wolves will not run in a pack. 
 The stir and the singing died, women grinding 
 at the quern began to lift a hymn to the Blessed 
 Virgin. 
 
 The soldiers were reported still following the 
 cattle thieves, who were retreating eastward. 
 Then came the news of a skirmish near the 
 Arroyo Seco in which three soldiers were kUled 
 and two hurt. A few only of the cattle were re- 
 covered, for the Indians had parted them in three 
 325 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 bands and gone up from Soledad by divers trails. 
 Many of the marauders had guns, for which it was 
 surmised the Russian traders would be paid in the 
 hides of stolen beeves. This was stirring news for 
 a lotus-eating land. A new detachment from the 
 Presidio got off at once ; Castro himself rode at 
 the head of it. This satisfied a public sentiment, 
 and his own sense of the seriousness of his posi- 
 tion, which was great. It touched his honor to 
 leave no loose ends of mutiny in his jurisdiction, 
 since he had applied for and expected his honor- 
 able retirement. He drew heavily on the military 
 resources of the province, and got away with 
 twenty men provisioned for a month. 
 
 Saavedra came hurrying home from the north, 
 and the same day came to him Delgado with his 
 story of the wedding at San Antonio, and Pascual 
 Escobar, ridden up from Las Plumas, demanding 
 his brother from all the four winds. Word of 
 Isidro's imprisonment and other extraordinary 
 doings had penetrated so far, and the young man 
 was jealous of the credit of his house. Saavedra 
 put him off with soothing words until he had 
 revolved how much of Isidro's story could be told 
 326 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 in fairness to all parties, and in the interim several 
 things happened. 
 
 Affairs moved on much the same for Jacinta 
 except that the lieutenant's wife sat with her 
 evenings when Delgado came in with his guitar, 
 and she, loving a lover as do most ladies, egged 
 on the match with practiced art. Delgado was 
 beginning to imagine himself vastly in love. 
 Jacinta stirred a little to practice on him the 
 arts in which she lacked no tutoring from her 
 duena. 
 
 Then Fray Demetrio, who had heard of this 
 hedged young beauty whom one had no more 
 than a glimpse of as she passed with her father 
 in the promenade, bethought himself of sundry 
 past kindnesses on the part of the lieutenant's 
 wife, and made a ghostly call. The man was at 
 all times inordinately curious, and had a fine 
 taste for ladies' looks. 
 
 " She is not to be seen, brother, I assure you," 
 said the duefia ; " the Comandante was most 
 strict ; but to one of your holy calling, and an old 
 friend — and you knew her mother, you say " — 
 You may judge what exchange of compliments 
 327 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 had gone to the visit up to this point. " Well," 
 said the lady, " when we cross the patio to look 
 at the Castilian roses, look behind the vine there ; 
 we call it Jacinta's vine. That is she with her 
 needlework lying in her lap. It is always so, 
 I assure you, when I am not by. Look now 
 and tell me if the likeness is as striking as 
 reported." 
 
 Fages looked, choked, spluttered, came near to 
 having an apoplexy, but had the wit to keep his 
 tongue in guard. 
 
 "Ah ! " cried the lady at the outer gate, " you 
 find the resemblance extraordinary. So the Senor 
 Comandante says." 
 
 " Extraordinary, my dear lady, is not the word ; 
 it is miraculous ; not a feature lacking, even to 
 the bent bar of her brows." 
 
 " But surely," said the lady as she let hiTin out, 
 " the eyebrows she has from her father. So I 
 have understood." 
 
 Fray Demetrio went straight to Delfina. When 
 those two worthies had their heads together there 
 was sure to be gossip afoot. Within three hours 
 Delfina came busthng about the quarters on a 
 
 328 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 dozen well-devised errands, pertinacious as a wasp 
 until she had a good look at the Comandante's 
 daughter, and went out humming with her news. 
 By nightfall most matrons in the town knew that 
 there was a reasonable supposition that Dona 
 Jacinta was the same slim lad seen lurking 
 about the Mission a month gone, with Senor 
 Isidro Escobar, the same who had been carried 
 off by an Indian, run after by one young man 
 and brought home by another. By the next 
 day they were sure of it, by the second it had 
 reached the heutenant's wife and Pascual Es- 
 cobar. 
 
 Pascual flounced off to Saavedra in a great 
 fume. He felt the occasion demanded that he 
 should fight somebody; not Saavedra, since he 
 was a priest, nor Jacinta, for she was a lady ; 
 but when Padre Vicente had told him the whole 
 story as far as it was known to him, Pascual con- 
 cluded it must be Delgado. From the start he 
 would have taken to the young man immensely 
 for his fine airs and sumptuous dress ; had copied 
 both and lost all his money to him at cards ; but 
 in view of what he purposed toward Isidro, — 
 329 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 nothing less than possession of his wife, — Del- 
 gado had rather shrugged off an intimacy with 
 the elder brother. 
 
 Pascual found the young man in front of his 
 lodging, fixing his saddle in perturbation, with 
 scant allowance for courtesies. 
 
 " A word with you, senor," cried Escobar. 
 
 " Another time, senor ; I have business in 
 hand." 
 
 " I also, senor ; my business is with you." 
 
 " I pray you hold me excused. I go upon a 
 journey of great urgency." 
 
 " You shall go upon a longer one if you do 
 not hear me speedily. My business is the duello. 
 Will you fight?" 
 
 " With you ? Wine of Christ ! Yes, when I 
 return, if your affair has not passed off in vapor^ 
 ings by that time." Delgado sprang to the sad- 
 dle and struck into a tearing gallop. Escobar 
 galloped after and drew level. 
 
 " Senor, I challenge you. You offend. You 
 are courting my brother's wife. Will you fight ? " 
 The wind of their speed took the words out of 
 his mouth. 
 
 330 
 
A WOED PROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 "The devil!" cried Delgado. "You have 
 heard that story ! " 
 
 " I say again," panted Paseual, " will you 
 fight?" 
 
 " Senor, can you ride ? " 
 
 " Ride, ride ! " cried Escobar. " Judge if I can 
 ride." He cut his horse cruelly with the quirt and 
 tore ahead. Delgado used the spur and came 
 up with him. 
 
 " Then ride, senor, for if we make not good 
 speed this day I know not how long you may 
 have a brother. And as for his wife, I believe 
 she has gone in search of him." 
 
 " Explain, explain ! " cried Paseual, the words 
 pounded out of him by the jar of their riding. 
 
 "Word has come to me that Don Isidro is 
 in captivity with the Indians. His wife, if wife 
 she is, is not to be found. I think she has gone 
 to find him. The woman Marta is with her. 
 I go to Castro. Now will you fight or ride ? " 
 
 " Ride, ride," gasped Paseual, " if it is as you 
 say, and afterward if need be we wiU fight." 
 
 " Have it so," said Delgado ; and after that 
 they saved their breath, and lent their minds to 
 331 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the speed of the horses. They kept a running 
 pace until they struck rising ground. 
 
 News of Isidro's detention in the camp of the 
 renegades had come to Monterey from Soledad, 
 where it was made known by a captive taken at 
 Arroyo Seco. Marta had carried it straight to 
 Jacinta. 
 
 " Sing, my bird of the mountain," she said. 
 " I have a word for you. He is neither faithless 
 nor unkind." Guess how the girl hugged that 
 news, nursing it against her heart till it was warm 
 with hope. Marta had known how to put tidings 
 in a fruitful shape. She waited for the pang and 
 the cry that followed in the wake of joy. 
 
 " But, Marta," she said, " Mascado ? " 
 
 " What of him ? " said the older woman. 
 
 " He is there with the Indians, next to the chief, 
 you said. He will kill Senor Escobar." 
 
 " He will not dare," said the mother of Mas- 
 cado. 
 
 " Ah, but you do not know. When we came 
 away from Las Chimineas, as I have told you, 
 when my — when Senor Escobar had taken him 
 
 332 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 with the riata and hound him, he looked at us as 
 we rode away, — such a look ! There he sat with 
 his hack to the tree and his knife on the rock be- 
 fore him ; he looked from that to Senor Escobar 
 and back again as if he would have drawn them 
 together with his eyes, so great was his hate. 
 There was death in his look. Ah, Marta, tell me 
 what I shall do." 
 
 " But he has not killed him yet," said Marta. 
 
 " You do not know ; the news is a week old. 
 Mascado may not have seen him yet ; they say 
 the Indians are in three camps." The girl wrung 
 her hands. 
 
 "Mascado would not dare," said his mother 
 again. 
 
 But Jacinta fell to crying softly without noise 
 or sobbing ; then she would sit drawing counsel 
 from her hope, and afterward the flood of grief 
 would grow full and drip over in unreUeving 
 tears. Marta made her chili rellenos for dinner, 
 green peppers stuffed with cheese and fried, but 
 the girl would take no comfort in them. So at 
 last when the sun had Hcked up the shadow like 
 damp from the patio, and the whole town lay 
 333 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 a-doze, Marta took the girl's hands between her 
 palms and said her last word. 
 
 " Fret no more, my Briar," she said, " I wiU 
 go and speak with my son." 
 
 " How will you go, Marta ? " 
 
 " I can get a horse, and if any meet me in the 
 hills I will say I seek my son. Mascado is a cap- 
 tain. They will not hurt me." 
 
 " But how will you know where he is ? " 
 
 " I have a word, — a bird of the air brought 
 it; never fear." 
 
 *' And when you find him what will you do ? " 
 
 The daughter of a chief -drew herself up. 
 
 *' What becomes me," she said. 
 
 " Ah, Marta, take me with you ! " 
 
 " Most beautiful, what will you do in the hUls?" 
 
 *' I will go to my husband." 
 
 " There is war in the hills, and the tribes are 
 bitter against the gente de razon." 
 
 " But if I am of the gente de razon I am also 
 Indian bred. Seventeen years I myself knew no 
 better." With such debates she followed the 
 elder woman from room to room. 
 
 " What wiU your father say ? " said Marta. 
 334 
 
A WORD FROM THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 * 
 
 " What will he say to you whom he com- 
 manded not to leave me ? " demanded the girl. 
 
 "Will you that I stay?" 
 
 " Ah no, no, — only take me with you." 
 
 There was another reason why Jacinta wished 
 to get away from Monterey, one as deep as her 
 desire and more inarticulate. By dint of many 
 hints from the lieutenant's wife, the point of 
 Delgado's compliments grew plain to her. Now 
 she saw her father's drift, and what prompted 
 his ire against Escobar. That tie dissolved, Del- 
 gado was to have her, to which her own quietude 
 under her father's suggestion had in a measure 
 committed her. All the simplicity of her forest 
 breeding, which denies the approach of marriage 
 to any feet but love's, and perhaps a wraith from 
 Ysabel's unhappy grave, rose up to warn her 
 dumbly. But it lay too deep for complaining ; 
 she could sense it, but not give it speech. AU 
 that afternoon she avoided her duena and the 
 needlework under plea of a headache, that she 
 might find Marta among the cooking pots and 
 pans, and with arms folded on the elder woman's 
 knees make argument and persuasion. 
 335 
 
XXIII 
 
 HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 jRBANO, captain of the rag-tag of 
 1^ tribesmen^ whose right hand was 
 Mascado, was not the stuff of which 
 new civilizations are made. That 
 was about all there was behind 
 his defection from Santa Clara. He and some 
 dozens of his following wished not to live always 
 in one place, wear clothes, 'marry one wife and 
 stay by her; preferred to gather wild grapes 
 rather than plant vineyards, to set snares for the 
 wild fowl of the Tulares rather than raise barley 
 for clucking hens ; wished to have the wind on 
 their faces, the stars over them, the turf under 
 foot. There were some savages in his fellowship, 
 chiefly mestizos, begotten upon Indian women by 
 drunken sailors or convicts sent into the country 
 to serve as soldiers ; but of scalping, tortures, 
 massacres, aU the bloody entourage of traditional 
 Indian warfare, they knew as little as of the 
 
 336 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 Christian virtues. They hated holy water, houses, 
 field labor, stocks, the whipping-post, the sound 
 of a church bell ; and as much as the Padres 
 stood for these things, hated them also. But 
 they had really not much grievance. Some of 
 them had been detained in the Missions against 
 their will, and that is an offense upon any 
 grounds. Some had been hunted by soldiers 
 in hills where their fathers were mesne lords, 
 and whipped for seeking every man's right to 
 Uve in what place best pleases him ; that was 
 the full extent of imposition. The Missions never 
 appropriated to their own use one half the lands 
 claimed by the tribes they baptized, and since the 
 Padres preferred raising cattle to hunting deer, 
 the wild game increased without check. The 
 remnant of the tribes, having more ground to 
 hunt in than they could well cover, were not 
 happy in it. They missed the excitement of tribal 
 feasts and dances, feuds and border wars, the 
 stir of a numerous people in large land. 
 
 -So for sport they took to cattle-stealing, rehsh- 
 ing the taste of Mission beef, and coveting the 
 knives, beads, and ammunition which the Rus- 
 337 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 sians paid them for hides, pleased, no doubt, to 
 harry the Padres on any account. Possibly they 
 dreamed, as their numbers were augmented by 
 success, of driving out the Franciscans and re- 
 storing the old order, for no better reason than 
 that they wished it so. Beginning in a small way, 
 running off two or three head of stock at a time, 
 they grew in impertinences until they had planned 
 and executed in fuU force the raid on Soledad, 
 and so brought out the Comandante fuming 
 from Monterey, and the ruin of their company. 
 
