Chapter 5

"It is for the white man, not for the Indian with a skin like the earth and a heart like the wild-cat. If we did not know of fine bread and thin wine and heavy shoes and cursed bags about our legs we should not want them. Padre Flores says that he and the other priests came here to make us happy. Why not let us be happy in our own way? We needed no teaching."

Years after, Roldan, who grew to know the world well and many men, recalled the conversation of that night, and meditated upon the strange workings of the human mind: the fundamental philosophy of life differs little in the brain of the savage and the brain of the student-thinker.

"We are told that we must progress, grow better," he said.

"Hundreds and hundreds of years Indians lived and died here before the priests came. All legends say they were happy. Now they 'progress,' and suffer--in the body and in the spirit. One life is for us, another for you. Should the white man have many children and children's children until all the mountains and valleys of California are his, then will all the Indians die, even though they are treated well for they are slaves--no more. Are they happy? For what were they made? To be slaves and die from the earth before they are threescore and ten, to be no more remembered than the beasts of the field?"

"I hope you'll win to-morrow," cried Roldan, his young mind moved to pity, and profoundly disturbed. "You can never get California away from the Spaniard, and I can't wish you to; but you might, if you rallied all the Indians to you, become powerful enough to live in the way you like best, and I hope you will. Why should men say: 'I am better than you; I will make you like myself?' How do we know? I have ridden like the wind, and coliared a bull with the best vaquero in the Californias, but I am afraid my mind has had fifteen years of siesta. Now--well, I shall be governor of the Californias one day, and then I shall send all the Indians back to the mountains."

Anastacio put out his hand, and the two civilisations decreed by Nature to stand apart from the beginning to the end of time clasped in brief friendship.

"I will be your friend," said the Indian, "and the white man need not despise the friendship of a great chief. California is a fair land. Others will come to it besides the Spaniard. If Anastacio has thousands of Indians to run to his call they will fight when he bids them."

"Caramba! you are right," exclaimed Roldan. "Those Americans--"

"American boys?" asked Adan, eagerly.

"Now," said Anastacio, "I sleep. Awake me when the sky turns grey."

He stretched himself out and slept at once. The boys drew close together and speculated upon the fateful morrow. They agreed to remain close together, out of sight of the enemy, but where they could watch the Indian forces. If Anastacio fell they would flee at once.

X

The small Californian force--it numbered little over two hundred men--was under the command of Juan Pardo Mesa, a captain notable for his victorious encounters with Indians and for his knowledge of their cunning. He was on the alert at dawn next morning, and long before the sun had spurned the tops of the Coast range, his assumption of meditated treachery was confirmed. A rising wind had set the young redwoods in motion. Before long the practised eye of Captain Mesa saw an increased agitation among the feathery branches, his ear caught a slight crackling. His men were flat on the ground. He stood in the shadow of a large oak. A moment later a dusky form crept out to where the brush grew more sparsely, hesitated a moment, and apparently passed back word that all was well; he was immediately followed by many of his kind; and the lower slope of the mountain, burnt bare by fire, seemed suddenly swarming with huge black rats.

Mesa waited until they were well away from cover, then gave the expected order: two hundred muskets, carbines, and flintlock pistols were discharged, and one piece of artillery.

But Anastacio, no mean general himself, was also on the alert for the unexpected. In a few moments he had marshalled his forces in the form of a hollow square, and ordered them to discharge their arrows from a recumbent position. Owing to the heavy shadows, the aim of the Californians had been uncertain, and only a few of the Indians had fallen. Roldan and Adan were safe behind two large redwoods just above the Indian army.

The firing continued steadily all the morning, but resulted in few mortal wounds. There was not a poisoned arrow in the pueblo. The balls did more serious damage, and several Indians rolled groaning down the slope. The rest were undaunted. They were more than two to one, and had implicit faith in their chief's assurance that they were bound to rout the Spaniard.

