HENDERSON had waited all that day in the appointed place for Toberman, who was to bring him news of what he had learned regarding the feasibility of escaping out of that country by the northern road. It was within half an hour of sunset now, and no sign of Toberman.
Although he was well equipped with horse, pistol and clothing which Toberman had supplied him, out of his own resources, the overseer had given him to understand, placing the fugitive under no obligation on that score to the owner of the ranch, Henderson hesitated over making a start toward Monterey. Since coming to the Sprague ranch he had learned more of Abrahan Garvanza's power and influence in that part of California. A feudal baron never lived who could stretch a longer arm.
The governor of California, now stationed at Los Angeles, that pueblo having been made the capital lately, was a man under Don Abrahan's control. The forty soldiers who garrisoned the capital, given the choice between service in this distant land and completing their sentences for various felonies in the prisons at home, were at the beck and call of Don Abrahan, the general in command being a relative of the Garvanza family, owing his station to its wide influence.
Toberman had told Henderson, and Helena Sprague had confirmed it, that the news of his escape from Don Abrahan's enforced service would have been carried to Monterey by the third day, incredible as it appeared to him. News spread with great rapidity among the Indians and lawless Mexicans who worked as vaqueros on the cattle ranches, and Don Abrahan had posted a reward of twenty dollars, gold, for the fugitive's capture and return.
Twenty dollars gold on the California coast in those pastoral days was equal to four head of cattle. A laborer would toil many months to earn that much. A vaquero did not gain a sum like it in half a year's riding after the herds. It would not be a matter of enmity toward him, Henderson understood, but the plain business one of making a handsome sum of money quickly, that would set the hand of every man, high and low, between Los Angeles and Monterey against his passage.
But there was an obscure way through the mountains, Toberman had told him, long and rough, that might lead to freedom if a trustworthy guide could be found. There seemed to be none in his employ whom he would trust in that capacity. It was on this business that Toberman had engaged to return this day and report.
Henderson watched the valley for his coming from the peak of a hill which seemed a mountain that had sunk into the earth, a feature common to those rugged foothills. There was spread in the broad valley, running up into the inlets of the canyons, a haze of such density that it seemed as if the sea must have swept in to reclaim its ancient domain. This was as blue as the smoke of woodfires, the Indian summer haze of other lands intensified until it seemed almost palpable; blue as the upper ether of the clearest October skies.
This strange inflooding of what seemed smoke from mysterious and hidden fires obscured the view of the valley, where it stood at a level against the walls of the hills as definitely marked as water. Above this level the little mountains rose clear and sharp. Henderson gazed out over this transformation, moved by a strange feeling of friendliness and desire for this land.
An hour ago the sun had fallen brightly upon garish shoulder of scrub-patched hill, upon yellow break of sand in the valley among the green. It had revealed harshly the forbidding features of the country, as daylight strips an aged beauty of her sad pretense. Now a veil had been drawn; the sublimity of the change was such as hurt the heart with longing for the sympathetic vibration that could quiver with it and make it wholly understood.
Henderson gave up his vigil on the hill-top at dusk, returning to his camp. This was a little hut built of boulders from a mountain stream, laid together with mud, a sheep-herder's shelter against the winter rains. The place was a sequestered canyon, many miles from the homestead of the ranch, unfrequented by herdsmen at this season. Toberman had assured the fugitive that he might rest in security there until his affairs took a better turn.
This feeling, doubtful at first, had gradually laid its spell over Henderson as the days passed without sight of any human invasion. Toberman had conducted him to the place secretly, at night, by cunning ways which he believed left no track. Henderson's surprise was the greater, as a consequence of all this caution, to find Simon sitting placidly in the cabin door when he came down from watching the valley for Toberman.
Simon sat with his long knees updrawn, hands idly hooked in front of them, in the patient, immobile fashion such as becomes a habit in people only who have served long in subjugation and waited without hope. The tragedy of his race was in his pose, the watcher who had been set over other men's treasures, none of which he ever was destined to touch or share. But in Simon's case, at least, it was only a racial trait. There was nothing of humility in him, even in the presence of Don Abrahan, although of patience for long and unrewarded vigils he must have owned his share.
He rose at Henderson's approach, unfolding his thin length with considerable spryness, advancing with hand extended in demonstration of keen friendship.
"Is it you, my little friend Gabriel?" he hailed, great token of pleasure in his voice. "I thought you were dead, I thought the wolves had made a dinner on you. Come on, my boy—how are you, how have you passed?"
Henderson's horse was picketed some distance down the canyon; Simon was directly in the way between them. Henderson distrusted the friendly show, although Simon appeared to be unarmed and quite genuine in his expression of pleasure. There seemed little warrant for drawing a weapon on him, although the thick growth of shrubs and small trees around the cabin might hide twenty of Don Abrahan's men.
Henderson replied to the flood of affectionate inquiry that all was well with him; asked of Simon's family, according to the custom, shook hands with him, accepted a cigarette. He wondered whether Toberman had betrayed him, dismissing the suspicion at once as unworthy.
He could not know, certainly, of the little talk between Don Abrahan and Simon the night before, or of the small pieces of gold that had passed from the patron's hand in the dark. He could not have known, indeed, that the old men who sit in the sun, wrapped in introspection, see more than passes by them in the road.
"So, then, all is forgiven, my little Gabriel," Simon hastened to explain, with evidence of great joy in his news. "Don Abrahan has sent me, on the directions for finding you that the good John Toberman gave us. I have come with Don Abrahan's forgiveness in my hand for the wrong you did the good patron in running away from him. As for the little blow you gave Roberto, there is nobody in thirty miles that does not say bravo to that deed."
