Anastacio flushed under his thick skin. "Good. I will double the ransom--and the guard."
"The conscription will be over in a few weeks--"
"You could not go before. We too must hide. Of course the soldiers are behind. I have many scouts watching. Now go to sleep."
The following week was clear and bright, but very cold. The boys, bred in the warm basin of California, must have suffered had not Anastacio ordered one of his minions to make them coat and boots from the skin of the coyote. Every morning the chief drilled his men with the tactics of a born commander who had let no opportunity for observation escape him.
The military discipline of the pueblo was only relaxed for three hours in the afternoon, during which time the Indians were given full taste of the freedom they coveted that they might battle for it the more passionately when the time came. They gambled, slept, shot game in the forest, exercised the horses, which were in corral about a mile from the camp. The boys shot deer with Anastacio, and wrestled in the plaza.
Occasionally the taciturn Indian unbent when sitting by the great bonfire in the open at night, and told wild tales of savage life before the padres came. Roldan admired his splendid supple body and fearless manhood, but the Indian was too sinister to inspire affection. Adan was loudly bored. Roldan's ardent imagination sustained him.
At the end of the week the scouts having failed to discover any sign of the enemy, Anastacio determined to go down to the river in the valley for a fortnight's salmon fishing. He, too, was bored. The fangs of civilisation are long and tenacious.
It was on a brilliant winter's morning that Anastacio, his captives, and his five hundred men wound their way down through the cold forest on the mountain into the soft warm air of the valley. There had been no rain for three weeks, and the river was not more than half full; and it was very quiet. They camped on the bank, well away from the scattered groups of trees, that they might not lose a ray of sunshine; and Roldan and Adan forgot that they were under constant surveillance. There were no tents; they slept in the open air, the boys in the centre of a square of Indians. During the day they caught many fine salmon, and salted what they did not eat, to sell to the rancheros.
It was on the sixth night that Roldan, who was wakeful, suddenly raised himself on his elbow and listened intently. Far away, above the murmur of the river, the audible slumbers of the camp, he heard a low, precise, monotonous sound. He knew what it meant. For a moment he hesitated. The chances of escape seemed to grow less daily. It was true that he was in no danger, that he would eventually be restored to his parents--but with his adventures cut short. He was fond of his home, but it was always there, and he was keen for variety: his life had been very uneventful.
On the other hand, if that advancing army conquered the Indians, might not his and Adan's captivity be far more distasteful than it was at present? He sprang up and called Anastacio. In a second that warrior was on his feet and had leaped over his alert sentinels into the square.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Listen."
Anastacio threw himself full length and laid his ear to the ground. A moment later he was erect again. He caught Roldan by one shoulder and Adan by the other. By this time every Indian in the camp was pressing about his chief.
"They are not two miles away," said Anastacio. "And the dawn will be here in an hour. There are ten miles between us and the mountains. I don't wish to fight in the open without knowing their numbers."
Roldan danced up and down with sudden excitement. "I have a plan," he cried. "You can trust me. I don't want to go back."
Anastacio bent his keen malevolent eyes close above the young Spaniard's, then loosened his hold.
"Bueno," he said. "I trust you."
"The straw," said Roldan. "Bring it all here."
Anastacio gave the order, and an immense carreta of straw was trundled up.
