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Roldan, glancing over his shoulder, saw Padre Flores return from the soldiers' quarters; but in the rancheria there was no motion but the swaying tops of the willows, and no sound anywhere but the hoot of the owl and the yap of the coyote. It was a long and lonely watch. Roldan felt as if he were suspended in air, cut off from Earth and all its details.
I have elsewhere referred to the water supply of Santa Isabel as being used for irrigation connected with San Miguel Mission. There is every evidence that a large ranchería existed at Santa Isabel, and that for many years it was one of the valued rancheros of the Mission.
You see, no man lives who ever heard it sung. The Nishinam got it from the Maidu, who got it from the Konkau, who made it. But the Nishinam and the Maidu and the Konkau are gone. Their last rancheria is not. You plowed it under, Mr. Crockett, with you bonanza gang-plowing, plow-soling farming.
It was evident, from the profound silence that reigned among these dwellings, and the absence of human forms, or implements of household use, that the rancheria was abandoned by its half nomad population. Such in reality was the fact, for it was now the very height of the dry season.
It is too bad you could not wait a year and love in your cabin at the ranchería, by a good fire, and with plenty of frijoles and tortillas in your stomachs." He dropped his sarcastic tone, and, rising to his feet, extended his right arm with a gesture of malediction. "Do you comprehend the enormity of your sin?" he shouted.
It was evident from 'Tonio's description that a rancheria of the latter had been surprised "jumped" in the vernacular just about dawn; that the Hualpais, rushing in, rejoicing in abundant breechloaders and cartridges, had shot right and left, scattering the fugitives and slaying the stay-behinds, who, crippled by wounds or cumbered by squaws and pappooses, could not get away.
He walked rapidly down the nave, trying not to hear the hollow echo of his footsteps, then opened several doors before he found the one behind which was the spiral stair leading to the belfry. His supple legs carried him swiftly up the steep ascent, and in a moment he was straining his eyes in the direction of the rancheria. The belfry was about ten feet square.
It was the custom of Doña Jacoba personally to oversee her entire establishment every day, and she always went at a different hour, that laziness might never feel sure of her back. To-day she visited the rancheria immediately after dinner, and looked through every hut with her piercing eyes.
But their legs were young and their brains eager; in little over an hour they were in sight of the Mission. It looked very white and ghostly in the pale blaze of the moon, a huge mass, full of prayer and discontent. Close beside it, but without the walls, the Indians slept in the rancheria, quiescent enough, for they had no Anastacio.
The Indians must, however, have had information by their scouts of the expedition; for, when the party reached the rancheria, they found it deserted not even a solitary squaw left among the huddled-up collection of huts. Determined not to be foiled, the party set to work to demolish the village.
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