 Urbano, El Capitan, had deserved his elec- 
 tion. He was shrewd, hearty, temperate, and ex- 
 pedient. Mascado, who had joined him to slake 
 a private vengeance, ended by giving him a full 
 measure of regard. The expedition had come 
 through the hills in open order, not too carefully, 
 since there were none stirring in the region to 
 carry alarm to the Missions, and with so little 
 soldierly attention to their rear that Isidro Esco- 
 bar and Arnaldo the tracker had come well within 
 their lines before discovery. Even then, had the 
 two men given no evidence of suspicion, of hav- 
 ing noted the camps and the numbers of them, 
 
 338 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 they might have passed without hindrance ; and 
 Arnaldo's ruse of lying down as if for the night's 
 sleep within cry of their sentries had almost 
 served, would have answered, perhaps, tb throw 
 off pursuit ; but word of their passing had reached 
 Mascado, and acted as an irritant to the unhealed 
 scratches he had brought away from Las Chimineas. 
 Mascado had not two thoughts in his head 
 when he set himself upon the trail of Escobar. 
 He followed it as a hound follows the slot of a 
 stag, merely pursuing, and whetting pursuit by 
 the freshness of the trail. He wished to come 
 up with the young man, to take him, and to take 
 him by his own hand; to wreak himself not 
 merely on the inert body, as he might have done 
 when Isidro lay asleep under the oak, but upon 
 his mind and spirit. Mascado had a good hour 
 of gloating as he sat by the sleepers, feeding his 
 jealous rage by every point of the other's advan- 
 tage : race, beauty, fine clothing, the lordly air, 
 — yet he held himself the better man ; so his 
 musing hate advanced by leaps until it burned 
 through the curtain of oblivion and woke Escobar 
 from sleep. 
 
 339 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Mascado should really have killed him as he 
 lay, for no sooner was the caballero awake than 
 his spirit was up to cope with the mestizo's and 
 beat it down. In the first of their encounter 
 Isidro had saved Mascado's life from the buck 
 that had him down, and at their next meeting, 
 which was really of Mascado's own provoking, 
 had offered him fair battle which had been taken 
 unfairly. The sense of these things turned the 
 scale a little between them. Isidro, as he looked 
 into his own weapon, yawned to cover any amaze- 
 ment, looked the mestizo over, looked up the trail 
 and saw a dozen of Urbano's men come riding on 
 stolen ponies, and turned back affable and smiling. 
 
 " Buenas dias, Mascado," he said, " how did 
 you get loose ? " 
 
 " Eh, have you not heard ? " said Arnaldo, 
 taking the cue. " One beast helps another out 
 of a trap ; his brother the coyote came in the 
 night and gnawed his bonds." 
 
 Mascado flinched at the insult that he, who was 
 El Capitan's best man, should be called kin to 
 the dog of the wilderness ; but without replying 
 got them up and to the trail, had them bound 
 
 340 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 and placed on their own horses brought up by 
 the riders, and so to Urbano, since he could not 
 at that moment think of any better thing to do 
 with them. He would have liked to meet Escobar 
 man to man as they had met at Las Chimi- 
 neas with the girl looking on ; then, — but he 
 blinked the possibility of ending as the other en- 
 counter had ended, — against all odds he would 
 not miss his stroke another time. Urbano, how- 
 ever, would allow no outrage. He understood too 
 well the advantage of a hostage, and perhaps an 
 advocate, in case of evil days. Mascado would 
 have kept the captives trussed Uke fowl, but El 
 Capitan had a trick worth two of that, — he put 
 the young man upon parole. Urbano was a man 
 of middle years, and understood the ways of the 
 gente de razon much as he understood those of 
 deer and elk. To a caballero of Isidro's make-up 
 he realized that his word held where no bonds 
 would, so he was allowed to move about the camp 
 of the renegades hardly constrained, but making 
 no attempt to escape. Arnaldo, whose ingenuity 
 showed him a thousand expedients, fretted con- 
 tinually. 
 
 341 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " Let us be off," he said ; " we have affairs in 
 Monterey. What is your word to these swine ? " 
 
 ''No hay cuidado" said Isidro; "swine they 
 are, but it is the word of an Escobar." 
 
 There was one other besides Arnaldo the 
 tracker in the camp of the renegades who found 
 himself put out of calculation by Escobar's devo- 
 tion to his parole. That was Urbano's right hand, 
 Mascado. Owing his life and some courtesy to 
 Escobar, the mestizo admitted that he needed 
 a provocation to the attack, — outbreak or at- 
 tempted escape, or, at the least, an occasion for 
 holding him in less esteem, since, though he 
 schemed night and day to make good the humil- 
 iation of Las Chimineas upon the other's body, 
 circumstances were in a fair way of making them 
 friends. 
 
 Urbano's men had come coastward as far as a 
 certain cover of dense forest, heading up among 
 the hills, fortunately situated for defense, and 
 admitting of raids from it to Santa Clara, 
 Santa Cruz, or Soledad, but far enough from 
 these to allow of such twists and turnings of re- 
 treat as would throw pursuit off the trail. There 
 
 342 
 
HIDDEN WATEES 
 
 was not one of the renegades but believed him- 
 self better at such ancient crafts than any Mis- 
 sion-bred Indian of the lot. 
 
 The main body of the cattle thieves did not go 
 at once to the rendezvous, but spread abroad in 
 the country about Soledad, expecting communica- 
 tion with a disgruntled neophyte within its walls. 
 Meantime a dozen of the less adventurous fight- 
 ing men and a few women, coming on slowly be- 
 hind the company, established a camp and base 
 of supplies at Hidden Waters. The place lay to- 
 ward the upper side of a triangular cape of woods 
 that spread by terraces down from the highest 
 ridges of those parts. The wood was fenced on 
 two sides ; south by the Arroyo Seco, boulder- 
 strewn wash of an intermittent river; north by a 
 wide open draw, almost a valley, a loose sandy 
 soil affording foothold only for coarse, weedy 
 grass. Eastward the redwoods thinned out toward 
 the high, windy top of the ridge, passing into 
 spare, slanting shrubs. 
 
 About the middle of this tongue of forest, 
 one of the terraces, which promised from its 
 approaches to be exactly like all others, hollowed 
 343 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 abruptly to a deep basin of the extent of two 
 hundred varas. On its farther rim a consider- 
 able spring welled insensibly out of a rock, and, 
 after circling the hollow, slipped tinkling under 
 boulders, to reappear on a lower terrace a run- 
 nel of noisy water. Scattered over the basin, 
 islands of angular rock lifted up clumps of red- 
 wood and pine to the level of the unbroken ter- 
 race, and gave it the look of a continuous wood. 
 Tortuous manzanita clung about the shelving 
 rim and masked the hollow ; no trail led into it ; 
 the Indians saw to that; more than a rod away 
 it would be scarcely suspected. Only from the 
 slope above, looking down, one might have 
 glimpses of wet flowery meadow between the 
 tall sequoias, but be puzzled how to come at it. 
 
 In this pit of pleasantness, then, the renegades 
 made their camp of refuge, there to bring their 
 prisoners and wounded, or to lie quiet until pur- 
 suit had blown by. Escobar, however, was not at 
 first placed at Hidden Waters. He was, in fact, 
 on the night his wife and Delgado's party rested 
 at Soledad, bound to a madrono tree not far from 
 the Mission inclosure, waiting the result of the 
 
 344 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 raid. He made out so much of Urbano's plan, 
 that the cattle were to be parted in three bands, 
 one to go to the rendezvous at Hidden Waters, 
 the other two by devious ways to go east and east 
 tiU they came to the wickiups of home, where the 
 women and children awaited them, where at the 
 worst they might be driven into the marshes of 
 the great river beyond any pursuit. Escobar, be- 
 lieving his wi£e still at San Antonio, and fretting 
 at his delay, was driven with the third part of the 
 cattle to the camp in the triangular wood of se- 
 quoias, Mascado heading that expedition. But the 
 renegades missed reckoning with their own sav- 
 agery. The detachment having one band of cattle 
 in care turned in at Las Chimineas and camped 
 there untU they had killed a beef and stuffed 
 themselves with it, being so overtaken by the 
 twelve soldiers from Monterey. Themselves they 
 hid in the rocks among the gpray chimneys, but 
 the cattle they could not hide. The soldiers found 
 these in the meadow, and driving them down, 
 drew the Indians from their holes. Then both 
 sides smelled powder, saw their dead, and called 
 it war. 
 
 345 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The first move of the renegades was to draw 
 into Hidden Waters to council, and await the re- 
 turn of their men who had gone eastward with 
 the remaining cattle. This gave Castro time to 
 get his troops in order, and Escobar and the 
 mestizo to become a little acquainted. 
 
 Isidro, always under necessity of keeping a 
 keen edge on his spirit by trying it on another, 
 used Mascado, who could no more keep away 
 from him than an antelope from a snare. Esco- 
 bar mocked him and his new dignities, frothed 
 his anger white, or cleared it away with nimble 
 turns of speech, and Mascado was always coming 
 back to see if he could not learn the trick, or at 
 least bear himself more to advantage. It was 
 very pleasant there at Hidden Waters, the days 
 soft and languorously warm, the nights scented 
 and cool. The camp lay on an island of red- 
 woods raised a few feet above the rank, blossom- 
 ing meadow. The litter of brown needles looked 
 not to have known a foot for a hundred years. 
 Waning lihes stood up among the coarse deep 
 fern ; the wild rose bushes hung full of shin- 
 ing scarlet fruit. Deer went by in troops ; great 
 
 346 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 nodding, antlered stags came and looked into 
 the hollow with gentle, curious eyes; a bear 
 came poking about the half-ripened manzanita 
 berries on the rim ; hot noons were censed by 
 the odorous drip of honey from the hiving rocks. 
 Scouting parties came and went softly, keeping 
 watch on the soldiers who had drawn off to wait 
 reinforcements from the Presidio. The camp 
 needed little guarding ; one man might keep 
 watch of the whole south side of the forest, 
 fenced by the mile-wide open gully, over which 
 not a crow could flap unspied upon. On the 
 north, sentries were posted among the rocks, 
 where the river, only such during the brief tor- 
 rent of winter rains, now ran no farther than the 
 point of fan-shaped wood. Higher up it showed 
 broad, shallow pools strung on a slender thread 
 of brown water. 
 
 Then came word of the Comandante's sally 
 from Monterey, and Urbano kept away from the 
 camp, beginning a game of hide and seek to 
 draw the soldiers and aU suspicion away from 
 Hidden Waters, and tire them in the fruitless 
 hUls. Then^ Mascado being left with the rem- 
 347 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 nant to keep the camp, Isidro would make sport 
 of him, gambling every day afresh with Arnaldo 
 for the few coins he had in his pocket. 
 
 " Why do you stay so close in the camp, Mas- 
 cado ? " he would say. " Is it because you know 
 the Father President is looking for you ? " Or 
 if the mestizo went abroad in the wood, " Were 
 you looking for birches, Mascado? They grow 
 better at Carmelo, I am told, and no doubt the 
 Padre has one peeled for you." 
 
 "At least they have no right to whip me," 
 said Mascado, stung to retort. " My father was 
 of the gente de razon, though because the 
 Church meddled not at my begetting they hold 
 me as one of the Mission." 
 
 " Is it so, senor ? " said Escobar, with ex- 
 aggerated amazement. " Then I am no longer 
 at a loss to account for your capacity and dis- 
 cernment." Then, human interest coming upper- 
 most, " Was it for that you left the Mission ? " 
 
 " No," said Mascado ; " it was for leaving 
 I was whipped. Much good may it do them ! I 
 left because, being a free man, I wished to live 
 freely." 
 
 348 
 
HIDDEN WATERS 
 
 This was a sense of the situation which, Esco- 
 bar recalled, Zarzito had expressed. It seemed 
 to him rather a singular one for an Indian. 
 
 " In the Mission," he said, " you were clothed 
 and fed?" 
 
 Mascado grunted. " You also, senor, have 
 eaten well ; do you wish nothing more ? " 
 
 What Escobar wished, very badly, was to get 
 back to his wife, but that would not bear saying. 
 He began to take an interest in Mascado on his 
 own account, and took occasion to talk with him 
 oftener as men talk with men, though with a 
 quizzing tone ; and Mascado, being never able 
 to keep up with his nimble tongue, paid him an 
 odd kind of respect for it, though it also aug- 
 mented his hate. One thing that drew him con- 
 tinually within reach of Escobar's tongue was 
 the hope that he might drop a hint of the Briar ; 
 but Isidro, because she was now his wife, and for 
 several reasons he could not very well define, 
 would not bring her into the conversation. That 
 did not prevent her being much upon his mind. 
 He wanted her if for no other reason than to 
 share the jest against Mascado or the zest of 
 349 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 this entertainment of events. If she were but 
 stretched beside him on the brown litter, — of 
 course that could not be since she was a girl, — 
 but if the boy El Zarzo lay there beside him, it 
 would give new point to his invention ; also they 
 could watch the squirrels come and go, or read 
 the fortunes of Urbano in the faces of his men. 
 And in the early dark, when a musky smell arose 
 from the crushed fern, they might hear the whis- 
 per of the water and piece out the sense of sun- 
 dry chirrupings and rustlings in the trees, — and 
 of course she might very well be lying there and 
 no harm, for was she not his wife ? Then he be- 
 thought himself that there were sundry matters 
 upon which he phould have questioned her more 
 closely. It became at once important to him to 
 know how she thought upon this matter or that. 
 He had been wrong to leave her in ignorance 
 at San Antonio, beheving herself only Peter Le- 
 becque's foster lad when she was a great lady 
 and an heiress. No question he owed her expla- 
 nation for that. He began to hold long conver- 
 sations with her in his mind, in which everything 
 conduced to the best understanding. 
 
