O Mary! it makes me shudder when I think of the mad joy with which I saw that rancho! Remember that, with the exception of three or four hours the night before, we had been in the saddle for nearly twenty-four hours without refreshment. When we stopped, F. carried me into the house and laid me onto a bunk, though I have no remembrance of it, and he said that when he offered me some food, I turned from it with disgust, exclaiming, "Oh, take it away! give me some cold water and let me sleep, and be sure you don't wake me for the next three weeks." And I did sleep, with a forty slumber-power; and when F. came to me late in the evening with some tea and toast, I awoke, oh! so refreshed, and perfectly well, for, after all the great fuss which I had made, there was nothing the matter with me but a little fatigue.
Every one that we met congratulated us upon not having encountered any Indians, for the paths which we followed were Indian trails, and it is said they would have killed us for our mules and clothes. A few weeks ago a Frenchman and his wife were murdered by them. I had thought of the circumstances when we camped, but was too sick to care what happened. They generally take women captive, however; and who knows how narrowly I escaped becoming an Indian chieftainess, and feeding for the rest of my life upon roasted grasshoppers, acorns, and flower-seeds? By the way, the last-mentioned article of food strikes me as rather poetical than otherwise.
After a good night's rest we are perfectly well, and as happy as the day itself,—which was one of Heaven's own choosing,—and rode to the "Wild Yankee's," where we breakfasted, and had, among other dainties, fresh butter and cream.
Soon after we alighted, a herd of Indians, consisting of about a dozen men and squaws, with an unknown quantity of papooses,—the last naked as the day they were born,—crowded into the room to stare at us. It was the most amusing thing in the world to see them finger my gloves, whip, and hat, in their intense curiosity. One of them had caught the following line of a song, "O, carry me back to old Martinez," with which he continued to stun our ears all the time we remained, repeating it over and over with as much pride and joy as a mocking-bird exhibits when he has learned a new sound.
On this occasion I was more than ever struck with what I have often remarked before,—the extreme beauty of the limbs of the Indian women of California. Though for haggardness of expression and ugliness of feature they might have been taken for a band of Macbethian witches, a bronze statue of Cleopatra herself never folded more beautifully rounded arms above its dusky bosom, or poised upon its pedestal a slenderer ankle or a more statuesque foot, than those which gleamed from beneath the dirty blankets of these wretched creatures. There was one exception, however, to the general hideousness of their faces. A girl of sixteen, perhaps, with those large, magnificently lustrous, yet at the same time soft, eyes, so common in novels, so rare in real life, had shyly glided like a dark, beautiful spirit into the corner of the room. A fringe of silken jet swept heavily upward from her dusky cheek, athwart which the richest color came and went like flashes of lightning. Her flexible lips curved slightly away from teeth like strips of cocoanut meat, with a mocking grace infinitely bewitching. She wore a cotton chemise,—disgustingly dirty, I must confess,—girt about her slender waist with a crimson handkerchief, while over her night-black hair, carelessly knotted beneath the rounded chin, was a purple scarf of knotted silk. Her whole appearance was picturesque in the extreme. She sat upon the ground with her pretty brown fingers languidly interlaced above her knee, "round as a period," (as a certain American poet has so funnily said of a similar limb in his Diana,) and smiled up into my face as if we were the dearest friends.
I was perfectly enraptured with this wildwood Cleopatra, and bored F. almost beyond endurance with exclamations about her starry eyes, her chiseled limbs, and her beautiful nut-brown cheeks.
I happened to take out of my pocket a paper of pins, when all the women begged for some of them. This lovely child still remained silent in the posture of exquisite grace which she had so unconsciously assumed, but, nevertheless, she looked as pleased as any of them when I gave her, also, a row of the much-coveted treasures. But I found I had got myself into business, for all the men wanted pins too, and I distributed the entire contents of the papers which I happened to have in my pocket, before they were satisfied, much to the amusement of F., who only laughs at what he is pleased to call my absurd interest in these poor creatures; but you know, M., I always did "take" to Indians, though it must be said that those who bear that name here have little resemblance to the glorious forest heroes that live in the Leatherstocking tales, and in spite of my desire to find in them something poetical and interesting, a stern regard for truth compels me to acknowledge that the dusky beauty above described is the only even moderately pretty squaw that I have ever seen.
At noon we stopped at the Buckeye Rancho for about an hour, and then pushed merrily on for the Pleasant Valley Rancho, which we expected to reach about sundown. Will you, can you, believe that we got lost again? Should you travel over this road, you would not be at all surprised at the repetition of this misfortune. Two miles this side of Pleasant Valley, which is very large, there is a wide, bare plain of red stones which one is compelled to cross in order to reach it, and I should not think that even in the daytime any one but an Indian could keep the trail in this place. It was here that, just at dark, we probably missed the path, and entered, about the center of the valley, at the opposite side of an extensive grove from that on which the rancho is situated. When I first began to suspect that we might possibly have to camp out another night, I Caudleized at a great rate, but when it became a fixed fact that such was our fate, I was instantly as mute and patient as the Widow Prettyman when she succeeded to the throne of the venerated woman referred to above. Indeed, feeling perfectly well, and not being much fatigued, I should rather have enjoyed it, had not F., poor fellow, been so grieved at the idea of my going supperless to a moss-stuffed couch. It was a long time before I could coax him to give up searching for the rancho, and, in truth, I should think that we rode round that part of the valley in which we found ourselves, for more than two hours, trying to find it.
About eleven o'clock we went back into the woods and camped for the night. Our bed was quite comfortable, and my saddle made an excellent pillow. Being so much higher in the mountains, we were a little chilly, and I was disturbed two or three times by a distant noise, which I have since been told was the growling of grizzly bears, that abounded in that vicinity. On the whole, we passed a comfortable night, and rose at sunrise feeling perfectly refreshed and well. In less than an hour we were eating breakfast at the Pleasant Valley Rancho, which we easily discovered by daylight.
Here they informed us that "we had escaped a great marcy," as old Jim used to say in relating his successful run from a wolf, inasmuch as the grizzlies had not devoured us during the night! But, seriously, dear M., my heart thrills with gratitude to the Father for his tender care of us during that journey, which, view it as lightly as we may, was certainly attended with some danger.