IN THE OLD WEST 235 



this jou come all this way. Ah, what rogues you 



are 



t " 



He was an Indian, employed at the Mission of 

 San Fernando, distant three days' journey from 

 their present position, and was now searching for 

 a band of horses and mules which had strayed. 

 San Fernando, it appeared, had once before been 

 visited by a party of mountain freebooters, and 

 the Indian therefore divined the object of the pres- 

 ent one. He was, he told them, " un Indio, pero 

 mansito " — an Indian, but a tame one ;*" de mas, 

 Christiano " — a Christian, moreover (exhibiting 

 a small cross which hung round his neck). There 

 were many people about the Mission, he said, who 

 knew how to fight, and had plenty of arms ; and 

 there were enough to " eat up," the " Americanos, 

 san frijoles," without beans, as he facetiously ob- 

 served. For his part, however, he was very 

 friendly to the Americanos; he had once met a 

 man of that nation who was a good sort of fel- 

 low, and who had made him a present of tobacco, 

 of which he was particularly fond. Finding this 

 hint did not take, he said that the horses and 

 mules belonging to the Mission were innumerable 

 — " like that," he added, sweeping his hand to all 

 points of the compass over the plain, to intimate 

 that they would cover that extent ; and he could 

 point out a large herd grazing nearer at hand 



* The Mexicans call the Indians living near the Missions 

 and engaged in agriculture, mansos, or mansitoSj "tame." 



