Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/239

 "They'll murder her while we stand talking!"

"I know them, their ways are open to me. Wait till evening, when our horses are fresh for a hard run, then we'll go back. There is old Cecilia, Liseta's mother. She will know everything."

Henderson would not yield at once. It required a good deal of Felipe's sensible reasoning to convince him that he would only throw his life away by returning to Don Abrahan's before night. Don Abrahan would have summoned his friends, would have gathered then in the pueblo, to stand with him against the governor.

It would be a little revolution, Felipe said, such as were common to that country when the powerful landowners felt imported authority running counter to their interests and desires. More than one governor had been packed out of California in past years. It was very likely, Felipe said, that Don Abrahan would win, even if the military had succeeded in removing Helena from his house.

At length this argument prevailed. Henderson agreed to wait till sunset, and then proceed under Felipe's guidance to Don Abrahan's ranch.

A few minutes' ride from the place where they halted for this colloquy brought them to a well-traveled road, which they pursued several miles toward the sea. It was then something past midafternoon; the wind that always sets in from the sea in summer at that period of the day, was beginning then to dispel the heat of the hazy, drowzy