"I can expect no other, Señor Mendoza. Besides, they serve me well."
"Señor O'Donnell, you represent great interests in California."
"On another occasion I showed you documents which assert that."
"Very true. Now, at a critical time you lose yourself in the wilderness, with no guard save a company of cutthroats who would take a man's life for a handful of pesos."
"Ah, Mendoza, what you say is so. This is a critical time and my men would hardly ornament a Sunday school. But I shall meet a representative of the United States somewhere to the east of here, a thousand miles more or less, receive instructions from Washington, and send back my reports. I go through safely; another might not; so I am my own messenger. In the passing of three new moons, as the Indian counts, I shall again be in the Valley of Santa Clara."
The big man laughed again.
"You go through safely, you say. Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. My dare-devils respect the man who is not afraid of them. Besides, I travel a country the chiefs of which are sworn Indian brothers to me."
"And you trust them—these wild Indians of the mountains?"
"Again I say, absolutely."