THE ALARM
Scattering curses along El Camino Real at every jump of his horse,
and caring not whether he killed the animal he rode, Sergeant Carlos
Cassara rode like a madman.
At San Fernando he gave a bit of information to a fray; at Reina de Los
Angeles he had speech with a corporal in command of the squad at the
guardhouse; he sent a message to San Gabriel; and he sent a fresh steed
flying over the miles that stretched to San Juan Capistrano as if the
life of a nation depended upon his ride.
Miles behind him rode Ensign Sanchez and a squad not expected to
maintain the fierce pace endured by the sergeant, and in their wake
they left suspicion and fear.
At San Juan Capistrano, Cassara exchanged horses while he spoke in
quick, low syllables to the padre. And then he was away toward the
south again, eating up the miles, taking chances in the darkness on the
rough highway through the hills, glad when the dawn came so that he
could make better speed.
San Luis Rey de Francia loomed ahead of him in the early morning hours;
the bells at the mission were ringing; neophytes and frailes were
pouring into the church. Indian children flew from before his horse as
the sergeant dashed up to the door of the padres’ quarters, and called
aloud for some man to come.
Again he changed horses, once more he whispered a few crisp sentences
that made the faces of the frailes grow white, and then he was away
to the south again in a cloud of dust--and behind at San Luis Rey de
Francia he left an old Indian before his hut on the roadside, who
wrinkled his eyes in concentrated thought until he scarcely could see,
and then called a young man and gave a message to be carried back into
the hills.
Exhausted, hungry, thirsty, covered with dust and perspiration, his
clothing sticking to him, the sergeant thought only of reaching his
destination. At the top of every hill he looked ahead, always hoping to
see San Diego de Alcalá in the distance. And when he did see it he gave
his horse the spurs and urged the beast to its greatest speed, and bent
low over the animal’s neck like a racing Indian.
He flew up the highway like the wind, knowing that his approach would
be noticed by the sentry at the gate of the presidio, and hoping that
the _comandante_ would be at his post and not visiting at a rancho or
talking with a padre at the mission six miles away.
At the bottom of the knoll his horse fell, and Cassara went over the
animal’s head to the ground, but was upon his feet almost as soon as
he struck, and running toward the gate. The sentry cried a challenge,
but Cassara did not answer. Could not the fool see his uniform, he
wondered? And then he would have fallen himself had not the man at the
gate thrown out an arm and caught him.
“Your lieutenant!” he gasped.
A corporal came running at the sentry’s cry; he aided the soldier to
half-carry, half-drag Cassara toward the barracks-room, in the door of
which the _comandante_ was standing, attracted by the sudden uproar.
Sergeant Cassara had no time now for the niceties of discipline; his
salute was merely the suggestion of one, and he gripped the lieutenant
by the arm to keep from falling as the corporal let go of him.
“Private information--from the north!” he managed to gasp.
Cassara was known the length of El Camino Real as a soldier of strength
and hardihood, and to see him in this state told the _comandante_ that
unusual things were happening. He grasped his inferior around the waist
and helped him to get to a private room, where the sergeant sank upon a
stool and threw his arms on the table before him to brace himself.
The lieutenant offered a cup of wine and Cassara tossed it off,
trying to gather breath enough to speak. With a wave of his hand the
lieutenant ordered the other soldiers from the room, then closed the
door.
“Now, what is it that brings the famous Sergeant Cassara to our post
like a dying man?” he demanded.
“An uprising--greater than any we have yet known! It has just been
discovered, barely in time.”
“Gentiles, I suppose?”
“And neophytes!”
“What? Neophytes, too--against the missions? Or is it against the
presidio only?”
“It is against every white man, woman and child in every mission,
presidio and rancho,” the sergeant said. “Perhaps even now it is too
late to prevent the success of the thing. It has been planned with
diabolical cunning. Every post will be attacked simultaneously, every
white man slain except a few chosen frailes and a few renegades.”
“Renegades?”
