Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/64

 the sky, as if the world ended there, as if nothing lay beyond.

"Look!" Don Felipe repeated, pointing to the hills. "And here again, look!" Don Felipe pointed to the east. "Mountains stand behind these hills, growing up into the clouds. And in the east here, there is a desert when a man goes over the mountains. There is no water there but the dew of night, no blade of grass for it to fall upon. Hundreds of miles, this desert, and when a man is done with that, mountains again, more terrible than any in all the world. But no man lives to pass that desert. Man dies there, he swells big, he bursts like a gun. No, there is no way to leave this land, only by the sea. There is death in many ways for the man who runs before the law in this country. Quick goes the word, a thousand hands are ready when he passes. Oh, yes. A man who runs before the law in this country is shot down like a wolf."

"I suppose that might happen to him," Henderson admitted, cooled considerably, his naturally diplomatic disposition and good sense asserting. "I wouldn't try it; I'm not going to run before the law. Well, a man would have to have something to run for, in the first place."

"If a man steals sheep," said Don Felipe, his eyes still on the hills, "or kills a man, or owes his patron money, a man sometimes runs away."

"If I stole sheep or killed a man, I might run away," Henderson granted, soberly enough. "But