 With this he occupied much of his time, for 
 350 
 
HIDDEN WATEES 
 
 though he fretted at the enforced hiatus in his 
 affairs, he was not greatly alarmed, even when 
 Mascado gloomed on him, and now and then a 
 wounded man came into camp and gave him hlack 
 looks as being of the party that dealt the wound. 
 For it began to appear that Castro was not to be 
 drawn off from making an end of the freebooters. 
 He owed something to destiny for the turns she 
 had served him; he wanted nothing so much as 
 to get back to his daughter; he had his adieux 
 to make to the office of Comandante, — reasons 
 enough if a soldier had wanted any for pushing 
 a campaign. He had scouts as cunning as any of 
 Urbano's, and, having an inkling of the camp at 
 Hidden Waters, began to push steadily in that 
 direction. The renegades had more than one 
 brush with him, and when Escobar caught a pre- 
 sage of defeat in the air he left off bantering 
 Mascado. It was a consideration the mestizo felt 
 himself incapable of under the same conditions, 
 and though he held Escobar in a httle less esteem 
 as being so womanish as not to twit an enemy in 
 distress, he, curiously enough, began to like him 
 a Httle on that account. 
 
XXIV 
 
 THE LADT'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 iJO softly, dear lady," said Marta, 
 L "the horses are not far. In that 
 I clump of willows Jose should have 
 ■ left them. It is wet under foot ; 
 stay you here." 
 The night was soft black, woolly with sea fog ; 
 under foot was the chug of marsh water livened 
 by croaking toads, overhead some strips of starry 
 sky between pale wisps of cloud. From the wil- 
 low thicket where the horses champed upon their 
 heavy bits rose the odor of crushed spikenard. 
 
 " Mount here," said the Indian woman ; " I 
 must find a boulder or a stump ; I am not so 
 young. The horses are not much, but I had to 
 give that Jose two reals to get them. He said the 
 thing had a secret look and lay upon his con- 
 science. Ts ! st ! Two reals' worth ! Can you 
 manage without a saddle ? " 
 
 352 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND PLIGHT 
 
 " I have seldom used one," said the girl. 
 
 " Now," said Marta, " go lightly across the 
 field until we are safe from the town ; then we 
 find the road and hard riding." 
 
 Hereahout the ground was swampy and sucked 
 at the horses' feet. All Kghts were out in Mon- 
 terey ; to the left they heard the rustle of the tide 
 along the foot of a hanging wall of fog. The 
 riders kept to the turf for an hour ; it seemed 
 longer. The fog cut in behind them, flanked 
 them right and left, folded them in a pit, at the 
 top of which they could see some specks of light 
 pricked in the velvet blackness. 
 
 Once on the road the horses struck into a jig- 
 ging trot, which is the pace for long journeys 
 as a tearing gallop is for short ones. Jacinta 
 rocked to the motion, and drew deep breaths of 
 freedom and relief. 
 
 " What an excellent beast a horse is ! " she 
 said. " How long shall we be upon the road ? " 
 
 " Until we are both well weary," said Marta. 
 
 The girl swung herself for pure delight from 
 one side of the horse to the other. 
 
 " That will be long, then," she said. " How 
 353 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 good boy's clothes feel again ! I doubt I shall 
 ever grow to like skirts." 
 
 " I see no use in them myself," said the older 
 ■woman ; " it was not so in my mother's time, but 
 is a custom of the Missions. No doubt it is an 
 offense to God to look on a priest or a woman 
 and know that they have two legs." 
 
 "I would that the moon shone, — then we 
 might try a gallop," said Jacinta. 
 
 " With a moon," said Marta, " we could hardly 
 have come so easily off from Monterey." 
 
 The girl was aUve with the joy of motion and 
 the freedom of the road. She had a thousand 
 speculations, questions, and surmises, but got very 
 little out of the older woman, whose thoughts 
 were aU of their errand and how to accomplish it. 
 After a time Jacinta began to come under the 
 spell of her taciturnity. The damp of the fog 
 penetrated to the marrow and dripped from them 
 like rain. They rode and rode. It should have 
 been about one of the clock, and a sea wind cut- 
 ting the fog to ribbons, when they turned from 
 the highway into a deer trail, followed that until 
 they came to a creek, turned up it and kept the 
 354 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND PLIGHT 
 
 middle of the stream for an hour. The horses 
 needed urging for that work, — the water was 
 cold and rushing, the creek bed shifty with loose 
 cobbles. It was necessary to go cautiously, to 
 break no smallest bough of leaning birch and 
 alder and so leave a trail. 
 
 " For we will surely be followed," said the In- 
 dian woman. 
 
 From the creek they led the horses up by a 
 stony place to firmer ground. Jacinta was stiff 
 with cold, slipped and stumbled. 
 
 " Have a good heart, my Briar," said Marta, 
 " it is not long to rest." She chafed the girl's 
 hands between her palms; the walking relieved 
 the numbness of the limbs. Another hour began 
 to show a faint glow in th'e east. They had come 
 clear of the fog, though the drenching grass 
 showed it had been before them in the night. 
 When the peaks of the high hills eastward be- 
 gan to show rosily light, Marta grew talkative 
 and cheerful. 
 
 " It is not far, dear lady, it is near at hand," 
 she said. " I remember the place very well ; a 
 safe hollow under hanging rocks. It has a blasted 
 355 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 pine before it. I was there with my father when 
 I was a child, and that was the first time of my 
 being in the hills, for I was Mission-born. My 
 father, though he was captain of his people, had 
 seen that the God of the Padres was greater than 
 his god, and what they wrought was good ; there- 
 fore he was baptized, and all his people. But he 
 was a man grown, and it is ill learning when the 
 youth is spent, so it irked him to live always in 
 one place, and because he was chief to have one 
 say to him. Stay, and he should stay. So when I 
 was grown to the height of his thigh he took me 
 and my mother and came away in the night. It 
 was the spring of the year, about the time when 
 roots began to be good to eat and wood doves 
 were calling all the smoky days. We came to this 
 place where we wiU soon be, most beautiful, and 
 it was all set about with flowers by the spring, 
 and had a pleasant smell. Never will I forget the 
 smell of the young wood in the spring. But it 
 came up a storm of rain and wind, and my father 
 saw that God was against him, for it was not the 
 time of storms. Then it increased with thunder, 
 and fire out of heaven struck a great pine in front 
 
 356 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 of where we lay. It ran like a snake into the 
 earth, with a noise so that we were all as one 
 dead. Then my father was afraid, and he took 
 my mother and me back to Carmelo. So because 
 he came back of his own accord, and because 
 he was of great influence, he was not whipped. 
 That was in Serra's time." 
 
 " I have heard Senor Escobar speak of him ; 
 he was a great saint, was he not ? " 
 
 " God knows ; he was a great man ; for though 
 my father had seen the miracle of the blasted 
 pine which was performed for a warning, he 
 could in no way shut his mind to the call of the 
 wild. So at the time of the year when he was 
 weary of his life because of it, he went to the 
 Padre Serra and begged a little leave to go into 
 the hiUs, loose and free. Otherwise he would be 
 drawn by the evil of his heart to run away and 
 bring great scandal on the community, and on 
 himself the wrath of God. Now look you, it may 
 be that the Padre was a saint, for my father has 
 told me that no sooner had the word passed be- 
 tween them than he felt the evil go out of him 
 like sickness. And when Serra had considered 
 357 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the matter, he sent my father apart into the hills 
 to gather herbs ; and so every year. At the end 
 of a month my father came again to Carmelo, and 
 there was no further talk of running away. Af- 
 terward my father took me with him and taught 
 me the virtues of all plants. Padre Serra wished 
 the knowledge not to die out among his people. 
 He told my father once he had been cured of an 
 ulcer by the use of Indian herbs. That was how I 
 came to know this place, for as often as we came 
 we rested here the first night, and saw the blasted 
 pine pointing like the finger of God." 
 
 It was full moon when they came to the place 
 of hanging rocks and found deer tracks in the 
 soft mud by the spring. An evergreen oak grew 
 out of a cleft of the rocks and, spreading down- 
 ward, formed a screen. Here they cooked a meal, 
 and when Jacinta had eaten she stretched her 
 limbs and slept with her head on the Indian wo- 
 man's knee. Marta waked her in an hour, and 
 though the night's excitement and hard riding 
 left her stiff and fagged she set her face and 
 rode steadily through the blazing sun. 
 
 They took some degree of caution as they 
 358 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 went, looking out from every high ridge, but saw 
 nothing moving, neither Indians nor soldiers. 
 They watched too, as they rose on the crest of 
 the range, the white Mission road like a snake 
 among the pines, but saw no shadow of pursuit 
 upon it. The news of their flight was not con- 
 firmed at Monterey until mid-morning of that 
 day. 
 
 They rode without talking, drank at springs, 
 ate what they had with them, and though the 
 girl bent heavily forward on her horse with sleep, 
 Marta allowed no rest until four of tiie afternoon, 
 when they had come to a little meadow beset 
 with trees, which she judged safe, and. affording 
 pasture for the horses. They rested here for the 
 night. 
 
 Thereafter they had no thought of interference 
 from Monterey, but bent all upon getting to the 
 camp of the renegades. The night's rest put 
 them in better trim for what was before them. 
 Jacinta had times of trembling, falling sick and 
 afraid, thinking how she would present herself to 
 Escobar in boy's dress when his expressed wish 
 was that she should remain at San Antonio in 
 359 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 proper guise. She wished to talk of him, but 
 Marta would hear only of Mascado. Nothing 
 strange, she said, that he should take to the 
 mountains and freedom from the law, for he was 
 begotten in lawlessness in these same hills. It 
 was a famine time in the Mission, when the old 
 corn was exhausted and the new corn just spring- 
 ing in the field, and the men of the Mission were 
 sent out to seek their meat from God. 
 
 " I had come," she said, " with Manuel and his 
 wife and a party of hunters, she to cook and I to 
 gather roots. It was a golden time, and the quail 
 went up in pairs to the nesting. Hereabouts we 
 feU in with a party of soldiers from Santa Clara 
 hunting for runaways from their Mission. Mas- 
 cado's father was a soldier. It is true I was taken 
 by force, but my heart consented. It was mat- 
 ing weather and we both young. When all was 
 known the Padre would have had us to marry, 
 but it was discovered he had a wife already. 
 Santa Maria ! it was no doubt a great sin, but 
 my heart consented." 
 
 By this time, although they had seen no In- 
 dians, they knew well enough by the stillness of 
 
 360 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 the wood that they had come within their borders. 
 No deer cropped by the water courses, no beasts 
 larger than the squirrels were stirring or abroad, 
 rabbits cowered trembling in the thickets, or ran 
 like gray flashes in the meadow, proof enough 
 that they had been lately hunted. The gossip- 
 ing jays let them pass with no outcry, sign that 
 men were no strange sight to them. Marta would 
 be often getting down from her horse to study 
 signs unguessed by the girl, muttering to herself 
 or breaking out with snatches of reminiscence of 
 the youth of Mascado. Her mind dwelt more and 
 more upon him as they went through the wood, 
 tiptoe with expectancy. Once they made sure of 
 an Indian moving at a distance parallel to their 
 course, possibly spying upon them, but they could 
 not come up with him nor get speech. Here the 
 forest grew more openly, and they rode abreast, 
 steering by certain points of the hills, but keep- 
 ing a sharp lookout for signs. They had so ar- 
 ranged their course that they would strike the 
 corner of the forest where the Indians had their 
 camp at about midway of one side of the triangle. 
 To do this they had to cross the stony open space 
 361 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 that fenced it from the rest of the tree-covered 
 country, at that point nearly a mile of tedious 
 riding. 
 
 It was while they were picking a way among 
 broken boulders that they heard afar off, toward 
 the point of the fan-shaped wood, the noise of 
 firing. The shots came faintly and confused, 
 mere popping and bluster, and held on at the 
 same rate for as long as the horses stumbled in 
 the stony waste, and at last drew near and sharper. 
 But it seemed to them then and afterward that 
 they had a sound different from all other shots, 
 biting and waspish. It seemed as if a prescience 
 of disaster settled upon them as they entered the 
 rustling tongue of woods. The light was low and 
 came slanting and yellowly through the pines. 
 Fragments of lost winds went mournfully among 
 the trees. The two women pressed close together, 
 crowding .the horses on toward Hidden Waters. 
 They had not the material for guesses or sur- 
 mises. The firing had fallen off, but not the 
 sense of battle, which rested on them like a thing 
 palpable. The common noises of the wood were 
 of ominous presage. Suddenly Marta laid a hand 
 362 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 on the other's bridle ; the two horses were neck 
 and neck ; from the close thickets before them 
 an Indian broke running, his bonnet of feathers 
 torn by the hanging boughs, the streaks of paint 
 on his body smudged with blood ; his gun trailed 
 uncocked from his hand. Beyond him were three 
 others bent and running, with broken bows. 
 Then one plunged through the buckthorn, pant- 
 ing, swinging a maimed arm, welling blood from 
 a shoulder wound. His legs crumpled under him 
 from weakness, but he sprang up with a bound 
 and died in mid air, dropping limply back to 
 earth. 
 
