Farquharson's horse took him to the high ground back of the city. Reaching perpendicularly from a half dozen hills were thin pillars of signal smoke. Touching the upper air drafts they bent horizonward, and drifted slowly into nothingness.
"My smoke does its work all right, but Fairbanks's guns appear to be dumb. Drat the fellow!"
His glasses pointed out to sea. For a moment, by chance, it rested on the town below.
"Well, anyway Monterey will learn that every day isn't a fiesta day." He half chuckled.
Again he directed his attention to the smoke now ascending in fresh volume as peons replenished the fires. Again he swept the ocean with his spyglass.
A small boat was landing on the beach below the castle. The crew, waist-deep in water, was sliding it in, on the crest of a breaker. One man separated from the others and walked toward the town. The spyglass covered him, though Farquharson's thoughts were elsewhere.
"Why! Why!" in a moment, "it's old Brown. What's he been doing on a native fishing-boat?"
He shut his glass together; looked once more at the smoke columns, then cantered down the hill. He came on his former employee near the plaza.
"How do, Brown?"
"Fine, Cap'. How are you?"