Captain Fly-by-Night

CAPTAIN FLY-BY-NIGHT
By JOHNSTON McCULLEY AUTHOR OF “THE RANGERS’ CODE”
NEW YORK G. HOWARD WATT 1819 BROADWAY 1926
Copyright, 1926, by G. HOWARD WATT All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
To MY DAUGHTER MAURINE
CAPTAIN FLY-BY-NIGHT
His great body stretched on the dirt floor in a shady corner of the barracks-room of the presidio, his long moustache drooped, his big mouth open, Sergeant Carlos Cassara snored.
His face was purple from wine and the heat; for the air was still and stagnant this siesta hour, and empty vessels on the table near by told of the deep drinking that had been done.
Scattered about were a corporal and a dozen soldiers, all sleeping and snoring. Against the wall, half a score of feet from the slumbering sergeant, an Indian neophyte had dropped his palm-leaf and was glancing around the room from beneath eyelids that seemed about to close.
Outside was the red dust, a foot deep on the highway, and the burning sun. The fountain before the mission splashed lazily; down at the beach it seemed that the tide had not its usual energy. Neophytes slept in the shadows cast by the mission walls. Here and there a robed fray went about his business despite the heat and the hour. There was no human being travelling El Camino Real—the king’s highway—as far as a man with good eyes could see.
It was typical of the times—this siesta hour—with the blue California sky above and the green Pacific sparkling in the distance, and the spirit of present peace over old Santa Barbara and its mission. Yet the peace, being one of decadence and therefore uncertain, was like to be broken at any time, as all men knew.