 " Beaten, beaten," said Marta. Her voice was 
 a mere whisper, but it took on a tinge of a savage 
 wail. The place seemed full of flying Indians. 
 They came in groups, sometimes supporting the 
 wounded, but mostly these were left to them- 
 selves, trailing the blood of their hurts across the 
 sod. A panic of haste laid hold of the two 
 women ; they pressed the horses, but kept with 
 the main body of the fleeing, dreading as much 
 to be alone ahead of them as behind. It was 
 frank and open flight ; where the trees parted to 
 363 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 a kind of swale or draw, smooth and treeless, the 
 lines of refugees converged, making for the 
 easiest path toward Hidden Waters. It was here 
 the women had first sight of Mascado. He came 
 out of the forest on their right, fit to burst with 
 running, holding a spear wound in his side, the 
 blood of which ran down between his fingers. 
 He was sick and reeling with fatigue. Marta 
 saw him first. Jacinta had no eyes but for the 
 trail, no fears but for Escobar. The Indian 
 woman's first impulse was to get down from her 
 horse in the common extremity of haste when it 
 seems nothing carries so fast as one's own feet. 
 She went ploughing across the meadow, pulling 
 the horse, panting, not sparing breath to cry out ; 
 he not observing her, but running with his head 
 down hke a dog ; both forging forward, but slant- 
 wise of the swale, so that they came together at 
 the head of the open where it merged again into 
 the wood. They bumped together as not being 
 able to check the speed of their flight, and Marta 
 had her arms about him to steady him from the 
 shock. He shook her off, not yet recognizing his 
 mother, and at that moment Jacinta, who had 
 364 
 
THE LADY'S SECOND FLIGHT 
 
 followed Marta's lead without understanding it, 
 drew up and dismounted beside them. 
 
 Mascado shook the mist of wounds and bat- 
 tle out of his eyes and saw her there in her 
 boy's dress, the same slim lad of the Grapevine, 
 rounded and ripened to the woman of his desire. 
 It flashed on him that she had sought him in the 
 forest as the partridge comes shyly to the drum- 
 ming of her mate, come of her own accord to 
 the call of the tribesman, his, his, and the savage 
 in him cried with delight ; from the conscious- 
 ness of the finer strain that lay fallow in him 
 swept up a flood of self-abasement that made 
 his love clean for her handling. Then all went 
 down before the common, curious wonder of her 
 glance. He threw open his hands with the mo- 
 tion of defeat. 
 
 "Son, son, you are hurt!" cried Marta. The 
 blood welled from his side, and he drooped down- 
 ward, grunting. Marta eased him to the ground, 
 tore strips from her dress and bound up the 
 gash, a lance thrust, Jacinta fetching water 
 from a creek that babbled mindlessly among the 
 grass. The act and her quiet rendering of it 
 365 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 brought the flying braves to check. They went 
 more collectedly, realized the falling off of pur- 
 suit, took time to help the wounded, came and 
 offered themselves to Mascado, now as much 
 ashamed of his faintness as of dishonor. They 
 got him on Marta's horse ; Jacinta gave hers to 
 a man with a gunshot wound in his knee. The 
 party drew together in better shape, and still 
 hurrying, but without panic, began to move 
 toward the camp at Hidden Waters. 
 
XXV 
 
 IN WHICH MASCADO HEARS NEWS 
 
 'HE keepers of the camp lay supine 
 in the late yellow light, on beds 
 of skins or heaped brown needles 
 of the pines, following the shade 
 around. The women, of whom there were 
 three or four with the renegades, stooped 
 at their interminable puttering housewifery 
 by the cold ashes of their careless hearths. 
 Isidro lay apart from the camp. He 
 had his back to the Indians, and stared 
 into the hot sunshine lying heavily on the 
 fern beginning to curl brownly at the edges. 
 Fading torches of castiUeia stood up here and 
 there, and tall yellow -lilies running fast to seed. 
 The air above the meadow was weighted with the 
 scent of the sun-steeped fern ; small broken winds 
 wafted it to him, palpable, like wisps of blown hair. 
 It recalled a day when a gust of warm sweet rain 
 had sent him and the lad to shelter under a ma- 
 367 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 drofio on the hill above Monterey. They had to 
 run for it, crowding against the tree bole shoulder 
 to shoulder, with the boy's hair blown across his 
 cheek. He was conscious of a thrill that flew to 
 his heart at the recollection and settled there. 
 
 Arnaldo lay on the earth the full width of the 
 camp from Escobar. He seemed asleep, and now 
 drew up a limb and now thrust it out in the abandon 
 of drowsing indolence. Every move carried him 
 an inch or two nearer the edge of the rose thickets 
 and deep fern. Arnaldo was, in fact, widest 
 awake of any at Hidden Waters, bent upon a 
 series of experiments to discover how far and by 
 what means he could get away from the camp 
 without exciting suspicion. For the tracker had 
 made up his mind to escape. Devotion to Esco- 
 bar, in whose service he held himself to be, had 
 kept him faithful to his bonds, but now the virtue 
 was gone out of patience. He understood better 
 than Escobar how the campaign went against the 
 renegades, and in the event of Urbano's absence 
 at any critical moment of defeat, doubted if Mas- 
 cado would have the ability or the wish to save 
 his prisoners. Besides, the tracker was greatly 
 
 368 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEARS NEWS 
 
 bored by the company of the renegades ; the 
 food was poor, and Isidro had no more cigar- 
 ettes, and though he managed to win all the 
 young man's coin at cards one day, Escobar as 
 regularly won it back the next. The escape must 
 be made good in broad day, when the prisoners 
 had the freedom of the camp, being bound at 
 night and placed between watchers. Therefore 
 he lay awake and experimented while the camp 
 dozed. Being so alert, he caught the first motion 
 of approach, and guessed what it augured by the 
 manner of it. The noise of battle had not pene- 
 trated so far in the thick wood ; the panic of 
 flight, sobered by distance, brought the refugees 
 up at nearly their normal discretion. They came 
 noiselessly enough, dropping from the trackless 
 stony rim of the hoUow, or by secret trails through 
 the manzanita. They cast down their arms as 
 they came, and trod upon them with moccasined 
 feet ; they dropped to earth by the unHt hearths 
 and turned their backs upon their kind. One 
 who had broken his bow across his knee stood up 
 and made a song of it, treading upon the frag- 
 ments as he sang. 
 
 369 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 This is the bow — the war-weapon, 
 
 The heart of a juniper tree. 
 
 False, false is the heart. 
 
 For it answered not to the cord. 
 
 For it spake not truly the will of the bowman. 
 
 " Ai, ai, ai!" rose the wail of the women ; 
 they beat upon their breasts and cast ashes on 
 their unbound hair. 
 
 " Ai, ai ! -r- false is the bow," they chanted. 
 
 The voice of the singer rose bleak and bitter, 
 and this was the sense of his broken words, sighs, 
 gesticulations, and wild intoning : — 
 
 It is the arrow — slender reed of the river, 
 
 The feathered reed, the swift-flier, 
 
 The reed that stings like a snake, 
 
 That speaks of death to the foeman. 
 
 Like a snake it is false to the bowstring. 
 
 Like the snake of two tongues it speaks falsely. 
 
 Mascado came haltingly into the isle of pines, 
 and held up his hand ; the song and the wailing 
 ceased. 
 
 " Faugh ! " he said ; " ye sing and ye weep, 
 
 but ye will not fight, frightened at the sound of 
 
 guns as children at thunder, beaten upon your 
 
 own ground ! Weep, then, for ye cannot fight ! " 
 
 370 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEARS NEWS 
 
 The men took the whips of hia scorn in silence, 
 but Malta's motherliness was proof against the 
 occasions. " Neither will you fight any more, 
 my son, if you lie not down and let me tend 
 your wound." He turned from her and dropped 
 sullenly upon the ground. 
 
 Isidro had drawn in toward the group of 
 wounded with the natural motion of curiosity and 
 concern. The prolonged dribble of fugitives over 
 the rim of the hollow, the distress of their hurts, 
 the noiseless effect of hurry and disaster, involved 
 him in the sense of defeat. Being so fine as to 
 feel that, he was too fine not to be conscious of 
 the isolation made for him, as a party of the 
 enemy, by the indrawing of their thoughts upon 
 their own concerns. The best help he could offer 
 was the turning of his back upon their shameful 
 hour. 
 
 The sun, sloping far to seaward, parted the 
 shadows of the pines in slender files by long 
 paths of light that led the eye away from the 
 prone and sullen fighting men toward the lonely 
 wood. Isidro let his gaze rove down the yellow 
 lane, walked toward the outskirts, of the camp, 
 371 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 leaned his back against a tree, looking into the 
 shadowy hollow of Hidden Waters, thinking 
 homesickly of El Zarzo, and turning presently, 
 obedient to the instinct which warns of approach- 
 ing presence, saw her there. She stood beyond 
 him in the shadow, where the sunbeams filtering 
 through the boughs of pines spread a vapor thin 
 and blue, — the erect young figure and the level, 
 unfrightened gaze. He could have touched her 
 where she stood, but made no motion ; his pulse 
 leaped toward her with the tug of his startled 
 spirit. 
 
 " Lad, lad," he whispered. 
 
 " Senor," she breathed. 
 
 A long flight of time went over them while 
 they stood in the shadow and each grew aware, 
 without so much as daring to look, what absence 
 and circumstance had wrought upon the other. 
 A keen and sudden whistling shocked their 
 spirits back to the sense of things, as the naked 
 blade of a knife flashed between them and sunk 
 to the hilt in the earth at their feet. Back in the 
 camp Mascado had half raised himself from his 
 bed to throw it, and now leaned upon his elbow 
 372 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEARS NEWS 
 
 watching them with keen darts of hate. They 
 saw the weary and sullen braves turn toward him 
 with momentary amazement, and Marta running 
 to ease him to the ground with a steady flow o£ 
 talk, presenting her broad back as a screen be- 
 tween the pair and him. The knife handle still 
 quivered in the sod. 
 
 " Now if he were not already a fallen man I 
 could kill him for that," said Isidro. 
 
 " Let him be," said the girl ; " Marta has 
 much to say to him." 
 
 " And I to you. Lady Wife ; I left you safe at 
 San Antonio ; how comes it that you are here ? " 
 
 It was a long story, and the best telling of it 
 would have left something wanting to a full un- 
 derstanding. Jacinta hfted up her eyes and laid 
 it bare. Isidro could not escape the conviction 
 that this detached young spirit loved him, and 
 for a man who meant to make a priest of himself 
 took it Hght-heartedly. 
 
 " I did wrong," he said, " to leave you so ; 
 wrong, again, not to go straight to you from 
 Peter Lebecque's. Will you sit ? There is much 
 to tell." 
 
 373 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 They sat down on the strong roots of the red- 
 wood. Mascado's knife stuck in the ground 
 between them. They told their story in concert, 
 capping each other's adventures with coinci- 
 dences of time and occasion, with now and then 
 a shy hint of explanation of motive or impulse, 
 not clear but wonderfully satisfactory. They 
 thrilled together over the fact of their nearness 
 on the night of the raid at Soledad, and discov- 
 ered in themselves on that occasion presentiments 
 that should have warned each of the other's prox- 
 imity. They touched lightly on the reasons for 
 Jacinta's flight toward Hidden Waters. She 
 was afraid, she said, lest Mascado should do him 
 harm, and only Marta could persuade Mascado ; 
 this did not quite account for Jacinta, but they 
 let it go at that. 
 
 The light failed out of the hollow, and little 
 fires began to glow among the dead leaves. An 
 Indian woman brought them food heaped on a 
 piece of bark. Pungent odors of night-blooming 
 plants came out of the meadow, and the wind 
 creaked the drowsy redwoods. Jacinta told of 
 her night's sally from Monterey, the long strain 
 374 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEAES NEWS 
 
 of riding, the shock of the battle and retreat. 
 Isidro's hand crept out along the gnarly roots ; 
 another hand fluttered toward it and lay softly 
 in its grasp. 
 
 " Oh, my Briar, Wild Rose of the Mountain, was 
 it worth while to endure so long, to risk so much?" 
 
 " It was worth," she whispered. 
 
 An Indian came up and plucked Isidro silently 
 from the earth and led him to his bonds. The 
 girl crept away to Marta. Mascado's knife stuck 
 still in the ground. 
 
 The first thing Isidro did in the morning, 
 when he had his freedom, was to pull up the 
 blade and carry it to Mascado. The renegade's 
 face was set in its usual lines of severity, but the 
 rage and sweat of battle, the drain of his wound, 
 more than all, the fever of his night's musing on 
 Marta's news-, had not left him without traces. 
 He sat with his back to a tree, and his eyes 
 were dull; he dropped the knife in its sheath, 
 and turned away. Marta and Escobar exchanged 
 glances. 
 