Under cover of the cloud of smoke his weapons had raised despite a strong wind, Mesa executed two flank movements, justifying the tactics of Anastacio: he detached forty men from the main body and directed them to attack the Indians on both sides and to cut off their retreat to the forest. They were almost upon the north and south ends of Anastacio's square--after making a detour and advancing from a distance--when the boys shouted a warning. In a moment arrows were flying to right and left; and the answering volley was far more deadly than the effects of firing up hill. The Indians stood their ground, fitting their arrows with swift dexterity, encouraged by Anastacio, who glided from point to point like a hungry cobra, discharging two arrows to every man's one. His only hope was to keep the Californians at long range until losses compelled the latter to retreat: at close quarters arrows would be no match for firearms.

The battle began at five in the morning. It was at four in the afternoon that Roldan passed his hand across his burning eyeballs, then gripped Adan's arm and said through his teeth,--

"Anastacio is hit. I saw him shake from head to foot."

"Madre de dios! Shall we run?"

"Not yet. My brain is on fire. War is awful, and yet I burn to have a pistol in my hands. I am sorry for Anastacio--but Dios de mi alma!--to see a brave Spanish officer bite the dust with the arrow of a dog in his brain! Ay, he moves! He is not dead."

"His hand is as steady--but--do you notice?--all are not firing."

"The arrows are giving out. There is only one end. But I must see it through. Mary! Mary! They are breaking."

The Indians, finding themselves almost without arrows, had sprung to their feet, intending to make a rush for cover; but Mesa had anticipated this move, and almost immediately his men had closed with the savages, knocking them on the head with the butt-end of their muskets, discharging their pistols at short range. The Indians used both tooth and nail, yelling like wildcats. The cool imperturbability of the earlier part of the day had fled with their arrows. Anastacio fought like a tiger. Despite his wounded thigh he stood firmly on his feet, snatched the musket from a man his hands had throttled, and whirled it about his head, threatening death to all that approached. His face was swollen with passion, his eyes were starting from their sockets, his long hair tossed wildly. The boys watched him with cold extremities and hot cheeks and eyes. They were oblivious to the rest of the battlefield. The fate of the indomitable chief, upon whose life the freedom of a race perhaps depended, would have riveted the attention of older and wiser brains. His movements were easy to follow; he was head above all and shoulders above many.

Suddenly the boys gave a gasp. The head of Anastacio was no longer to be seen above that surging throng. Had he been wounded in a vital part? A moment later they gave a hoarse gurgling cry and clung together, shaking like children in icy water. The head of Anastacio rose again--above the crowd, then higher,--higher,--until it looked down upon the squirming mass from six feet above. It was on the end of a pole.

XI

The boys turned and fled, scrambling blindly upwards. Instinctively they ran in the direction of the pueblo, and when they were finally obliged to sit down and fight for their lost breath they realised the course they had taken.

The horror was still in their eyes, but neither spoke of what for a long while to come must be uppermost in his mind.

"I think we may as well go to the pueblo," said Roldan, as soon as he could speak. "We must have food, and we are very tired. We can rest there a few days, then take two of the horses--we can do nothing without horses--and start out again. If any of the Indians escape and come back, they will not have spirit enough left to touch us."

"Bueno," said Adan. "The Mission blankets are there and they are soft, and that oven makes good cakes. I hope the Indians go all with the soldiers. I never want to see another."

The boys resumed their flight, but more leisurely. They had no difficulty in keeping to the trail, but it wound over many a weary mile. Night comes early in the mountain forest, and before two hours had passed they were groping their way along the narrow road cut through the dense brush, and clinging to each other. They were brave lads; but long fasting, and excitement, and a terrible climax to the most trying day of their lives, had flung gunpowder among their nerves.

