CHAPTER II.

MISSION INDIANS.

THOUGH friar and priest have left the altars of San Carlos to the owls and lizards, some of the converts whom these fathers gathered into grace are staunch.

A squad of Mexicans, armed with writs and rifles, drove out Fray Jose Maria, chief of the Carmelo friars; but neither writs nor rifles have been able to drive off Capitan' Carlos, patriarch of the Carmelo camp. In dealing with Fray Jose Maria, the liberators had no more to do than close his church, disperse his brethren, seize his fields and orchards; but on turning to the native chief, they could neither free his tribe, undo the teaching of his priests, nor push him from the sanctuary of his patron saint. Yielding to force, Fray Jose Maria went to Mexico, where he has learned to serve another altar, and ceased to think of his mission on Carmelo Bay. Holding to his new creed with all

a convert's ardour, Capitan Carlos hovers round his ancient home, knowing no second fane, and clinging to the saint whose name he bears. To him, and to such rags and tatters of his tribe as yet remain alive, San Carlos is a mighty chief, his porch an entrance to the land of souls.

This Indian patriarch and twenty-five years old. common in this zone. In

claims to be a hundred Such claims are not unhear of

ranch you

every ranch

centenarians, and in many convent registers you read of folk having lived to six score years. Such tales and records are not always false. The air is mild, the eating good, the life unvexed. No burning summers parch the skin, no freezing winters chill the blood. From month to month the seasons come and go in one soft round of spring. In winter it is May, in summer it is only June.

A native piques himself on length of days; a big chief wearing his crown of age like one of the big trees. From his appearance, no one could pretend to guess the patriarch's age; for though his eye is quick, his scalp is bare and black, his cheeks are hollowed into cups, his skin hangs down his face in flaps. Life seems to hold him only by a thread.

In summer time he dawdles in the woods; in winter time he hangs about the farms. Being known to every settler, he is sure of bite and sup. His hands can bait a snare and throw a hatchet; yet the poor old fellow is so much a savage, he would rather beg than steal, and rather steal than work. Aged, but not venerable, he loafs in front of whisky bars, and fawns on strangers for a drink; his thirst for ardent waters being the only appetite that seems to have outlived his six-score years and five.

You take the Indian as he is a wreck and waste of nature, even as this altar of San Carlos is a wreck and waste of art. For twenty cents, laid out in whisky, you may hear the story of his life, and in that tale the romance of his tribe.

A youth when the first Spaniards came to Monterey, Capitan Carlos saw Fray Junipero Serra land his company of friars, Don Jose Rivera land his regiment of troops. The Spaniards had already built a Mission house at San Diego, and were creeping upward towards the Golden Gate; but no Carmelo Indian had as yet beheld a White man's face. The fathers raised a cross; the troops unfurled a flag. A psalm was sung, a cannon fired; rites, as they said,

which gave the people to God, the country to the King of Spain.

These strangers built a castle on the hill, above the spot on which they had raised their cross. They fenced that castle round about with walls, on which they mounted guns, and set a watch by day and night.

Like all their brethren of the Slope, the Red men were a tame and feeble folk; munching acorns as they fell, grubbing in the soil for roots, and wading in the pools for fish. Some bolder spirits chased the fox and trapped the catamount. The bucks were fond of skins, but skins were only to be got by daring deeds. No man, unless a chief, had other clothing than a wrap about his loins, a feather in his hair. Not one in twenty had so much. The squaws were all but naked; their summer suit being an apron made of tule grass, their winter suit a wrap of half-dried skin. Papooses, whether male or female, wore no dress at all. A sense of shame was no more present in a native lodge than in a colony of seals.

These timid savages lived in hutches built of straw. Herding in the woods like deer, they seldom washed,

and never combed. A little paint was all the unguent they desired. A squaw tattooed her chin, her neck, her breast; a buck put on his face a dab of paint. They fed on grubs and worms, on roots and berries, living from hand to mouth, not caring for the morrow's meal. All things were held by them in common, like the grass and water in a sheep-run, but the sweetest morsels and the warmest skins were taken by the seers and chiefs. They saved no roots, they dug no wells. Old legends told them of a time when their fathers lived in towns, and they had still a village system, with a show of ancient rule and right. They chose a chief and made him pope and king. This chief had a first choice of squaws; and took as many as his hutch would hold. Catching them when he liked, he flung them from him when he liked. An Indian female had no rights. Poor souls, they knew no better in those pagan days, before San Carlos sent his message to their tribe!

Capitan Carlos saw a band of friars come over the ridge from Monterey, and plant a cross in ground belonging to his tribe.

A cross appeared to be the White man's totem; for beside a great cross borne aloft, each father wore