 " He knows ? " questioned one. " Knows aU," 
 
 answered the other. 
 
 375 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The young man turned back to Mascado. 
 "My wife, Senora Escobar," he said, "the Co- 
 mandante's daughter, comes to no harm ? " It 
 was put as a question, but appeared a threat. 
 
 Mascado, who was at the ebb of spirit and 
 strength, made a motion of negative. 
 
 " I am surety for that," said Marta. Urbano's 
 lieutenant roused ; he was not yet at the point 
 of letting a woman speak for him. 
 
 " She needs no surety," he said. He rose up 
 stiffly, hesitated, and turned. "Even now we 
 hold a council ; it will be as well she remains a 
 boy in the eyes of the camp, and is not seen too 
 much with the prisoners." 
 
 " You know best," said Escobar with no trace 
 of raillery. It was the first word that had passed 
 between them concerning the girl, since Las 
 Chimineas. Once spoken it bound them together 
 for her protection, and they began to grow in 
 each other's esteem. 
 
 Maybe Mascado's wound had drained a little 
 
 of the graceless savage out of him. As the affair 
 
 stood it was too big for him. He believed Ja- 
 
 cinta to be a wife in fact and Castro's daughter. 
 
 376 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEAES NEWS 
 
 Escobar had beaten him, and so had the Coman- 
 dante. He felt the girl immeasurably removed 
 from him ; if it came to that, in her dispassionate 
 contempt she had beaten him worst of all. What 
 he might have thought had he been whole and 
 his men undaunted is another matter, — one does 
 not often think unharnessed by conditions. 
 
 Isidro saw the force of Mascado's warning in 
 the sour looks he had from the defeated rene- 
 gades drawing in to council. It threatened open 
 hostihty at the discovery that Arnaldo the tracker 
 was missing. It was surmised that in the con- 
 fusion he had slipped away to bring Castro down 
 upon them. Isidro was genuinely put out by the 
 breach of faith. 
 
 " A graceless dog," he said to Mascado. " He 
 knew I had passed my word, and as my servant 
 should have been bound by it." 
 
 " It is not much matter ; Castro would find 
 us in a few days at most," said Mascado dully ; 
 "but the men believe you concerned in it; I 
 have ordered that you be bound." 
 
 Bound he was with the most ungentle han- 
 dling. So much of an explanation was almost an 
 377 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 apology. It irked Mascado exceedingly to seem 
 at that time to push his advantage against Es- 
 cobar. Dumbly he was trying to puU himseU 
 up to the other man's standard of magnanimous 
 behavior. 
 
 Scouts were out to try to intercept Arnaldo 
 and to keep watch of Castro's men. The coun- 
 cil proceeded heavily ; men spoke at long inter- 
 vals with dragging speech ; gusty flaws of passion 
 broke out and fell away as the smoke of the 
 camp-fire dropped back to earth in the heavy air. 
 One of the wounded had died in the night, and 
 his kin sat around him with pitch smeared on 
 their faces, raising the death song in a hushed, 
 mutilated cry. The pine wood, the over-ripe 
 grasses, the fraiting shrubs, looked skimp and 
 dingy in the hot, straight beams of the sun. 
 
 Isidro had only a few words with Jacinta as 
 she strayed near him in Marta's company, and 
 those went contrarily, for mindful of the mestizo's 
 hint, he avoided her pointedly. " Keep away," 
 he warned, " otherwise you may draw their wrath 
 upon you." 
 
 " You did wrong," she said, " to give back 
 378 
 
IN WHICH MASCADO HEARS NEWS 
 
 Mascado's knife ; you should have kept it against 
 need." 
 
 " Mascado himself will use it better in your 
 defense," said Escobar. "Are you armed?" 
 
 " I have a pistol that I brought from my 
 father's house." 
 
 "If the worst comes," said Isidro, strained 
 with anxiety, " stay close by Marta, turn your 
 back, and make no motion to be of my party. 
 You will be safest so." 
 
 " I will not twice bestow my company where 
 it is not wanted," said the girl stiffly. 
 
 " Eh, my Briar," said Isidro, " will you stiU 
 prick ? " But the girl had turned away. 
 
 The tension of strained nerves increased with 
 the day. The air was close ; it quivered above 
 the meadow, and breathed like cotton wool. To- 
 ward mid-morning they heard the long-drawn, 
 dolorous whine of a coyote, singular and terrify- 
 ing for that time of day. Hearing it, one of the 
 naked savages shivered in the sun. One laughed, 
 and in a twinkling knives were out. 
 
 " Down, fools ! " roared Mascado. 
 
 They sat down, sheepish and sullen. Flocks 
 379 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 of quail began to go by in numbers ; their alarm 
 calls sounded thickly in the wood. Touching the 
 rim of the meadow they broke into whirring 
 flight, running and flying alternately as they 
 struck the farther side. A bear pushed east- 
 ward, snorting heavily with haste ; squirrels began 
 to move in the same direction with flying leaps. 
 From the forest sounded short throaty howls of 
 coyotes going by. Several of the Indians stood 
 up, nosing the air like hounds. 
 
 It was about noon of the sun. There began 
 to be a faint smell of smoke. Isidro thought it 
 came from the camp-fire, but one of the rene- 
 gades went and stamped it out. There was dis- 
 tinctly an acrid smell as of green wood burning. 
 Suddenly one of the scouts broke running from 
 the lower edge of the meadow passing through 
 the camp. 
 
 " Fire ! " he said. " Forest fire ! " and went on 
 running. 
 
 Fretting to get back to his daughter at Mon- 
 terey, and finding any other method of driving 
 the renegades from their stronghold too tedious 
 and costly of men, Castro had fired the wood. 
 
 380 
 
XXVI 
 
 FOREST FIRE 
 
 gSSSS^T the first shock of the scout's warn- 
 
 i ing cry the camp at Hidden Waters 
 ^ / J^ g stiffened into instant attention, and 
 ^B>iB/it<M^ instantly afterward, as if from the 
 twang of a bowstring, several of the braves set 
 off running in the same direction as the wild 
 creatures had gone all that day. There were 
 others who ran about crazily, picking up belong- 
 ings and dropping them, recollecting themselves, 
 and going on over the edge of the hollow with 
 the flights of quail. The wounded cried out 
 upon the others for help ; all were running and 
 in commotion, dizzily, as men run in dreams. 
 The wife of the dead man began to run, came 
 back, and Hfted him by the shoulders, dragging 
 him a pace or two on the slippery needles, then 
 dropping him, ran on into the deep fern. 
 
 Isidro had hardly grasped the words of the 
 warning, but he understood the smell of burning, 
 381 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the hurry of the camp, and the crash of deer like 
 gray darts through the underbrush. He looked 
 once at his bonds, and then around for Jacinta. 
 He saw her running with her arms outspread, 
 and observed that Mascado came toward him has- 
 tily with his knife out, and the girl made as if 
 to intercept him. Mascado avoided her, and put 
 his keen blade to the rawhide thongs that held 
 Escobar hand and foot. He drew him up from 
 the earth, and shook him as if to reKeve the 
 cramping of his hmbs. Thought seemed to 
 translate itself into action without sound. Esco- 
 bar and the mestizo took the girl between them 
 and set ofE in the wake of the flying camp, 
 Marta laboring alongside them. She was middle- 
 aged and fat ; she could offer Mascado no help, 
 nor could he on account of his wound do any- 
 thing for her. Jacinta ran lightly between the 
 two men. 
 
 " Not so fast," said Mascado ; " there is worse 
 yet." 
 
 After that no one spoke. 
 
 The forest of Hidden Waters was perhaps ten 
 miles in extent, from the point where the Ar- 
 
 382 
 
FOREST FIRE 
 
 royo Seco cut the open swale diagonally to its 
 thinning out on the crest of the range. Castro 
 had started the fire at the lowest point of the 
 triangle, and at several places along the open 
 side, favored by the hght wind which blew diag- 
 onally up the slope. On the farther side Hidden 
 Waters was divided from the the rest of the 
 wooded region, which went on sparsely after that 
 by the stony wash of the Arroyo Seco. The path 
 of the intermittent river lay dry at this season 
 for more than half its length. Nearer its source 
 a brownish stream spread thinly over a rocky 
 bottom, and filled into boulder-rimmed pools 
 that purled over gently to lower levels when 
 the stream pinched out at last in sandy shoals. 
 The wash of the river was steep and choked with 
 water-smoothed stones, widened at intervals to 
 several hundred yards, or narrowing to a stone's 
 throw between points of boulder-anchored pines. 
 It was usually just at the entrance of one of 
 these defiles that the pools occurred. A chain of 
 them, threaded on the slender riU, lay about five 
 miles from the camp of the renegades, but higher 
 up and barred from it by more than one terrace 
 383 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 wall, nearly perpendicular, and smothered in 
 gooseberry, buckthorn, and manzanita. 
 
 The fire had been started toward the arroyo, 
 and the natural configuration of the forest car- 
 ried it up the slope. Toward the pools and the 
 open stony spaces bobcat, coyote, and deer ran 
 steadily, with the unteachable instinct for safety, 
 and the Indians followed them. 
 
 Mascado and his party were almost the last to 
 leave the camp. Beyond the meadow the wood 
 grew more openly and the rise of the ground 
 was slight. They could see the renegades spread 
 out among the trees, running. A brown bear 
 went between them, trotting heavily like a pig, 
 with an impatient woof ! — woof ! as he crossed 
 paths with the Indians. A coyote pack went by 
 with dropped heads and now and then a muti- 
 lated whine. Squirrels hopped in the branches 
 with long flying bounds, all traveling east by 
 north. At the first barrier they caught up with 
 several of the warriors who had not found their 
 second wind, with the wounded and the women. 
 There was no trail here, but heaps of angular 
 stones, piled logs, and a nearly straight ascent of 
 
 384 
 
FOREST FIRE 
 
 a hundred feet. They worked up over this, 
 every man for himself ; nobody spoke or cried. 
 They pushed up, crowding with the beasts. The 
 smell of burning increased ; Marta began to 
 pant. From the top of this wall they could see, 
 over the lower terraces, smoke rising ; the fire 
 had not vet reached the thickest wood, but rolled 
 up by puffs from single trees lit like torches, and 
 came from four or five points at once. 
 
 The second terrace sloped more steeply and 
 offered a check to the running. The wood was 
 still overhead ; all the birds had gone on ; the 
 squirrels dropped to the ground, eating up the 
 distance by incredible bounds. The only sound 
 was the thudding of feet on the soft litter of the 
 trees. The open places were full of small hurry- 
 ing things. Two porcupines trailed beside Isi- 
 dro, and seemed to find comfort in his company. 
 He passed them. A fox vixen and her young 
 snaked through the brush at his side and passed 
 him. The fox mother snarled at him as she 
 went. 
 
 Presently a sound rose in the wood and 
 gripped them all with terror. It was the fresh* 
 385 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 ening of the afternoon wind which was to be 
 looked for at that season, following on the 
 heated noons. It blew on the tempered nee- 
 dles tiU the pleasant hum shriUed to the sing^g 
 of flames, and hurried the pounding feet to the 
 pace of increasing fear. 
 
 Jacinta and Escobar were still going with tol- 
 erable ease. In the strips of calico bound about 
 Mascado's body across his wound a red spot 
 showed that spread visibly. Marta had mixed 
 with the renegades and the other women, per- 
 haps to hide from her friends the distress of her 
 laboring sides. 
 
 At the next barrier they could see the fires 
 rolled together as one and the smoke of it glow- 
 ing ruddily underneath. It spread toward them 
 above the trees ; particles of ashes floated in the 
 air. Here they had half an hour of hard climb- 
 ing, while the fire gained visibly. The man 
 with the wounded knee, whose friends had aban- 
 doned him, climbed on doggedly beside them ; 
 he made no plea or outcry, but dug his fingers 
 into the earth and climbed. The muscles of his 
 chest seemed fit to burst with his incredible la- 
 386 
 
FOEEST FIEE 
 
 bors. Isidro lent him a hand over the edge and 
 ran on. Only once an Indian uttered an excla- 
 mation. The fire traveled more rapidly along 
 the edge of the open draw south of them, and 
 nearing a narrow passage of the river, it had 
 blown over arid caught in the redwoods on the 
 farther side. Now the wind drove it toward the 
 Indians from the middle of the wood, in two cres- 
 cent arms like the horns of a bull. After that 
 there was only the business of running. Jacinta 
 and Isidro went touching ; Mascado held both 
 his hands to his side. The air was suffocating 
 with smoke that blew over the fire and struck 
 and roUed against the higher ground. 
 
 The wall of the third terrace had a smooth 
 stony front rooted in a strong thicket of moun- 
 tain shrubs. From the foot of it men and beasts 
 turned northward toward the river. Above the 
 hurry of running they heard the high shrieking 
 of the flame and the deep crescendo of it as it 
 climbed the slope behind them. One of the hurt 
 Indians, arrived at the limit of his strength, sat 
 by a tree with his head hanging on his breast. 
 They ran on and left him. 
 387 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Jacinta began to faint. Mascado held her up 
 on his side, but his knees trembled under him. 
 A sharper crash broke at their back; Isidro 
 thought it was the fire, and for an instant the use 
 of his limbs forsook him. He saw Mascado's 
 mouth open, a ring of blackness in the brown 
 pallor of his face, but he could hear nothing; 
 only the sense of the words reached him. 
 
