LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 169 



" Quizas moochos — a great many, I dare say. But they did 

 not fight fairly — charged right upon us, and gave us no time to do 

 any thing. They don't know how to fight, these Mericanos : 

 come right at you, 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 I thirteen dead, and many more wounded." 



" That's it I 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 I Vaya I" 



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 every thing 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 danofers on 

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

 could not realize 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 Augustin, who made him welcome 

 to all the place afibrded, and there he harmlessly smoked away his 

 time ; his heart far away on the banks of the Geni] and in the 

 grape-bearing vegas of his beloved Andalusia, his withered cuerpo 

 in the sierras of Upper California. Don Antonio was the walking 

 essence of a Spaniard of the ancien regime. His family dated 



H 



