“Only that! Then we’ll have plenty of time to get to Punta Pedro, and witness a main. Don Manuel has a big bet on his pardo. I’d like myself to stake a doubloon or two on that bird. Yes, on reflection, we’d better go to the pelea de gallos. That will be the surest way to secure the services of Diaz. Vamonos!”
At this the two intending duellists again set their steeds in motion; and, riding for a short distance along the shore-road, turn into another, which will take them to Punta Pedro.
With jealous anger still unappeased, they urge their horses into a gallop, riding as if for life, on an errand whose upshot may be death—to one or both of them.
Chapter Nineteen.
A “Paseo de Caballo.”
The promontory called Punta Pedro is not in San Francisco Bay, but on the outside coast of the Pacific. To reach it from the former, it is necessary to traverse the dividing ridge between the two waters—this a spur of the “Coast Range,” which, running higher as it trends southward, is known to Spanish Californians as the San Bruno Mountains.
Punta Pedro abuts from their base into the ocean; the coast in this quarter being bold and picturesque, but almost uninhabited. Here and there only the solitary hut of a seal-hunter, or fisherman, with a small collection of the same near the point itself, bearing its name, and a somewhat indifferent reputation. The Anglo-Saxon gold-seekers do not go there; it is only frequented by the natives.
From San Francisco to Punta Pedro the road runs past Dolores—an ancient mission of the Franciscan monks, whose port was, as already stated, Yerba Buena, previous to becoming re-christened San Francisco.