<SPAN name="chap09"></SPAN>
<h3> IX </h3>
<p>That evening Anastacio called Roldan to him.</p>
<p>"I fear treachery," he said. "Who can trust five hundred men that have
learned too much? And the white men, they have better brains than mine.
I watch to-night. Will you watch with me, senor?—that I can sleep
before morning and rest for the fight."</p>
<p>"I will," said Roldan, enthusiastically. "And Adan also?"</p>
<p>"It matters not."</p>
<p>When the dusk was so thick in the aisles that every moving frond looked
like a man looming suddenly, one of the sentinels returned with the
news that the paper had been taken from the tree, and that the
Californians had pitched tents, and to all appearance were at rest for
the night.</p>
<p>It was not likely that the enemy would venture into the forest at
night. They were not a large body, they were not pressed for time, nor
were they the heroes of many wars. The Indians were comparatively safe
until morning; nevertheless, Anastacio was too good a general to relax
vigilance. When night came he and the two boys went down the mountain
and sent the outpost back to sleep. They ventured out where the trees
grew far apart, and the brilliant stars of California illumined the
great valley like so many thousand watch-fires.</p>
<p>The three sat down side by side, their gaze directed steadily downward
and outward.</p>
<p>"Why do you fight at all?" asked Roldan. "You could stay in these
mountains until the Californians were dust, and not be caught."</p>
<p>"And live like hunted beasts. I like the valley; the sun in winter, the
cool mountains in summer. If I am victor to-morrow, all the Indians in
California will call me chief. They will run here from every Mission
and hacienda, and from every hill and mountain, like little ones to
their good father; and we will drive the priests out of the country,
and make the hidalgos, the caballeros, the soft silk-dressed donas our
friends or our slaves—as they wish. California belongs to us. The
Great Spirit put us here, not the white man. If it was for them why did
they not grow out of the earth as we did? Why were we put here at all
if our land was not for us? We were happy until these priests came to
drive us mad making boots and mud bricks and wine all day, driven like
dogs to the kennel, flogged when we wanted to lie in the sun—"</p>
<p>"But, Anastacio," interrupted Roldan, who had listened to this strange
outburst with the vague consciousness that the soul of an expiring race
had opened its lips for a brief moment, "you are far more clever than
most Indians. If it were not for the priests you would be no better
than the most ignorant of them."</p>
<p>"If I am clever now, senor, was I not clever in the beginning? You do
not make cake out of bran. The Great Spirit sent his light into me and
said: 'Thou shalt be a great chief.' I could have done as well and
better without the priests. What good did it do me to read and tell my
beads and make chocolate? Was I happy at the Mission? Not for one moon,
senor. I felt as if I had a wild beast chained in me that choked and
panted for the free life of my youth, of my fathers. I ran away from
the Mission twenty-three times—and was brought back and flogged. Many
times I would have crushed my head with a stone had it not been that
all the other Indians of the Mission ran to me like dogs, and that I
could make them tremble with a word and obey with a look. I knew that
the Great Spirit had given me what these poor creatures had not, and
that one day I would give California to them again. It has begun."</p>
<p>"But we have better things to eat and drink and more comfortable houses
and clothes than you have in your pueblos. I like what the priests call
'civilisation.'"</p>
<p>"It is for the white man, not for the Indian with a skin like the earth
and a heart like the wild-cat. If we did not know of fine bread and
thin wine and heavy shoes and cursed bags about our legs we should not
want them. Padre Flores says that he and the other priests came here to
make us happy. Why not let us be happy in our own way? We needed no
teaching."</p>
<p>Years after, Roldan, who grew to know the world well and many men,
recalled the conversation of that night, and meditated upon the strange
workings of the human mind: the fundamental philosophy of life differs
little in the brain of the savage and the brain of the student-thinker.</p>
<p>"We are told that we must progress, grow better," he said.</p>
<p>"Hundreds and hundreds of years Indians lived and died here before the
priests came. All legends say they were happy. Now they 'progress,' and
suffer—in the body and in the spirit. One life is for us, another for
you. Should the white man have many children and children's children
until all the mountains and valleys of California are his, then will
all the Indians die, even though they are treated well for they are
slaves—no more. Are they happy? For what were they made? To be slaves
and die from the earth before they are threescore and ten, to be no
more remembered than the beasts of the field?"</p>
<p>"I hope you'll win to-morrow," cried Roldan, his young mind moved to
pity, and profoundly disturbed. "You can never get California away from
the Spaniard, and I can't wish you to; but you might, if you rallied
all the Indians to you, become powerful enough to live in the way you
like best, and I hope you will. Why should men say: 'I am better than
you; I will make you like myself?' How do we know? I have ridden like
the wind, and coliared a bull with the best vaquero in the Californias,
but I am afraid my mind has had fifteen years of siesta. Now—well, I
shall be governor of the Californias one day, and then I shall send all
the Indians back to the mountains."</p>
<p>Anastacio put out his hand, and the two civilisations decreed by Nature
to stand apart from the beginning to the end of time clasped in brief
friendship.</p>
<p>"I will be your friend," said the Indian, "and the white man need not
despise the friendship of a great chief. California is a fair land.
Others will come to it besides the Spaniard. If Anastacio has thousands
of Indians to run to his call they will fight when he bids them."</p>
<p>"Caramba! you are right," exclaimed Roldan. "Those Americans—"</p>
<p>"American boys?" asked Adan, eagerly.</p>
<p>"Now," said Anastacio, "I sleep. Awake me when the sky turns grey."</p>
<p>He stretched himself out and slept at once. The boys drew close
together and speculated upon the fateful morrow. They agreed to remain
close together, out of sight of the enemy, but where they could watch
the Indian forces. If Anastacio fell they would flee at once.</p>
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