“What? Neophytes, too—against the missions? Or is it against the presidio only?”
“It is against every white man, woman and child in every mission, presidio and rancho,” the sergeant said. “Perhaps even now it is too late to prevent the success of the thing. It has been planned with diabolical cunning. Every post will be attacked simultaneously, every white man slain except a few chosen frailes and a few renegades.”
“Renegades?”
“The ones who have plotted the thing. This is no murderous raid planned by a few disgruntled gentiles. It is the greatest thing we yet have had to endure, I tell you! Here—I have written orders for you! The Governor is coming down El Camino Real with a force. We in the north are prepared and ready, but here in the south difficulties are expected. Here is the hotbed of mutiny at present—and here one of their leaders!”
“Their leader—here?”
“Your orders! You see the first? Get him, dead or alive, sparing no effort, and promotion is yours! Get him if you would not have this post wiped off the face of the earth! Get him—Captain Fly-by-Night!”
“Fly-by-Night!” the comandante exclaimed.
“The smoothest renegade unhung! He is the brains of the thing! For months he has been at work planning it, and half that time he was an associate of the Governor, playing at cards and dice with him, drinking and eating with him. He even came south recently with a Governor’s pass in his belt. At Santa Barbara we gave him refreshments, the cur! And when he won a mule from another traveller and continued his journey south—in haste he was, mark you!—we were even pleased to think he had won. May the good saints let me face him with blade in hand again!”
“Again?”
“I faced the cur once—at Santa Barbara—and he disarmed me almost with a single pass. But I did not know him then! Let me face him now, when I know what he is! ’Tis a clever cur! He fooled a fray at San Fernando—the fray aided him and detained a traveller of merit. A good Governor’s man at Reina de Los Angeles sat up and watched while the scoundrel slept like a baby. Only at San Juan Capistrano and south did he meet rebuffs, and then not because any knew of his perfidy, but because he had seen fit to insult the name of some rancho girl——”