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As we have before remarked, the place in which the Rancheros had made their camp was a natural recess in the mountains. It was surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, the tops of which seemed to pierce the clouds, and whose sides were so steep that a goat could scarcely have found footing thereon.
He knows this country well. He knows, for instance, that Gamacho, the Deputy from Javira, has been nothing else but a 'tramposo' of the commonest sort, a petty pedlar of the Campo, till he managed to get enough goods on credit from Anzani to open a little store in the wilds, and got himself elected by the drunken mozos that hang about the Estancias and the poorest sort of rancheros who were in his debt.
We were extended a cordial reception by Don Mateo, and after the chronicle of happenings since the two rancheros last met had been reviewed, the motive of our sudden return was mentioned.
He and I had a fight not half an hour ago, and, if Antoine had only stayed away a few minutes longer, Arthur would have been a prisoner too." At this moment, a party of Rancheros galloped up, led by Uncle James and Mr. Harris, and accompanied by the dogs, which the boys who had intended to devote the most of their time to stalking the elks, which were abundant in the mountains had left at home.
After proceeding along the stream for three or four miles we saw a column of smoke on the prairie, and supposing it arose from a camp of Mexican rancheros catching wild horses or wild cattle, and even wild mules, which were very numerous in that section of country along the Nueces River, we thought we would join the party and see how much success they were having, and observe the methods employed in this laborious and sometimes dangerous vocation.
Maude! why, you never imagined that Lady Maude would leave comfort and civilisation for this bush life, with its rancheros and rattlesnakes. I confess, said he, with a bitter laugh, 'I did not think either of you were bent on being Paul or Virginia. 'Have I your lordship's permission to ask her own judgment in the matter: I mean with the assurance of its not being biassed by you?
"Oh, that was our Vigilance Headquarters of fifty-six, where we hung Casey and Cora," elucidated the Forty-niner. "Help," gasped the Bostonian, sinking upon the bench. "Tell him," I nodded to the miner. "The Tehama House, on the waterfront at California and Sansome, was the swell hotel for army and navy people and all the Spanish rancheros when they came to town.
Add to these diversities, Indian peons in ancient sandals, women dressed as in the days of Cortez and Pizarro, Mexican vendors of every kind, Jewish traders, negro servants, rancheros curvetting on their horses, Apache and Comanche braves on spying expeditions: and, in this various crowd, yet by no means of it, small groups of Americans; watchful, silent, armed to the teeth: and the mind may catch a glimpse of what the streets of San Antonio were in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-five.
"The rancheria of Don Ramon was one of the first attacked, and the proud old Don and his three sons, with most of their rancheros and vaqueros, were surprised and slaughtered. Of my own family, my sister Conchita, a girl of sixteen, and myself, alone escaped death; and we, with many other captives, were hurried off in charge of a small detachment of Camanches.
I was camping out, but got so sick that the two rancheros took me in and tended me. One is an old bear hunter, seventy-two years old, and a captain from the Mexican War; the other a pilgrim, and one who was out with the bear flag and under Fremont when California was taken by the States. They are both true frontiersmen, and most kind and pleasant.
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