It was midnight when they reached the pueblo. The stars illumined fitfully the deserted huts, black in the heavy shadows. A coyote was yapping dismally, owls hooted in the forest. Both boys had a vision of deep beds and hot suppers on the ranchos of their respective parents, but they shut their teeth and raided the larder. There they found well-cured meats and dried fruits, which appeased their mighty appetites; then they went into Anastacio's hut, and wrapping themselves in the Mission blankets were soon asleep.

It was Adan who awoke Roldan violently in the morning.

"The soldiers!" he whispered hoarsely.

Roldan, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, peered through a rift between the wall of the hut and the shrunken hide which formed the door. A half dozen soldiers stood in the plaza, glancing speculatively about.

"I see no trace of them," said one. "I cannot believe they would come back to this place. Surely it was, as I said, more natural for them to hide at the edge of the forest until we had gone."

"That dog said there was food here, and that they were more afraid of us than of a long walk at night. Wherever they are, we find them. They are a prize second only to the head of Anastacio. Search the huts."

Roldan sprang to his feet, pulling Adan with him. "Come," he said; "follow me, and run as if you were as lean as a coyote. Remember they won't shoot."

He flung aside the hide door. The two boys flashed out and round the corner of the hut before the tired eyes and brains of the soldiers had time to grasp the happening. A moment later they were in hot pursuit, firing in the air, shouting terrific threats. But the rested and agile legs of the boys had a good start, and plunged into narrow ways where horses could not follow; and doubling, twisting, following paths but recently beaten by Anastacio in pursuit of deer, Roldan and Adan were soon far beyond the reach or ken of the men of war. It was an hour, however, before they thought it wise to arrest their flight and pause to recuperate in a redwood tree hollowed by fire. Two weeks of exposure and unwonted exertions had hardened Adan's superfluous flesh, and he was scarcely more spent than his clean-limbed friend, although every step had been taken with protest.

"Caramba!" he said, in a hoarse whisper at length. "When I am back on the rancho I won't walk for a year."

"You will have the habit by that time, my friend, and will walk in your sleep. When I am governor you will be generalissimo of all the forces and will keep your army as lively as an ant-hill."

"That is too long ahead, and we have not enough wind to argue about it. What are we going to do now? How shall we get horses to leave this forest? Where shall we sleep to-night? What shall we have for dinner? I could eat a whole side of venison."

"Well, you won't, my friend. Let me think."

After a time he said: "We must stay here until night. Then we will go back to the pueblo if we can find the way. As for food, we can have none to-day. There are no berries at this time of year, and we have nothing to shoot game with. Other people have gone the day without food, and we can. When we get back to the pueblo, even if we cannot reach the larder, we can find the corral without being seen. I don't believe that the soldiers have found it, and the Indians in charge of the mustangs will let us have two when they know what has happened. Now, do not let us talk. It will make us more hungry."

Adan groaned, but accepted the decree of silence. The day wore on to noon, and in the unbroken stillness the boys ventured out of the grimy tree and lay at full length on the turf. The great redwoods towered in endless corridors, their straight columns unbroken by branch or twig for a hundred and fifty feet. Through the green close arbours above came an occasional rift of sunshine, but the aisles were full of cold green light. The boys shivered in their coyote skin coats and drew close together; they dared not run about to keep warm; they must husband their strength, and hunger was biting. There was no wind in the tree-tops, no murmur of creek, only the low hum of the forest, that in their strained ear-sense grew to a roar. Finally they fell asleep, and it was dark when Roldan awoke. He shook Adan.

"Come," he said; and his partner, grumbling but acquiescent, got to his feet and tramped heavily over the soft ground.

They had fled beyond paths, and Roldan could only trust to his locality sense, which he knew to be good. But more than once they were brought to halt before a wall of brush, which no man could have penetrated without an axe. Then they would feel their way along its irregular bristling side for a mile or more before it thinned sufficiently for egress. Frequently they heard the deadly rattle, and more than once the near cry of a panther, but there was nothing to do but push on. Precautions would have availed them nothing, and there was no refuge nearer than the pueblo. Sometimes they walked down aisles unchoked by brush but full of moving shadows, above which sounded the lonely continuous hooting of the owl. Now and again bats whirred past, and once a startled wildcat scurried across the path and darted up a tree, crying with terror.

