Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/161

 Simon was puzzled, as he drew near the house, to account for the silence that lay upon the scene. There was none of the quick talk and merry laughter of a holiday. The children were quiet as they clustered around their mothers, their black heads sleek from the comb. Simon had leisure to note all this before so much as a dog discovered his approach.

The people of the ranch were so much taken up with this big thing that had happened, and given them a holiday, or was about to happen with the same profit to themselves, that they had neither eyes nor ears for the coming of one who, let other men in that house be as famous as they might, would take his place among the notables of that hour. So Simon told himself, secure in the belief of his own importance.

Henderson was greatly depressed as he rode in bonds ahead of his captor, his feet tied under the horse's belly, inglorious figure as man might well present. He had marked more than Simon, keen as the mule-driver's eyes, and that nothing less than military guards posted in the patio, and that the soldiers who mingled with the people carried guns.

It was due to the presence of these soldiers, Henderson believed, that all was so silent about the place. He wondered, above the discomfort of the rope that bound his hands, whether such an armed demonstration could have been made on his account. He dismissed the thought at once,