 " The deer, the deer ! " cried Mascado. 
 
 A great herd of them, starting far south of 
 their camp, had turned at the foot of the terrace 
 and run into the midst of the flying Indians. 
 The rush of their coming seemed to shake the 
 stifling air. A great buck plunging in the thick- 
 ets brushed between the two men ; they felt the 
 breath of his panting. Mascado, who had the 
 girl on his side, heaved her up out of the path ; 
 Isidro caught her arm across the buck's shoulder ; 
 she swung there. The herd tore trampling 
 through the thicket. Mascado's wound burst as 
 he lifted the girl and he went down under the 
 cutting hooves. The deer went on toward the 
 river, Isidro and the girl with them. The buck 
 checked and blundered with his double burden ; 
 
 388 
 
FOREST FIEE 
 
 his tongue hung out of his mouth ; the stiff 
 thickets tore them as he ran. Isidro was able 
 to help himself a little. Jacinta lay white and 
 flaccid ; her body swayed with the running, and 
 the wind of the fire blew forward her hot, soft 
 hair. Fragments of burning bark sailed past 
 them, and lit the patches of ripe grass. The 
 buck cleared them and ran on. Their skin 
 crawled with the heat ; the roar of the fire blot- 
 ted out all thought; the boulders of the river 
 were in sight. The buck reached a pool, plunged 
 into it belly deep ; Isidro blessed God. The wind, 
 moving the free tips of the flames forward, Hghted 
 the tops of all the trees ; roseate spires streamed 
 up from them toward a low black heaven of 
 smoky cloud. Between the boles he saw small 
 creatures and Indians running. Now and then 
 fires lit by falling brands flared up arid obscured 
 them, but they broke through ; they shouldered 
 together into the pool. Marta panted among the 
 botdders and saw Escobar. 
 
 " Mascado ? " she cried. 
 
 Isidro pointed ; it seemed no time for consider- 
 ate lying. The woman turned instantly. The 
 389 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 wind lifted the smoke and showed long aisles of 
 yet unlighted boles roofed with flame. Marta 
 took something from her bosom ; it was the 
 blessed candle that had burned for Mascado be- 
 fore San Antonio and the Child. The Indians 
 thought her crazed with fear. She stooped and 
 Kt it at a glowing brand and ran back toward 
 Mascado. They saw her holding the candle aloft 
 in the lighted aisle for a moment, and the curtain 
 of smoke and flame swept down and obscured 
 her. It seemed as if great lapses of time oc- 
 curred between these incidents, but it was a 
 very little while. 
 
 Several of the Indians were crowded in a lower 
 pool, and they seemed to caU, but the roaring of 
 the wood shut out all. The air trembled with 
 heat ; lighted brands fell in the water and steamed 
 there. Men and beasts crouched to bring them- 
 selves as much as possible into the pool. Three 
 deer, two bobcats, and a coyote rubbed shoulders 
 with the renegades ; two foxes, one of them with 
 a burned quarter, whimpered at the edge of the 
 water. 
 
 In the shelter of the boulders, and along the 
 390 
 
FOEEST FIRE 
 
 shallow riU that slipped between the stones, 
 there were small cowering things, — rabbits and 
 badgers, wood rats and porcupines. When the last 
 border of the redwoods was lit, and the fire roared 
 at them from the opposite side of the gully, little 
 dead bodies floated down into the pool. Presently 
 there was no stream left to float them, cut off 
 by the heat that scorched out its source. The 
 pool grew almost intolerably hot, and shrunk at 
 the edges. There was no other noise could live 
 in the rip of the flames ; the smoke biUowed 
 down upon them, and they had no knowledge 
 when the day passed into night. 
 
 Isidro sprinkled water on the girl's face, still 
 holding her against the buck's shoulder. After 
 a little she revived and began to ask for Marta. 
 
 " I think she must be in the lower pool," said 
 Escobar. " I saw her come out of the woods soon 
 after us." Jacinta slipped from the buck's 
 shoulders and found her feet under her. The 
 water came to her armpits. Isidro took the ker- 
 chief from her head and wet it for her to breathe 
 through and cover up her eyes. They clasped 
 hands under the buck's white throat. The fierce 
 391 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 incandescence of the forest faded, and the pitchy 
 smoke obscured them more and more. They 
 edged together and Isidro took her in his arms. 
 
 " Where is Mascado? " at length she whispered. 
 
 " His wound burst ; he went down under the 
 deer." 
 
 She shivered in spite of the heat. " He lifted 
 me up," she said ; " I remember that ; was it 
 then?" Isidro pressed her softly against his 
 breast. 
 
 " He saved my life," she said, " he saved my 
 life, and I had never so much as a kind word for 
 him." 
 
 " Think no more of it," said Escobar. 
 
 The girl was quiet for a long time ; her mind 
 stiU ran on Mascado. 
 
 " He was very brave," she said. " I remember, 
 as much as six years ago, there was a place near 
 Peter Lebecque's where none of the Indians 
 would go, — a tall, strange rock in a lonely canon. 
 There had been witchcraft there which made them 
 afraid. Juana, my mother, would cross herself if 
 so much as a wind blew from it, and I being both 
 wild and bad thought to frighten her by going 
 392 
 
FOREST FIRE 
 
 there. She was nearly frantic; Lebecque was 
 from home, so she sent Mascado to fetch me. He 
 was young, then, and quite as much frightened as 
 any, but he came ; he was quite pale with fright, 
 and I laughed at him, but he came. He was a 
 brave man." 
 
 " He died as a brave man would wish to die. 
 Think no more of it, my Briar," said Escobar. 
 
 Billows of hot smoke beat upon them, the water 
 hissed on the stones ; she hid her face on his bo- 
 som. Presently she asked, — 
 
 " Do you see Marta ? " 
 
 " I see nothing but thick smoke." 
 
 " Do you think we shall come safely through ? " 
 
 "I am sure of that." 
 
 They were silent a longer time. 
 
 " What is that which stirs by me in the water ? " 
 asked the girl. 
 
 " It is a doe that pants with the running. It 
 is better so, to screen you from the heat." 
 
 His lips were very near her face. They 
 struggled in the smother of heat and smoke for 
 breath. 
 
 " What is that I hear ? " she whispered. 
 393 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " It is a hurt fox at the water's edge," answered 
 Isidro. 
 
 " It is a woeful sound," she said. 
 
 " Do not hear, then ; " he sheltered her head 
 within his arm. 
 
 The cloud of smoke passed a little from them. 
 
 " I would Marta were with us," said she. 
 
 " Am I not enough, Heart's Dearest ? " 
 
 " You will not leave me," breathed the girl. 
 
 " Never while my life lasts," said he. 
 
 Presently he raised her face between his hands 
 and kissed her with a tender passion. The tall 
 buck stooped above them and breathed lightly 
 on their hair. 
 
XXVII 
 
 ARROYO SECO 
 
 I SIDRO roused out of a doze, leaning 
 against the buck, to hear the slow 
 soft trickle of the water that had 
 come back to its borders, sure sign 
 that the fire had raged out on the bald 
 summit of the hill. The night wind which 
 came from the sea blew up the arroyo 
 and cleared the smoke ; it was possible to 
 breathe freely. He could see through the 
 murk a fringe of red fire outlining the bulk of 
 the hills. Eteat and smoke still rose from the 
 burnt district ; logs snapped asunder in glowing 
 coals ; tall trunks of standing trees burned fee- 
 bly at the top like half-extinguished torches. In 
 pits and hollows, where two or three had fallen 
 together, the fire still ripped and flared. 
 
 The Indians had drawn out of the water and 
 slept on the warm stones, but the wild things 
 395 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 looked not to have moved all night, their eyes 
 were all open and a-gaze. The air lightened a 
 little to approaching dawn. 
 
 Jacinta slept on his breast, standing deep in 
 the water ; her face made a pale disk in the dark. 
 The heat, the suffocation, the acrid smoke, the 
 tepid, ash-impregnated water full of crowding 
 men and beasts and small charred bodies, the 
 intolerable tedium of the night, had no more 
 poignant sense for Escobar than the feeling of 
 the soft young body within the hollow of his 
 arms. If he had not felt the want of a wife be- 
 fore he felt it now. It was something to comfort 
 and protect, something to wear against his heart 
 to keep it warm. 
 
 The sky lightened behind its veil of smoke. 
 The sun rose above the ranges, shorn of all his 
 rays. The Indians began to stir ; Jacinta woke. 
 
 Her first inquiry was for Marta. Isidro avoided 
 it, drawing her out of the pool to dry their cloth- 
 ing on the still heated boulders. 
 
 " You said that you saw her come safely out 
 of the burning," she insisted. 
 
 " She came, yes," said Escobar, driven to man- 
 396 
 
ARROYO SECO 
 
 nish bluntness by distress. " But when she saw 
 Mascado was not with us she ran back." 
 
 " Back there ! Into the fire ? Marta? " The 
 girl started up for an instant as if she would 
 have gone after her. " And you let her go ? 
 You let her go?" 
 
 Isidro took her by the shoulders. 
 
 " I had you to see to ; it was done all in a 
 moment ; no one could have prevented her. She 
 had something, a candle I think, which she took 
 from her bosom." 
 
 " I know ; a blessed candle from the church at 
 Carmelo. She burned one always for Mascado 
 before San Antonio and the Child." 
 
 " She ran with it among the trees. No doubt 
 San Antonio had her in hand. The flames seemed 
 to part to let her through." 
 
 " Oh, but you should not have let her go ! " 
 cried Jacinta ; " you should not have let her 
 go." She sobbed dryly ; the heat and exhaus- 
 tion had stopped the source of tears. The girl's 
 grief was genuine ; Isidro let it have way. Marta 
 had been the first to show her tenderne*ss since 
 her foster-mother had died. 
 397 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 They sat down with their backs to a boulder, 
 hand in hand, doubtful what the Indians would 
 do to them. They had little matter for conversa- 
 tion ; now and then Jacinta gave a shudder and 
 a shaking sob and Isidro pressed her hand. 
 
 The Indians got together. Most of them were 
 scorched along their naked backs, many were 
 badly burned. Including Marta, five of their 
 party had failed to win through. They did not 
 talk much. One of them had killed a deer with 
 his knife where it stood beside him in the pool, 
 and they ate of it in the same sombre silence. 
 Isidro, seeing no motion in his direction, cut 
 strips of the flesh with his own knife, and toasted 
 them on the coals for himself and the girl. 
 After food the courage of them all revived. The 
 blueness of smoke hung thick in the air, reheved 
 a Uttle above the canon of the stream, which 
 made a little draft of wind. 
 
 The renegades, with no debate, but as if by 
 the concerted instinct which sets a herd of deer 
 in motion, began to move upstream, taking with 
 them what was left of the meat. They walked 
 in the track of the water and gingerly among 
 398 
 
ARROYO SECO 
 
 the hot stones of its borders. They looked not 
 once nor spoke to Escobar. Upstream and over 
 the blackened ridge lay a safe green country f uU 
 of game, and beyond that was home. By twos 
 and threes they vanished into the mist of smoke. 
 One of them, hesitating, at the last, half turned 
 toward Escobar with a gesture of dismissal. 
 Their game was up ; they wanted no more of 
 him. 
 
 All this time the animals in the water had not 
 moved, shocked into quietude by the disorder of 
 their world. The pool reddened still with the 
 blood of the slain deer. 
 
 " Wife, let us go," said Escobar. 
 
 Jacinta waded out to the buck and put her 
 arms up to his neck ; he suffered it with timidity. 
 She laid her cheek to his throat and blessed him, 
 signing the cross on his shoulders. 
 
 " Let none come after thee to hurt thee, and 
 none lie in wait by night. Let no arrow find 
 thee, no, nor hunger, nor forsaking of thy kind. 
 Blessed be thou among beasts." 
 
 She came up out of the water, and Isidro took 
 her hand. They went downstream. 
 399 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " What shall we do ? " said Jacintha when 
 they had traveled in silence a painful quarter 
 of an hour. The broadening day brought them 
 an accession of embarrassment, mixed with a 
 deep satisfaction of each other's company. 
 
 " Yesterday," said Isidro, " the Comandante 
 must have been at the lower part of the wood. 
 I trust he is not far removed. We may come up 
 with him. If Arnaldo made his way safely as I 
 have no doubt he did, he may be looking for 
 us." 
 
 " He — my father — does not know that 
 I am here," faltered Jacinta. She was still 
 greatly in awe of the comandante. 
 
 " No matter," said Escobar stoutly ; " it is pro- 
 per that you be with me." 
 
 The implication of his words reddened her 
 pinched and weary face. 
 
 They made way very slowly, being stiff with 
 the strain and exertion of the night and day. 
 They met animals, rabbits, ground inhabiting 
 things, bobcats, and a lean cougar mother mouth- 
 ing three dead kittens, herself all singed and 
 scarred, and came frequently on dead bodies of 
 400 
 
ARROYO SECO 
 
 beasts lying in the wash. Then Jacintha would 
 think of Marta, and her face would quiver and 
 draw pitifully, untU Isidro would quiet her with 
 audacious tenderness and set her glowing as 
 from a delicate inner flame. Once after such a 
 sally she smiled up to him. 
 