"If we only don't meet a bear," thought Roldan, who dared not speak lest his voice should shake courage and terrors apart.

It was midnight when Adan announced with what emphasis was left in him,--

"We are lost."

Roldan answered through his teeth: "Yes, but I think I hear the creek. When we find that, all we have to do is to follow it south."

"My heart is in the South," muttered Adan. "We might follow that."

"I am ashamed of you," said Roldan, with a lofty scorn which was good for five words and no more.

It was a half hour later that they stood upon the high bank of the creek and looked gratefully up at the broad strip of night light. After the dense shadows of the forest the cold light of stars seemed more radiant than noon-day.

"We cannot follow along the bank for more than a little way at a time, on account of the ferns and brush," said Roldan. "We should walk three times the distance, and perhaps get lost again. I am going to wade. Will you?"

"Madre de dios! And get rheumatism? My teeth clack together at the thought."

"You will not be able to keep still long enough to get rheumatism, my friend. By the grace of Mary we shall be on horseback all day to-morrow. The water is not a foot deep, and the chill only lasts a moment. Take off your boots."

"What is left of them," muttered Adan. But they were better than no boots, and he took them off, and slung them round his neck. Roldan scrambled down the bank and plunged into the creek. Adan, after a moment's hesitation, followed with audible reluctance. He thrust the tip of one foot into the icy water, withdrew it with a shout, tried the other; then seeing that Roldan was splashing far ahead, jumped in with both feet and ran along the slippery rocks, wondering when the change of temperature would occur. His teeth clattered loudly. He pulled in and executed a war-dance on the stones, then sat down on a fallen boulder and rubbed his feet violently. Roldan kept steadily on, mindful of his dignity as leader; but only as Adan joined him had his teeth ceased from clattering and the warmth crawled back to his feet.

Cold, hungry, inexpressibly weary, the boys plodded on, sometimes in the clear light of stars, sometimes under the chill blackness of meeting trees. Fish and other slimy things darted across their feet; they stepped to their waists into more than one treacherous pool. The dark blue of the sky had turned to grey when Roldan raised his arm and pointed to a squat dark object on the summit of the cliff.

"A hut," he said. "We are at the pueblo."

The boys crawled softly up the almost perpendicular bank and peered over the edge. To all appearances the pueblo was deserted. If the soldiers were there--and their horses were not--they slept within the huts. The animal instinct, so bravely repressed, overcame the adventurers. They ran across the open to the hut where the food was kept, and ate for fifteen minutes without speaking or taking the trouble to hide themselves.

XII

When they had satisfied their appetites they made two large packages of dried meat and fruit, tying them securely with straw to their right arms: saddle-bags there were none.

"Not a horse," whispered Adan. "Do you think the soldiers have gone?"

"I think they are lost, and as they did not stop to tie their horses when they started after us, they won't see them again until they get back to camp. Come."

Roldan peered cautiously into each of the huts in turn; all were empty. Then the boys started for the corral, which the soldiers would not have passed either on their way to the pueblo or in pursuit of the runaways. They found the Indians in charge sound asleep in their hut, and did not think it worth while to awaken them. The two mustangs they led forth, vicious brutes at best, were very restless from prolonged inactivity. Roldan's submitted to the saddle, but bolted as soon as he felt a determined pair of legs about his sides; and as our adventurer had neither whip nor spurs, all he could do was to hang on and shout to Adan to follow close. This was the only thing that Adan's mustang was willing to do, and the boys were borne blindly on, down one path, up another, plunging deeper into the black recesses of the forest until they knew no more of their whereabouts than if they had dropped from another sphere.

