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He said that all the houses were empty, and, if perchance one were occupied, no one would turn out so late to supply us. All were extremely hungry, as we had eaten nothing since morning except a tortilla or two with some eggs as we rode along. Manuel, Louis and Frank slept in the loft, Ramon and I upon the floor below. The two mozos with the saddles slept in the other hut.
He had gone with them, and she had not seen him since; so she had left the food she had been preparing half-cooked on the extinct embers and had crawled out as far as the harbour, where she had heard that some town mozos had been killed on the morning of the riot.
Under questioning of the padre, whose honorable French blood boils at the domain being made a nest of assassins, the Don describes Joaquin's lurking-places. With one or two mozos, Valois visits all the old camps of the freebooters, within seventy-five miles. He leaves his men at Lagunitas for safety. He threads the fastnesses of the inviolate forests.
The coffee had been gathered for the season; the chief man of the place was in the mountains; there was no town government; neither prayers, threats, nor bribes produced food for ourselves and our horses; two or three men around the place would not be hired as mozos.
Bright sun flashes dancing over the hills awoke the drowsy sacristan. The hallowed "Bells of Carmel" called the faithful to mass. Monterey, in reverse order of its social grades, rose yawning from the feast. Fandangos and bailes of the day of victory tired all. Lazy "mozos" lolled about the streets. A few revellers idly compared notes of the day's doings.
He lives to be only a sullen, brooding protest in the face of an accidental progress. Standing on his porch he can see the "mozos," under requisition, gathering up his choicest horses by the fifties. They are destined for the necessary remount of the victors. After greeting his patient helpmeet, henceforth to be the partner of his sorrows, he sends for the padre and his major-domo.
Our three mozos who had been paid, and ordered to go simply to that village, and there to leave our things, had left before we arrived. The man who had come with us, we had dismissed before we realized conditions.
It was with great difficulty and much bluster that we secured the food we needed and the mozos. When the mozos came, three out of the four whom it was necessary for us to employ, were mere boys, the heartiest and best of whom was scarcely ten years old. In vain we declared that it was impossible for such little fellows to carry the burdens that needed transportation.
Bundles were restrapped, the damp provisions laid out in the sun, and the clothing of the party, even to the most intimate garment, was taken down to the river to be refreshed and furbished up. A common disaster had created a common cause amongst the whole troop, and with one accord everybody peons, mozos, interpreters, bark-strippers and gentlemen set in motion a grand cleaning-up day.
We went once to see the process while we were in the capital, and were very much amused. The horses had been to the place before, and turned in of their own accord through a gateway in a shabby back street; and when they got into the courtyard, began to dance about in such a frantic manner that the mozos could hardly hold them in while their saddles and bridles were being taken off.
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