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We accepted an invitation to remain for dinner, as several hours had elapsed since our arrival. In company with the corporal, I attended to our horses, leaving the two rancheros absorbed in a discussion of Texas fever, rumors of which were then attracting widespread attention in the north along the cattle trails.
The next event historically which tended to the disruption of the policy of seclusion was the discovery of gold upon the Pacific slope, which in three years replaced the few insinuating priests and indolent rancheros, who had previously formed the white population of the coast, with a hundred thousand eager gold-hunters.
I don't want it; the land is good enough for me; I shall have my vaqueros and rancheros to look after the crops and the cattle, and they won't trouble you, for their sheds and barns will be two miles away. You can stay there as long as you like, and go when you choose. You might like to try it for a spell; it's all the same to me.
In advance of them, however, had spread far and wide the tidings of who they were, what they proposed to do, and where they were going, and before they could cross into Mexico they were attacked by a party of ex-Confederates and renegade Mexican rancheros.
He had lived among the Rancheros long enough to know that they were very poor marksmen, and that they could not boast of their swiftness of foot; and, having escaped the lasso, his spirits rose again, and hope lent him wings. He heard Antoine crushing through the bushes in pursuit, but the sound grew fainter and fainter as he sped on his way.
As the season for rejoicing drew near, the rancheros of the neighboring haciendas, together with the Indians of the distant pueblos and half-wild hill tribes, chance strangers and adventurers, streamed toward Santa Fé and swarmed within her walls; some eager for trade and barter, but most of them bent upon pleasure.
The rancheros ride the Plains the year round, and the cattle flourish upon the food which Nature provides in the summer the fresh grass, and in the winter the same converted into hay which has been cured upon the ground. An important railway-centre is Pueblo, and iron highways radiate from it to the four cardinal points.
The superior minds among the priests and rancheros can only explain the long ignorance of the gold deposits by the absolute brutishness of the hill tribes. Their knowledge of metals was absolutely nothing. Beyond flint-headed spears, their bows and arrows, and a few mats, baskets, and skin robes, they had no arts or useful handicraft.
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.
Finally it was decided that Benito only would accompany the expedition. The talk fell upon other matters. Alcalde Bartlett had been discredited, though not officially, since his return from capture by the rancheros. He was soon to be displaced and there would be no further commandeering of horses and cattle.
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