“The ones who have plotted the thing. This is no murderous raid
planned by a few disgruntled gentiles. It is the greatest thing we
yet have had to endure, I tell you! Here--I have written orders for
you! The Governor is coming down El Camino Real with a force. We in
the north are prepared and ready, but here in the south difficulties
are expected. Here is the hotbed of mutiny at present--and here one of
their leaders!”
“Their leader--here?”
“Your orders! You see the first? Get him, dead or alive, sparing no
effort, and promotion is yours! Get him if you would not have this post
wiped off the face of the earth! Get him--Captain Fly-by-Night!”
“Fly-by-Night!” the _comandante_ exclaimed.
“The smoothest renegade unhung! He is the brains of the thing! For
months he has been at work planning it, and half that time he was an
associate of the Governor, playing at cards and dice with him, drinking
and eating with him. He even came south recently with a Governor’s pass
in his belt. At Santa Barbara we gave him refreshments, the cur! And
when he won a mule from another traveller and continued his journey
south--in haste he was, mark you!--we were even pleased to think he had
won. May the good saints let me face him with blade in hand again!”
“Again?”
“I faced the cur once--at Santa Barbara--and he disarmed me almost
with a single pass. But I did not know him then! Let me face him now,
when I know what he is! ’Tis a clever cur! He fooled a fray at San
Fernando--the fray aided him and detained a traveller of merit. A good
Governor’s man at Reina de Los Angeles sat up and watched while the
scoundrel slept like a baby. Only at San Juan Capistrano and south did
he meet rebuffs, and then not because any knew of his perfidy, but
because he had seen fit to insult the name of some rancho girl----”
“Ah!” the _comandante_ cried. “There will be promotion for me in this!”
“Catch him first! You little know your man!”
“Do I not? Did I not refuse him hospitality recently because of that
same insult? Did I not almost cross blades with him within the past
forty hours, and remembered barely in time that an officer does not
fight with an adventurer?”
“It perhaps were well for the officer you remembered that,” the
sergeant muttered.
“Bah! Captain Fly-by-Night, eh? A boaster and braggart!”
“Think not that! He is a fighter, that man, as well as a scoundrel! And
you have him here?”
“He camps like a fool beside the creek at the mission, believing
himself secure, no doubt, perhaps meeting his Indian gentiles and doing
his plotting almost inside the mission walls.”
“Get him! Do not let him escape and reach his Indians, or nothing can
stop the attack. The dogs know their conspiracy is discovered, and may
move sooner than was expected. Those in the north wait for the attack
to begin here at San Diego de Alcalá. Runners will carry the news, and
the raid will flash up the coast like fire before a gale!”
“It will be an easy matter to get him,” the lieutenant observed,
getting up from his stool.
The beating of horse’s hoofs came to them through the open window; they
heard the sentry’s challenge and quick steps in the barracks-room, a
knock at the door.
“Enter!” the _comandante_ called, and a corporal hurried into the room.
“There has been trouble at the mission,” he reported, standing at
salute. “Rojerio Rocha, who is to wed the Señorita Anita, rebuked this
Captain Fly-by-Night for his conduct, and they fought.”
“The result?”
“Señor Rocha was wounded. The neophytes attacked Captain Fly-by-Night
then, but he mounted his horse and escaped. He has gone up the cañon.
Rocha demands that he be pursued; some others think this should not be,
since it was a fair duel.”
“Escaped!” Sergeant Cassara cried, getting half up from the stool. “He
will be with his Indians within the hour--perhaps he has been warned.
He’ll strike the blow earlier!”
But the lieutenant was already rushing toward the door.
“Sound the trumpet!” he cried. “Into the hills after that man! Get
him, dead or alive--remember that! Let only two men remain here at the
presidio. I have kept my hands off the dog because I had no orders to
the contrary--but I have orders now! Here--one of you give aid to this
exhausted sergeant who brought the news!”
But Sergeant Cassara had no need of aid at that moment. He had sprawled
over the end of the table as if a man had run him through from behind,
his head pillowed upon his arms, and he was snoring.