Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/291

 light. The wind came in, fresh and sweet from the hills, moving the candle-flame, finding its way like a spy around the angles of the tunnel and compartment walls.

Felipe was tracing a map of the road to Monterey, marking its difficulties, its long windings through hills and along the coast-line.

"You see it is a very long road, Gabriel."

"Yes, it looks like there are no short cuts to liberty in this land. But the risk of the road is not as great as the risk of being trapped here."

"Besides," Felipe pressed, strong in his faith that his grandfather's tunnels would shelter and protect them as they had many refugees before them, "besides, Gabriel, we are not certain that the Americans have taken Monterey. We may look tomorrow to hear it denied. That is the way of this country."

"I've not allowed myself to expect anything but its denial, Felipe. We must go out prepared to face great dangers and run many perils, but we will be safer on the road hunted by a few soldiers, than shut here surrounded by many. Helena, what is your opinion?"

Helena had remained silent and apart, taking the place assigned to women in the affairs of the adobe dons. A woman was either a mother of a family, or a daughter designed to become a mother of a family. In the councils, plans, business and advancements of life, she had no word. Mass and confession attended to, safely marvied, a string of