202 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



before you can swing a lasso, hallooing like Indios 

 Bravos." 



" But, Jose, how many did they leave dead on the 

 field ? " 



" Not one." 



" And we ? " 



"Valgame Dios ! thirteen dead, and many more 

 wounded." 



" That's it ! Now if these savages come again, (and 

 the Chemeguaba, who came in yesterday, says he saw 

 a large trail,) we must fight adentro within outside is 

 no go ; for, as you very properly say, Jose, these 

 Americans don't know how to fight, and kill us before 

 before we can kill them ! Vaya ! " 



At this moment there issued from the door of the 

 Mission Don Antonio Velez Trueba, a Gachupin that 

 is, a native of Old Spain a wizened old hidalgo refugee, 

 who had left the mother country on account of his 

 political opinions, which were stanchly Carlist, and had 

 found his way how, he himself scarcely knew from 

 Mexico to San Francisco in Upper California, where, 

 having a most perfect contempt for everything Mexican, 

 and hearing that in the Mission of San Fernando, far 

 away, were a couple of Spanish* padres of " sangre 

 regular," he had started into the wilderness to ferret 

 them out ; and having escaped all dangers on the route 

 (which, however, were hardly dangers to the Don, who 

 could not realise the idea of scalp-taking savages,) had 

 arrived with a whole skin at the Mission. There he was 

 received with open arms by his countryman Fray 