After many weary miles the mustangs slackened, and the boys dismounted and cut two slender but stinging whips. After that they rose once more to the proud supremacy of man over brute. But the situation was full of peril. They were hopelessly lost, the redwoods were the home of the grizzly and the panther, and they might come upon the soldiers at any moment. But there was nothing to do but to ride on, and at least they had horses and food.

They descended whenever descent was possible, for at the foot of the mountain lay the open valley; but there were no trails; in all likelihood they were where no man, red or white, had ever been before; they had to force their way where the brush was thinnest, and as often their flight was toward loftier heights.

As the day wore on the temperature fell, even in those forest depths where the sun had not penetrated for a thousand years. The beauty of the forest palled upon Roldan: those everlasting aisles with their grey motionless columns, their green sinister light, the delicate fern wood below, the dense mat of branch and leaf so high above. The redwoods oppress and terrify when they have man completely at their mercy. They look as if they could speak if they would, roar louder than the storms that have never shaken them. But they know the value of silence, and the silence of their inmost depths is awful.

After many hours the boys rode out upon a bare peak. But its outlook told them nothing. Behind rose other peaks, below was the dense primeval forest, rising and falling on other slopes. There was no glimpse of valley anywhere. The sky was heavy with the grey lurid clouds of concentrated storm.

"We will eat," said Roldan, briefly; "but not too much."

They tethered the mustangs that the beasts might eat of the abundant grass, and consumed a small quantity of their store. Then they stretched at full length on the ground to rest their weary bodies.

"Let us stay here the night," said Adan, with a cavernous yawn.

"It is hardly darker by night than by day in the forest, but perhaps it is well to rest."

"I am one ache, no more," murmured Adan, and went to sleep.

Roldan pillowed his head on his arm and for once followed lead. He awoke suddenly, his face wet and stinging. White stars were whirling, the ground was white, the forest was half obliterated.

He shook Adan and dragged him to his feet.

"We must get into the redwoods at once," he said. "We shall be buried here."

Adan gasped but cinched his saddle; the boys sprang upon the now tractable mustangs and plunged into the forest below. The brush was thin, and they pushed their way downward as rapidly as the steep descent would permit. Sometimes the forest protected them from the storm, at others the trees grew wide apart and the riders were exposed to its pitiless rush. In these open spaces they could see nothing, could only push blindly on, brushing the stinging particles from their faces, their hands and feet almost numb. The snow in the open was already as high as the horses' knees. There was no wind, only that silent sweeping of the heavens. In the depths the high branches of the redwoods groaned ominously under the stiffening weight, like giants in pain.

The forest thinned. The snow had its will of the earth. There was no refuge under the larger trees that still stood, like outposts, here and there; the branches were too high above. Once Adan suggested through his stiff lips and unruly teeth that they turn back and take refuge in some dense grove above; but Roldan shook his head peremptorily. He had heard of the fearful storms of the Sierras; they lasted for days, and the snow stood its ground for weeks. Their only hope was the valley.

But they descended only to rise again: in the white darkness of the storm they dared not attempt to skirt the base of the peaks; they must keep straight on, to the west, for there lay the valley.

Occasionally, where a grove of trees stood close and the snow lay shallow, the boys got off and wrestled, rousing the blood in their legs and arms; then urged their mustangs to greater speed. But the poor brutes were very weary, and the blood in their veins was almost torpid. Once they stood still and shook, whinnying pitifully. A huge grizzly, so powdered as to be hardly distinguishable from the drifts about him, floundered along to the right. The boys crossed themselves and awaited their fate, with the apathy of numb and despairing brains; but the monster was evidently aiming for the warmth of his home, and took no notice of the meal in four courses standing in the middle of the path.

The night deepened. The snow thickened and sped down with an audible rush, a sting in each beautiful white bee. The boys nodded, roused themselves, fell forward, their arms mechanically stiffening about the horses' necks. Once they flung out their hands and feet with a smothered shriek. A tongue of flame seemed to leap down their throats and hiss through their veins, while the world roared and heaved about them. Then all sensation was over.

XIII