The Little Lady of Lagunitas. Richard Savage

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СКАЧАТЬ terrors always haunt these night hours.

      To be laughed at on rousing the camp? Never! But his inner nature tingles now with the mysterious thrill of danger. Eagerly he scans his post. The bleak blasts have benumbed his senses.

      Far away to the graceful groves and Gallic beauties of Belle Etoile his truant thoughts will fly once more. He wonders why he threw up his law studies under his uncle, Judge Valois, to rove in this wilderness.

      Reading the exploits of Fremont fascinated the gallant lad.

      As his foot falls wearily, the flame of his enthusiasm flickers very low.

      Turning at the end of his post he starts in alarm. Whizz! around his neck settles a pliant coil, cast twenty yards, like lightning. His cry for help is only a gurgle. The lasso draws tight. Dark forms dart from the chaparral. A rough hand stifles him. His arms are bound. A gag is forced in his mouth. Dragged into the bushes, his unknown captors have him under cover.

      The boy feels with rage and shame his arms taken from his belt. His rifle is gone. A knife presses his throat. He understands the savage hiss, "Vamos adelante, Gringo!" The party dash through the chaparral.

      Valois, bruised and helpless, reflects that his immediate death seems not to be his captors' will. Will the camp be attacked? Who are these? The bitter words show them to be Jose Castro's scouts. Is there a force near? Will they attack? All is silent.

      In a few minutes an opening is reached. Horses are there. Forced to mount, Maxime Valois rides away, a dozen guards around him. Grim riders in scrapes and broad sombreros are his escort. The guns on their shoulders and their jingling machetes prove them native cavalry.

      For half an hour Valois is busy keeping his seat in the saddle. These are no amiable captors. The lad's heart is sad. He speaks Spanish as fluently as his native French. Every word is familiar.

      A camp-fire flickers in the live-oaks. He is bidden to dismount. The lair of the guerillas is safe from view of the "pathfinders."

      The east shows glimmers of dawn. The prisoner warms his chilled bones at the fire. He sees a score of bronzed faces scowling at him. Preparations for a meal are hastened. A swarthy soldier, half-bandit, half-Cossack in bearing, tells him roughly to eat. They must be off.

      Maxime already realizes he has been designedly kidnapped. His capture may provide information for Castro's flying columns. These have paralleled their movements, from a distance, for several weeks. Aware of the ferocity of these rancheros, he obeys instantly each order. He feigns ignorance of the language. Tortillas, beans, some venison, with water, make up the meal. It is now day. Valois eats. He knows his ordeal. He throws himself down for a rest. He divines the journey will be hurried. A score of horses are here tied to the trees. In a half hour half of these are lazily saddled. Squatted around, the soldiers keep a morose silence, puffing the corn-husk cigarette. The leader gives rapid directions. Valois now recalls his locality as best he can. Fremont's camp on Gavilan Peak commands the Pajaro, Salinas, and Santa Clara. A bright sun peeps over the hills. If taken west, his destination must be Monterey; if south, probably Los Angeles; and if north, either San Francisco Bay or the Sacramento, the headquarters of the forces of Alta California.

      Dragged like a beast from his post, leaving the lines unguarded! What a disgrace! Bitterly does he remember his reveries of the home he may never again see.

      The party mounts. Two men lead up a tame horse without bridle. The leader approaches and searches him. All his belongings fill the saddle-pouches of the chief. A rough gesture bids him mount the horse, whose lariat is tied to a guard's saddle. Valois rages in despair as the guard taps his own revolver. Death on the slightest suspicious movement, is the meaning of that sign.

      With rough adieus the party strike out eastwardly toward the San Joaquin. Steadily following the lope of the taciturn leader, they wind down Pacheco Pass. Valois' eyes rove over the beautiful hills of the Californian coast. Squirrels chatter on the live-oak branches, and the drumming grouse noisily burst out of their manzanita feeding bushes.

      Onward, guided by distant peak and pass, they thread the trail. No word is spoken save some gruff order. Maxime's captors have the hang-dog manner of the Californian. They loll on their mustangs, lazily worrying out the long hours. A rest is taken for food at noon. The horses are herded an hour or so and the advance resumed.

      Nightfall finds Valois in a squalid adobe house, thirty miles from Gavilan Peak. An old scrape is thrown him. His couch is the mud floor.

      The youth sleeps heavily. His last remembrance is the surly wish of a guard that Commandante Miguel Peralta will hang the accursed Gringo.

      At daybreak he is roused by a carelessly applied foot. The dejected "pathfinder" begins his second day of captivity. He fears to converse. He is warned with curses to keep silent. In the long day Maxime concludes that the Mexicans suspect treachery by Captain Fremont's "armed exploration in the name of science."

      These officials hate new-comers. Valois had been, like other gilded youth of New Orleans, sent to Paris by his opulent family. He knows the absorbing interest of the South in Western matters. Stern old Tom Benton indicated truly the onward march of the resistless American. In his famous speech, while the senatorial finger pointed toward California, he said with true inspiration: "There is the East; there is the road to India."

      All the adventurers of the South are ready to stream to the West. Maxime knows the jealous Californian officials. The particulars of Fremont's voyage of 1842 to the Rockies, and his crossing to California in 1843, are now history. His return on the quest, each time with stronger parties and a more formidable armament, is ominous. It warns the local hidalgos that the closed doors of the West must yield to the daring touch of the American—manifest destiny.

      The enemy are hovering around the "pathfinders" entrenched on the hills; they will try to frighten them into return, and drive them out of the regions of Alta California. Some sly Californian may even contrive an Indian attack to obliterate them.

      Valois fears not the ultimate fate of the friends he has been torn away from. The adventurous boy knows he will be missed at daybreak. The camp will be on the alert to meet the enemy. Their keen-eyed scouts can read the story of his being lassoed and carried away from the traces of the deed.

      The young rover concludes he is to be taken before some superior officer, some soldier charged with defending Upper California. This view is confirmed. Down into the valley of the San Joaquin the feet of the agile mustangs bear the jaded travellers.

      They cross the San Joaquin on a raft, swimming their horses. Valois sees nothing yet to hint his impending fate. Far away the rich green billows of spring grass wave in the warm sun. Thousands of elk wander in antlered armies over the meadows. Gay dancing yellow antelope bound over the elastic turf. Clouds of wild fowl, from the stately swan to the little flighty snipe, crowd the tule marshes of this silent river. It is the hunter's paradise. Wild cattle, in sleek condition, toss their heads and point their long, polished horns. Mustangs, fleet as the winds, bound along, disdaining their meaner brethren, bowing under man's yoke. At the occasional mud-walled ranches, vast flocks of fat sheep whiten the hills.

      Maxime mentally maps the route he travels. Alas! no chance of escape exists. At the first open attempt a rifle-ball, or a blow from a razor-edged machete, would end his earthly wanderings. Despised, shunned by even the wretched women at the squalid ranchos, he feels utterly alone. The half-naked children timidly flee from him. The wicked eyes of his guards never leave him. He knows a feeling animates the squad, that he would be well off their hands by a use of the first handy limb and a knotted lariat. The taciturn chief watches over him. He guards an ominous silence.

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