“I guess I wouldn’t round here.”
A low, muttered soliloquy in Spanish wound up with a growl.
“No, Antone, not within a mile of the place. ‘Sta buen.’”
Out of the compressed jumble of the final sentence I got but the one word, “buckshot.”
The Spaniards mounted and the sound of their spurs and horses’ hoofs soon died away in the north, and I lay for half an hour revolving all sorts of plans. The safest course seemed to be to slip out in the darkness and fly on foot to the mountains, abandoning my good Kaweah; but I thought of his noble run, and it seemed to me so wrong to turn my back on him that I resolved to unite our fate. I rose cautiously, and, holding my watch up to the moon, found that twelve o’clock had just passed, then taking from my pocket a five-dollar gold piece, I laid it upon the stand by my bed, and in my stocking feet, with my clothes in my hand, started noiselessly for the corral. A fierce bull-dog, which had shown no disposition to make friends with me, bounded from the open door of the proprietor to my side. Instead of tearing me, as I had expected, he licked my hands and fawned about my feet.
Reaching the corral gate, I dreaded opening it at once, remembering the rusty hinges, so I hung my clothes upon an upper bar of the fence, and, cautiously lifting the latch, began to push back the gate, inch by inch, an operation which required eight or ten minutes; then I walked up to Kaweah and patted him. His manger was empty; he had picked up the last kernel of barley. The creature’s manner was full of curiosity, as if he had never been approached in the night before. Suppressing his ordinary whinnying, he preserved a motionless, statue-like silence. I was in terror lest by a neigh, or some nervous movement, he should waken the sleeping proprietor and expose my plan.
The corral and the open square were half covered with loose stones, and when I thought of the clatter of Kaweah’s shoes I experienced a feeling of trouble, and again meditated running off on foot, until the idea struck me of muffling the iron feet. Ordinarily Kaweah would not allow me to lift his forefeet at all. The two blacksmiths who shod him had done so at the peril of their lives, and whenever I had attempted to pick up his hind feet he had warned me away by dangerous stamps; so I approached him very timidly, and was surprised to find that he allowed me to lift all four of his feet without the slightest objection. As I stooped down he nosed me over, and nibbled playfully at my hat. In constant dread lest he should make some noise, I hurried to muffle his forefeet with my trousers and shirt, and then, with rather more care, to tie upon his hind feet my coat and drawers.
Knowing nothing of the country ahead of me, and fearing that I might again have to run for it, I determined at all cost to water him. Groping about the corral and barn, and at last finding a bucket, and descending through the darkness to the stream, I brought him a full draught, which he swallowed eagerly, when I tied my shoes on the saddle pommel, and led the horse slowly out of the corral gate, holding him firmly by the bit, and feeling his nervous breath pour out upon my hand.
When we had walked perhaps a quarter of a mile, I stopped and listened. All was quiet, the landscape lying bright and distinct in full moonlight. I unbound the wrappings, shook from them as much dust as possible, dressed myself, and then, mounting, started northward on the Mariposa trail with cocked pistol.
In the soft dust we travelled noiselessly for a mile or so, passing from open country into groves of oak and thickets of chaparral.