Simon found English too slow for his tidings. He trusted to his late pupil in his native idiom to understand.
"Toberman told you where to come, did he?"
Henderson questioned that declaration; it set a new current of suspicion and distrust running. Yet, on the other hand, Toberman might have sent Simon, saving himself the time from his activities that the journey would take. It seemed only the natural thing for a man of Toberman's consequence to do. He could not be expected to ride messenger in a matter that had lost its bottom like a barrel in the sun.
It must be that Don Abrahan had seen a new light. Perhaps the long-expected news had come from the north that the United States had seized California and added it to its domain. In such case, Don Abrahan's forgiveness would find a ready explanation.
"He says to tell you," Simon replied, "that there is no longer any need for you to think of going away to the north, and Don Abrahan speaks in the same voice. Don Abrahan says he will get you a ticket home in a ship that is in the harbor now, loading hides. It is a Boston ship, with such trees sticking out of it that it made my head swim to look at the tops of them. Yes. I, myself, saw this ship three days ago at the harbor. So you will return?"
"Are you here alone, Simon? there's no treachery in this?"
"As I hope to have two teeth when I am ninety, I am here alone, Gabriel."
"Where is your horse?"
"Down there in the canyon with yours, like a man that has come to dinner with his friend."
"And Don Abrahan said he'd let it all pass, the little trouble with Roberto, and everything?"
"Don Abrahan said, 'Tell my little son Gabriel that all is forgiven.' He said the ship would sail in three days. We must hurry, Gabriel."
"First, we can't do better than imitate our horses," Henderson said, his confidence growing, suspicion all but dispelled. "Let's get some supper before we start, Simon. I'm hungry; your news is good for the appetite."
Simon was heartily in favor of the refreshment. He bestirred himself to assist, with much talk and many English oaths. The firelight revealed the same lively satisfaction in his face as quickened his words, as if Henderson's absolution warmed him like a fire built to cheer another man.
Although largely assured by Simon's manner of open honesty, Henderson watched him closely. He had heard the mule-driver air his peculiar morals often enough to ground a deep and abiding distrust of his ability to do anything exactly straightforward. Simon was apparently unarmed, but Henderson suspected that a pistol was concealed somewhere in his loose clothing, ready to his hand.
"Don Abrahan has come to Helena Sprague's ranch, where he is waiting to welcome you and take you to his breast," Simon said, sitting in the light of the little fire after the hastily-prepared supper had been eaten. "We think he has found out something about you, that you are the son of a family, or something grand."
"And Roberto? is he there?"
"Roberto went on to Monterey today, I heard it said. Seven doctors! what a dark night it is here in the hills!"
"Tet will be darker before it's lighter. We'd better go."
"Yes, the ship will not wait, Don Abrahan will wonder at our delay. What was that?"
Simon started, listening, hand lifted to impose silence.
"Coyotes, very likely," Henderson replied, unconcerned. "They come around here at night."
"It sounded like a horse." Simon rose, leaning into the dark, listening hard. "If mine has got loose!"
He walked away a little distance, going softly, almost immediately disappearing in the dark, which was deeper for the wooded side of the canyon forming the background of the camp. Henderson heard him swearing presently around the corner of the hut, disturbing the bushes softly as if he sought a passage through.
"A bird in the bushes, I think," Simon said, turning back. "Do you leave your fire uncovered these dry days?"
"I drown it," Henderson said.
"Go ahead, then; we must get down out of this dark place. Don Abrahan will think I'm slower than seven doctors."
Henderson took up the pail to pour what water it contained over the dying fire. He was standing with it poised, held in both hands, when something came toward him with the swishing sound of a bird's wing from Simon's direction. Quick as the leaping of his intuitive warning that treachery was afoot behind him, Henderson stooped and sprang aside.
But Simon, with all the vaquero's cunning in casting the lariat, had planned his part too carefully, and risked too much, to fail. The rope fell true to calculation, tightening with Simon's vicious jerk, binding Henderson's arms to his body, one impotent hand within a few inches of his pistol. Simon threw all his sinewy strength into the struggle that followed, cutting Henderson's resistance short by dragging him to the ground. In a moment additional coils of rope webbed the overtrustful sailor, binding him hopelessly.
Nothing was said between the men while this treacherous capture and desperate resistance was going forward. Now, when Simon had his prize securely tied and thrown on the ground, he stirred up the fire, added branches of dry cedar, and blew it to a blaze.
"So I, without a pistol on my body, take this smart Yankee and tie him like a hog," Simon boasted, great and arrogant satisfaction in his voice. He lifted his arms to display his body free of a belted pistol, and sat down near the fire, his back against a small tree.
"I'll remember this treachery, Simon, in the day that will come," Henderson said.
"The day that is coming for you is one when Roberto will cut you to pieces with his whip," Simon sneered. "Well, there is no hurry now. We will wait till daylight comes, then ride down the canyon. It would be foolish to arrive at midnight, for Don Abrahan would be asleep."
Simon smoked a while, legs stretched toward the fire, blowing smoke luxuriously, chin lifted high.
"What did I say to them when I left my pistol behind, all the foolish ones looking at me like men whose jaws were out of joint? I said, 'I need no pistol for this work. I am going to catch a Yankee, and that is not the same as a man.' When they see me come back with you, tied like a pig for sale in the plaza! Seven doctors, what a laugh!"