Chapter 9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do you--ah--like the priest, Don Jim?"

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

"What did you come to California for?"

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

"It's very hot in the valleys."

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

"Do you often go to the Mission?"

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

"No," said Roldan; but he guessed.

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

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

"Shake."

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

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

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

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

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

"I could get them from the priest--"

"No! no!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hi, there, young uns."

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

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

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

"Where's Rafael?" demanded Roldan.

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

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

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

"Did he say nothing about the priest?"

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

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

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

"But the horses? the horses?"

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

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

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

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

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

"I have."

"Be you meditatin' revenge?"

"A Spaniard never forgives an insult."

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

"I have, and worse--for him."

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

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

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

"I must think about it, Don Jim."

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

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

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

XXI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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