 " You are too good to me, senor." 
 " Eh, what ! " cried Isidro in mock amazement. 
 " Is that a name for a man's wife to give him ? 
 Senor, indeed ! " 
 
 " Am I really that to you, Don Isidro ? " 
 " Are you what ? " 
 " What you said." 
 
 " My wife ? As much as the sacrament can 
 make you ! " was his assurance ; the look that 
 went with it said much more. 
 " And you wish it so ? " 
 " Must I tell you that, my Briar ? " 
 " But you are vowed to Holy Church." 
 " No vow of mine ; an old promise made be- 
 fore I was born. I am convinced that I have no 
 vocation." 
 
 " And after all," she said wistfully, " I am 
 really the comandante's daughter." 
 401 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 " You are — Ah, I do not know what you are. 
 I think I shall need all my life to find you out, 
 all my life and heart. Ah lad, lad ! " It was 
 always after a word of supreme endearment be- 
 tween them. He held both her hands and drew 
 her up to him. 
 
 Castro, having delivered his final stroke at the 
 stronghold of the renegades, drew ofE to wait 
 and see what came of it, and to deliberate how 
 he should strike as effectively at the remnant 
 under Urbano. The condition of mission affairs, 
 and the spirit of insurrection kept alive among 
 the neophytes by the successes of Urbano's men, 
 justified, in his sight, the severest measures. He 
 esteemed the fire roaring up the terraces of Hid- 
 den Waters a splendid engine of war, but not 
 for long. That was the day and, when the fire 
 raged the hottest, the hour when Fascual and 
 Don Valentin dropped in upon his camp on the 
 scarp of a low hill, with fagged horses and 
 bloody spurs. 
 
 Pascual, mindless of military dignities, called 
 out to him as man to man. 
 402 
 
AREOYO SECO 
 
 " My brother, Escobar, have you got him ? Is 
 he yet with the rascals? What is that fire?" 
 The two men had smelled the burning an hour 
 since, and guessed what Castro was about. 
 Don Valentin spoke more to the point and at 
 length. 
 
 "Is Senor Escobar a prisoner with the rene- 
 gades?" said the Comandante, visibly disturbed. 
 "How long has this been known?" 
 
 " Since Tuesday of this week. It was at first a 
 rumor hardly believed." 
 
 " We lost our way in these damnable hiUs," 
 exploded Pascual, " or you should have heard of 
 it soon enough. Did you Hght that fire ? " 
 
 Delgado waved him aside. 
 
 " Send out the men," he said ; " there is 
 more." 
 
 Castro gave the order. " My daughter ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Seiiorita Castro and the woman Marta have 
 been missing since Wednesday morning. It is 
 beKeved they have gone in search of him. Marta 
 is Mascado's mother." 
 
 Castro's body strained with the impotent vio- 
 403 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 lence of nightmare. The news seemed to divide 
 him body and spirit. He made as if he would 
 have struck Delgado for his disastrous tidings. 
 
 He saw the men's eyes upon him from a little 
 distance under the trees, and gulped back a mo- 
 mentary control. 
 
 " Montana ! Montana ! " he cried out to his 
 lieutenant, and lapsed weakly to his seat; his 
 hands moved fumbling across his hps. 
 
 " Put out the fire, Montana," he said in a 
 dead, flaccid voice. 
 
 " Pardon ? " said the puzzled lieutenant. 
 
 " I said put out the fire, the fire on the moun- 
 tain ; " he moved with a feeble impatience at the 
 other's slowness. " My daughter is there on the 
 mountain ; she will burn." 
 
 Delgado went to him. " Senor Comandante, it 
 is best that you lie down. I will see that Montaiia 
 understands." 
 
 All the while Mascado and Escobar, with the 
 girl between them, were making their running 
 in the redwoods above Hidden Waters ; all that 
 night, when they stood against the tall buck in 
 the pool, Castro lay in his blankets, burying his 
 
 404 
 
ARROYO SECO 
 
 head in them to shut out the shriek and snap- 
 ping of the fire, the roseate purple glow, the great 
 roar of the pitchy smoke going skyward. Bodily 
 weakness served to intervene between him and 
 the force of his mind's distress, which returned 
 upon him at intervals Hke a spasm of pain. He 
 thought Montana and the men busy about putting 
 out the fire, asking Delgado continually how 
 they sped, and Delgado humored him. 
 
 Montana had, in fact, dispatched men up the 
 arroyo and along the open south side, but the 
 first came back reporting the trees afire on both 
 sides of the wash and the passing dangerous; 
 the others found only Arnaldo nearly dead with 
 running, and no comforting news. 
 
 " How does it now ? " questioned Castro from 
 his bed when they had turned him away from 
 gazing on the hills. 
 
 " It dies out along the lower edges," said 
 Don Valentin, propping his tired eyes upon his 
 hand. 
 
 "Does it burn fast?" 
 
 " Hardly so fast as an Indian can run," said 
 the conscienceless Delgado. 
 405 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " And Marta had horses, you say ? " 
 
 "She had; Jose, Martinez's man, got them 
 for her." 
 
 "Besides," said Castro for the thousandth 
 time, "they may not yet have reached the 
 camp." 
 
 Delgado, who had seen Arnaldo, had nothing 
 to say to that. Fascual groaned. Then they fell 
 into sUence and a doze of deep exhaustion, until 
 Castro roused them, fretting from his bed. 
 
 " How does it now ? " 
 
 " It burns slowly where the blufEs are treeless 
 and steep." 
 
 " Will they win through, think you ? " 
 
 " By the grace of God, I am sure of it." 
 
 And so on through the hours until the fire 
 passed thinly to the tree line, and the smoke hid 
 all but the red reflection on the sky. 
 
 Pascual and Don Valentin got some needed 
 sleep at last. Castro's strength began to come 
 back to him, and with it his collected spirit, 
 which, though it quickened the agony of appre- 
 hension, helped him to spare others the exhibition 
 of it. By morning, which broke duUy, blurred 
 406 
 
ARBOYO SECO 
 
 ■with smoke, he was able to mount and ride ; but 
 the ten years which it was said he had lost since 
 his daughter was found came back and settled 
 heavily on his shoidders and bent him toward 
 the saddle-bow. 
 
 From Arnaldo's account he judged it best 
 seeking up the arroyo. He sent the tracker with 
 men to try i£ possible to cross the hot ashes to 
 the camp, and follow the probable line of flight, 
 for he knew now all that Arnaldo could tell him 
 of Escobar and his daughter. 
 
 Castro, Pascual, Delgado, and six men rode 
 up the stony wash. The stench of burning, the 
 acrid ash that whirled about in the wind, the 
 difficulties and discomforts of the way, took the 
 edge ofE of anguished expectation. The men 
 rode in advance, — Castro had no hope to spur 
 him forward, — and whatever of dead they found 
 they hid out of the way. 
 
 Isidro and the girl heard the clank of shod 
 hoofs on the boulders. Escobar raised a cracked, 
 dry halloo. The answer to it set them trembling 
 with the eagerness of relief. 
 
 " Virgen Santissima, Mother inviolate, Mary 
 407 
 
ISIDKO 
 
 most Holy, Queen of the Angels," murmured the 
 Comandante in deep thankfulness, as he saw her 
 come. 
 
 Not the greatest moments are long proof 
 against daily habits and hates. Castro's anxiety 
 for his daughter's life was not of such long stand- 
 ing that his prejudice against Escobar was not 
 longer ; but his habit of authority was older than 
 both. It fretted him in his enfeebled state, almost 
 before he had done returning thanks, to have her 
 appear so in boyish disguise before his men ; 
 chafed his new dignity as a parent to have her 
 leave his house and go running to the woods after 
 this young sprig Escobar ; and since his daugh- 
 ter was above all blame, he blamed Escobar. 
 There was a moment of embarrassment and chill 
 after the greeting and congratulation. Don Isidro 
 had that in his heart which fortified him against 
 all frostiness of behavior. Castro turned to his 
 men. 
 
 " Miguel and Pedro," he said, " will give up 
 
 their horses to Senor Escobar and my daughter." 
 
 He kept fast hold of the girl, but Isidro claimed 
 
 her with his eyes. The men led up the horses. 
 
 408 
 
ARROYO SECO 
 
 She, who a month before had been free to vault 
 Indian-like from the ground, suffered herself to 
 be lifted up ladywise. Castro reserved that occu- 
 pation for himself, though he was hardly able for 
 it. Isidro went on quietly shortening the stir- 
 rups; the two men eyed each other over the 
 horse's shoulders. 
 
 Said Isidro, courteous and smiling, "I give 
 madam my wife into your keeping, Senor Co- 
 mandante, until we come to a better state." 
 
 The Comandante turned abruptly to his own 
 horse and broke twice in the effort to mount. 
 One of the troopers gave him a hand. Isidro's 
 hand was on the girl's, her eyes on his eyes. She 
 stooped lightly; the young man brought his 
 horse alongside, one foot in the stirrup ; her 
 soft hair fell forward, his eyes drew her, they 
 kissed. 
 
 " March ! " cried the Comandante. The horses 
 clattered on the start; then they struck into a 
 trot. 
 
 Pascual burst out a-laughing. " By my soul, 
 brother," he cried, "but you begin well for a 
 priest ! " 
 
 409 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 Isidro blushed. 
 
 "I am not a priest yet," he said, "and the 
 lady is really my wife." 
 
 They mounted and rode after Castro's men. 
 
xxvm 
 
 THE END OF THE TRAIL 
 
 e 
 
 |8^^®|ND what," said the Father President, 
 :§ pacing up and down in the mission 
 parlor, " what becomes of your 
 raBWdi priestly calling?" 
 
 " Padre," said Escobar, leaning his arm upon 
 the table, " I have no true vocation." 
 
 " You thought differently a month since." 
 
 " A month since, yes. Much may happen in a 
 month." 
 
 " Hardly enough, I should think, to outbal- 
 ance a decision made practically before you were 
 born." 
 
 " Before I was born. Padre, and therefore 
 hardly within my power of agreeing or disagree- 
 ing. But within the month, Reverend Father, I 
 have been in captivity and distress. I have faced 
 dreadful death, and fleeing from it have learned 
 that I wished to live, not to do priest's work 
 in the world, but for the sake of life itself, for 
 411 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 seeing and feeling and stirring about among 
 men." 
 
 " You wish not to do the work of Our Father 
 Christ?" 
 
 "It is not that I do not wish it, but I wish to 
 do a man's work more." 
 
 "A month since," said Saavedra again, "that 
 was not your thought." 
 
 " My thought then was the thought of a boy ; 
 but hear now what is in my mind. You have 
 heard how Marta died, going into the fire after 
 she had come safe out of it. We do not know 
 well what was in her heart, but my — but Ja- 
 cinta thinks that she wished to bring the blessed 
 candle to Mascado, so that he might have that 
 much of religion at his end. She took no care of 
 what might happen to herself. It is my thought 
 that God's priests should so carry salvation to 
 men, counting not the cost, and I have not that 
 spirit. Padre; I should count the cost." 
 , " What, then, do you wish ? " The Padre was 
 visibly patient and, by an effort, kind. 
 
 " I wish — the common life of man, the com- 
 mon chances ; no more, I think, — common du- 
 412 
 
THE END OF THE TRAIL 
 
 ties, labors, and occupations ; to have my own 
 house, my wife," — here the young man colored 
 slightly — "and children, if God please. It is 
 not much." 
 
 The Padre stopped in his walk and laid both 
 hands on the table, looking across at Escobar. 
 
 " No, it is not much," he said, " not much for 
 which to give over a great labor, toward which 
 we thought, or at least I thought and you agreed 
 with me, — a month since, — toward which the 
 need and occasion pointed as the Finger of God." 
 
 " A great work. Padre, but wanting a prober 
 instrument. I am afraid I could not help you 
 there." There was a pause. 
 
 " What do you mean, my son ? " said the Pa- 
 dre at last. There was a hint of anxiety in his 
 voice, a dawning grayness in his face. 
 
 "I mean. Padre," the young man came out 
 halting and reluctantly with his thought, "in 
 regard to the foundation of the Franciscans — 
 the Missions — there is much that sticks in my 
 mind." 
 
 " You mean — " said the Padre dully. 
 
 " I mean — I hardly know what, except that 
 413 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 what you expected of me as to the continuance 
 of the Missions in their present aspiration and 
 direction has become impossible." He was going 
 on with argument and extenuation, all that Ja- 
 cintha had taught him, aU that he had learned 
 from Mascado in the hills, all the eager young 
 straining after ideals of liberty which fomented 
 in the heart of Mexico, but the Padre held up 
 his hand. 
 
 " Spare me," he said, " spare me." The old 
 man turned away to the window and looked long 
 toward the sea, toward the orchard, the laborers 
 in the barley, the women spinning in the sun, the 
 comfort, busyness and peace, the cross twinkUng 
 over all. He was used in these days to men who 
 doubted the efficiency of all these ; but the hurt, 
 the deep intolerable wound, lay in knowing that 
 the matter had been brought to Escobar by his 
 own hand, the contrary judgment shaped, as far 
 as he knew, on his own showing. He came back 
 at last and laid his worn, thin palms on the young 
 man's shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, my son, my son, could you not have 
 spared me this ? " 
 
 414 
 
THE END OF THE TEAIL 
 
 Tears rose in Isidro's eyes, and he touched the 
 old hands reverently with his lips, but he could 
 not take back his word. 
 
