Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/18

 Don Abrahan's eyes. A man stood in the stern, urging the sailors at the oars to bend to their heavy task. Even at that distance Don Abrahan knew him for the Yankee captain who had cheated him out of forty-three sound bullock hides in the count of yesterday.

Don Abrahan halted back a little way from the point where the road bent down the steep hillside, directing by an imperious sweep of the arm his driver to bring the wagon around and halt on the level from which the cliffs fell away sharply to the ocean side. This was as far as any man of consequence went to meet the Yankee traders. From this point the hides were carried down, or thrown over the cliffs, by the sailors to be transported in small boats to the ship; to this point the sailors came laboring up the steep with the goods taken by the Californians in exchange. Here Don Abrahan remained, seated in his saddle, waiting the coming of the captain.

Soon the boat came ashore, shooting through the breakers with such impetuosity that, it seemed to the Mexican rancher who watched in fear and admiration, it must be crushed on the hard sands of the beach, its precious cargo swallowed by the sea. Instead, there seemed scarcely a drop of water to reach the goods heaped between the thwarts, piled high in bow and stern.

The sailors, wearing shoes without stockings, their loose trousers rolled to mid-thigh, leaped out when the withdrawing breaker surged back toward