Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/23

 in the sun around a mean camp pitched a little way off, retainers of his who had been employed with the hides already aboard. They brought at Don Abrahan's direction a tripod of strong timbers in which a steelyard swung, setting it up near the wagon for weighing the goods.

Don Abrahan took his stand beside the scales, waiting the coming of four sailors who were toiling up the steep shore bluff of yellow sand and clay. The way was slippery from last night's heavy rain, rough and insecure. Between them the sailors bore upon two oars, held in the manner of a barrow, a large box of goods. Their approach was laborious and slow. Don Abrahan watched them narrowly, thinking only that a slip might precipitate the box down the sharp pitch of the shore into the sea.

Don Abrahan was tall, almost grotesquely thin. His sharp features seemed given an edge by the narrowness of his great nose, no broader it looked than the back of a saber. His dark, languishing, oriental eyes attested to the Moorish stock upon which his foundation was built; his beard, reaching half-way down his breast, was of a fineness and luxuriance that repudiated any charge of Indian blood.

California-born, of Spanish stock, Don Abrahan had been quick to align himself with the Mexican patriots when he saw which way the day was likely to go in the uprising against Spanish oppression. His foresight had saved his lands, where his less sagacious neighbors in many instances had lost