 " We priests," said Saavedra with an unused 
 accent of bitterness, " have none of the joys of 
 parents, but at least one of their pangs, — to 
 know that those we have nurtured in our dearest 
 hopes have not found those hopes worth gather- 
 ing up." The young man said nothing to this ; 
 there was, in fact, nothing to say. 
 
 " I am an old man," went on Saavedra, " and 
 a great sinner. No doubt I set my mind above 
 my Master's, desiring what is not good for me to 
 have." 
 
 They were silent for some time, and Escobar 
 guessed that the Padre prayed. Finally he moved 
 somewhat feebly as if he felt his age press upon 
 him, brought up a chair, and sat at the opposite 
 side of the table. 
 
 " What, then, do you wish of me ? " he said 
 with courageous cheer. 
 
 " That you persuade Castro to recognize my 
 marriage with his daughter, or at least my claims 
 to her hand." 
 
 415 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 " The marriage was duly celebrated with the 
 Sacrament, you say, and recorded ? " 
 
 " It was. But for the recording we had not 
 the lady's name. It was written Senorita Le- 
 becque. The Comandante holds that to invaK- 
 date the marriage." 
 
 " Hardly, unless conscious fraud was used, and 
 that it was not could easily be proved. The Sac- 
 rament of the Church cannot be hghtly set aside. 
 What says the lady ? " 
 
 Isidro had the grace to blush, but held on 
 steadfastly. " The lady wishes what I wish. We 
 are of one mind." 
 
 The Padre's face softened with a weary smile. 
 " No doubt it can be arranged ; I will see Castro. 
 Now leave me, my son ; I have much to think on." 
 
 Isidro knelt to receive a blessing ; he looked up 
 into the kind, pale eyes, and his heart wrung him 
 for his defection. He thought of the quest of 
 Juan Ruiz. 
 
 " Oh, Padre, Padre," he cried with half a sob, 
 " I owe you much ! " 
 
 " It is nothing. Go in peace, my son ; the 
 Lord keep you and make His face to shine upon 
 
 416 
 
THE END OF THE TRAIL 
 
 you." The old priest, left to himself, sat a long 
 time sadly staring into the room. It is an ill hour 
 for an old man when the objects of a life-long 
 renunciation, lusts of the heart, the common hu- 
 man aspirations, rise up to defeat him in the end. 
 
 At the last Castro made no great difficulty. He 
 persuaded himself that he wished merely to he 
 assured that his daughter's heart inclined toward 
 Escobar. Really the trouble was in his hurt sus- 
 ceptibilities at being so soon set aside. 
 
 All the lean, wifeless, childless years could not 
 be filled out in a month. Now that his daughter 
 was found he wanted time for adoring her, and 
 though he had not been a parent long, it was 
 long enough to develop parental proclivities for 
 meddling in his daughter's affairs. His worst 
 objection to Escobar at this juncture was that 
 Jacinta had chosen him. As much as the young 
 man had associated himself with the girl's life 
 before her father had found her, the Comand- 
 ante resented it. All those companionable hours, 
 the captivity, the distress which they shared, their 
 very youth which they had in common, Castro 
 envied them. 
 
 417 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 The experience of an unhappy love as often as 
 not unfits a man to deal fairly by a happy one. 
 Castro had lost the mother, before he had her, to 
 another man ; now, it appeared, he was to lose 
 the daughter, and in the same case ; but with 
 her, as with Ysabel, he had the passionate purpose 
 to hold to the form and shadow of possession. 
 
 Jacinta left him in no doubt as to her senti- 
 ments. Now that Escobar claimed her she went 
 no longer shamefaced, but wore her love nakedly 
 and gloried in it. She increased in dignity ; her 
 beauty grew apace like a flower. Not all the 
 artificialities of dress and behavior imposed on 
 her by the matrons Castro brought to be her 
 advisers had made her a woman, but a man's 
 need of womanliness to love. Where Escobar 
 put her in his thought she stayed; she might 
 live a little above that level, but never below it. 
 She gave Castro no warrant for his reluctance to 
 admit the marriage at San Antonio, though war- 
 rant might have been found for it in his agree- 
 ment with Valentin Delgado. He had gone so 
 far with that gentleman as to recognize his claim 
 to be considered a suitor for his daughter's hand. 
 
 418 
 
THE END OP THE TRAIL 
 
 As usage was at that time, the Comandante 
 might have held himself bound, but here Del- 
 fina's tongue came aptly in. The interval be- 
 tween Jacinta's flight to Hidden Waters and 
 her return had been employed by Delfina and 
 Fray Demetrio in making the fame of the girl 
 and Escobar a thing of shreds and tatters. There 
 will always be these blue flies buzzing on the 
 fringe of nobler lives, shaping them unguessed 
 to contrary courses. Originating, if it had any 
 origin but pure affinity for mischief, in malice 
 toward Escobar, the gossip served him an excel- 
 lent turn. Not much of it reached the Coman- 
 dante, but it was in the air, and Don Valentin, 
 who was not known to be directly implicated, 
 heard more than he stomached easily. Besides, 
 he had seen the kiss exchanged by Isidro and 
 the girl in the Arroyo Seco, and being a poUtic 
 youth as well as honorable in the main, Don 
 Valentin withdrew. Castro was, however, the 
 poorer for that, and Delgado made a beginning 
 of that fortune which in the heyday of Alta 
 California became notable. The Comandante, all 
 other consideration going down before it, allowed 
 419 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 the announcement of the marriage at last, to 
 quiet scandal. He would have wished to have 
 the ceremony repeated, but Saavedra judged it 
 inexpedient. They had in lieu of it a special 
 service in the church of San Carlos, followed by 
 a haile at the Presidio, at which both Pascual 
 and Don Valentin outdid the groom in the splen- 
 dor of their buttons and embroideries. The fes- 
 tivities were attended by the Governor and his 
 lady, by everybody who could by any reasonable 
 excuse be invited, by long trains of Indians bear- 
 ing flowers ; and it lacked but one item of an 
 exceptionally fashionable afEair ; the bride, rid- 
 ing to the church as the custom was, chose, not 
 her father's splendid mount as would any girl in 
 her senses, but the same kicking pinto which had 
 brought her up from the hut of the Grapevine 
 in the train of Escobar. As the wedding party 
 halted at the church door, Isidro unpinned a fly- 
 specked paper from it, offering, in the handwrit- 
 ing of the secretary, a reward for information 
 concerning certain papers found in the alms-box. 
 He passed it up to the Comandante ; Castro gave 
 a thin, wintry smile. 
 
 420 
 
THE END OF THE TRAIL 
 
 "You have not given me the information," he 
 said, " but you seem to have the reward." 
 
 Within a month after the marriage the Co- 
 mandante got his release, and soon after that, 
 the galleon La Golindrina putting into port, 
 bound for Mexico, he embarked upon her with 
 his daughter and Escobar. 
 
 Isidro with his young wife leaned upon the 
 rail and watched the dwindling of the white 
 walls of Monterey. 
 
 " Said I not truly," whispered the girl, " that 
 when you sailed for Mexico I should be with 
 you on the sea ? " 
 
 " Most truly, my Briar, and with me shall see 
 the world, though it seems I serve myself more 
 than God." 
 
 " But that was not what I said." 
 
 " What was it, most dear ? I forget." 
 
 " That I should serve God — and you." She 
 lifted soft eyes to him, shy and adoring, as to a 
 saint. It appeared she would make an excellent 
 wife ; Isidro, at least, was sure of it. He held 
 her hand under the rebosa, and watched the 
 town fade into the blueness of the hills. 
 I 421 
 
ISIDRO 
 
 They said to each other, and believed it, that 
 they would come again and visit the places of 
 their young delight, — the caiiada of the Grape- 
 vines, the Mission San Antonio, and all the sea- 
 ward, poppy-colored slope of the coastwise hills ; 
 but, in fact, they never came together to Alta 
 Cahfornia. The care of the Eamirez estates and 
 the political preferment to which Escobar's facile 
 temper led him proved sufficient occupation. 
 Isidro came once, to see his father die, but Dona 
 Jacinta kept at home with her young children. 
 
 Padre Saavedra knew them well in Old Mex- 
 ico, where he followed them within two years, 
 upon the breaking up of the Missions, the loss of 
 which colored all his later years with a gentle 
 and equable grief. His faith and the natural 
 temper of his mind forbade that any bitterness 
 should mingle with it, but he left much of his 
 sprightly vigor at Carmelo, where the memory of 
 him served to keep many of his following in the 
 faith when all other props failed. Among the 
 traditions of the Mission recounted by the dwin- 
 dling band of neophytes were many incidents of 
 his great - heartedness, and one, admonishing 
 422 
 
'THAT I SHOULD SERVE GOD — AND TOTJ'^ 
 
THE END OF THE TEAIL 
 
 them to steadfastness, of Marta, the story of 
 whose life and heroic end showed her in reced- 
 ing time a sainted figure vanishing between the 
 lines of Hghted trees attended by a host of flam- 
 ing wings. 
 
 It was reported at the time of the seculariza- 
 tion of the Missions that one and another of the ^ 
 Padres secretly enriched themselves' from their 
 accumulated coin, — the discoverable amount of 
 which fell so far below the popular estimate, — 
 and of these there was none had so much laid to 
 his credit as Demetrio Fages. Certainly, when 
 one considers the prelate he became, knowing the 
 man he was, one might well believe it ; no doubt 
 he found his opportunity in the simple-seeming 
 honesty of the Padre Presidente. 
 
 Padre Tom^s de las Penas went put of Calif oi^ 
 nia with the retiring Franciscans, bewept by his 
 people ; but being a single-hearted man of few 
 affections, had no peace, nor gave his superiors 
 any, until he was permitted, as he believed in 
 answer to prayer, to return to his children of the 
 wilderness. He found the Mission in ruins, the 
 church a breeding-place for bats, and his Indians 
 423 
 
ISIDEO 
 
 far sunk in original savagery. A few of them 
 came about him again, remembering his simple 
 jollity, and hungering, no doubt, for the old 
 order, the comfortable meals, the ceremonial, the 
 show, the sense of things orderly and secure. 
 Neither so round nor so rosy after a few years of 
 such labors. Padre Tom^s set his hand to har- 
 vesting the few lean ears that a mistaken policy 
 had left of the Franciscans' splendid sowing ; and, 
 it is well to believe, in that business wasted what- 
 ever of sinful flesh he had clean out of him, for 
 it was discovered at his end that he had died of 
 want. 
 
 Peter Lebecque, missing the Briar from the 
 lonely hut of the Grapevine, and having no fancy 
 for annexing another woman, perhaps finding 
 none so suited to his taste as the silent Juana, 
 took to wandering again, and was kiUed by a bear 
 under an oak in the canon of JEl Tejon, in 1835, 
 and was buried there. 
 
 Delfina continued an uninterrupted course of 
 busyness about other people's affairs until the 
 influx of Gringos drove her and too many of her 
 race on a lee shore ; after that she became very 
 
 424 
 
THE END OF THE TEAIL 
 
 religious, as ladies of her metal are apt to be- 
 come, and was to be seen on Sundays and Saints 
 days telling a rosary in the church of San Carlos. 
 So all these, having danced their measure in 
 the time of Escobar's life, passed on separate 
 ways, neither more merry nor more sad because 
 of it ; but as for Castro, he got no ease of his 
 heart hunger until he held a grandchild on his 
 knees who looked at him with Ysabel's eyes, and 
 the eyes were full of love. 
 
EUctroiyped and printed hy H. O. Houghton 6)* Co. 
 Camh-idgt, Mass., U.S. A. 
 
The 
 
 LAND of LITTLE RAIN 
 
 By MARY AUSTIN 
 
 THIS is a book of unique interest about out-door 
 life in the arid region of Southeastern Califor- 
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 dian, the Greaser, and the gold-hunter, the strange 
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 extraordinary fidelity. 
 
 "What John Muir has done for the western slopes of 
 the Sierras, with their solemn forests and their mys- 
 terious silences, Mrs. Austin does in a more tender 
 and intimate fashion for the eastern slopes." 
 
 Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 With full-page and marginal illustrations by 
 E. Boyd Smith. 8vo, $2.00, net. Postpaid, ^2.24 
 
 AOUGHTON. /^^ BOSTON 
 
 MIFFLIN Z^f^ ' AND 
 
 & COMPANY fcllra NEW YORK 
 
The 
 
 BASKET WOMAN 
 
 By MARY AUSTIN 
 
 " Mary Austin, who may be said to be the creator of 
 the literature of the great California desert, as Jack 
 London is the master author of the frozen North, and 
 Stewart Edward White of ' The Blazed Trail ' coun- 
 try, presents in The Basket Woman an interesting 
 collection of legends and stories gleaned from the 
 Indian tribes of California and the Pacific coast. 
 "The freshness of the material and the pleasant 
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 Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 With decorative cover 
 
 Square lamo, $1.^0 
 
 HOUGHTON, 
 
 MIFFLIN 
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 BOSTON 
 
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 NEW YORK 
 
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