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Ay, a joy! Spite of poverty, spite of danger, spite of all that cruelty and oppression could do, it would still be a joy to hold her child in her arms. The baby was born before winter came. An old Indian woman, the same whose house they had hired in Saboba, had come up to live with Ramona. She was friendless now, her daughter having died, and she thankfully came to be as a mother to Ramona.
It was indeed a priceless treasure; a long irrigating ditch led from it down into the bottom, where lay the cultivated fields, many acres in wheat, barley, and vegetables. Alessandro himself had fields there from which they would harvest all they needed for the horses and their cow all winter, in case pasturage failed. If the whites took away this water, Saboba would be ruined.
We could live there; but it would be no more than to live,, it is very small, the valley. Majella would be afraid?" "Yes, Alessandro, I would be afraid, all alone on a high mountain. Oh, do not let us go there! Try something else first, Alessandro. Is there no other Indian village you know?" "There is Saboba," he said, "at foot of the San Jacinto Mountain; I had thought of that.
Ramona knew many things that Alessandro did not. While he had been away on his hunts, she had had speech with many a one he never saw. She had gone to the store and post-office several times, to exchange baskets or lace for flour, and she had heard talk there which disquieted her. She did not believe that Saboba was safe.
During the summer that she and Alessandro had lived in Saboba he had seen her many times, and had been impressed by her rare quality. His children knew her and loved her; had often been in her house; his wife had bought her embroidery.
For the Indians, silly things, had a terror of the upper heights of San Jacinto; they believed the Devil lived there, and money would not hire one of the Saboba Indians to go so high as this valley which Alessandro had discovered. Fiercely he gloated over each one of these features of safety in their hiding-place.
In a week, Alessandro appeared again at the Agency doctor's door. This time he had come with a request which to his mind seemed not unreasonable. He had brought Baba for the doctor to ride. Could the doctor then refuse to go to Saboba? Baba would carry him there in three hours, and it would be like a cradle all the way. Alessandro's name was in the Agency books.
They lose many themselves, and they say it is not so much harm to take one when they can get it. This man Merrill, they say, branded twenty steers for his own, last spring, when he knew they were Saboba cattle!" "Why did they not make him give them up?" cried Ramona. "Did not Majella see to-day why they can do nothing? There is no help for us, Majella, only to hide; that is all we can do!"
One day she had heard a man say, "If there is a drought we shall have the devil to pay with our stock before winter is over." "Yes," said another; "and look at those damned Indians over there in Saboba, with water running all the time in their village! It's a shame they should have that spring!" Not for worlds would Ramona have told this to Alessandro.
"No," said she; "he never heern uv any Agency till I wuz tellin' him, jest naow. We knoo him, him 'n' her, over 'n San Jacinto. He lives in Saboba. He's never been to San Bernardino sence the Agent come aout." "Well, is he going to put his name down on the books?" said the doctor, impatiently. "You ought to have taken him to the Agent first."
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