The three sat down side by side, their gaze directed steadily downward
and outward.

"Why do you fight at all?" asked Roldan. "You could stay in these
mountains until the Californians were dust, and not be caught."

"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--"

"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."

"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