On all sides the vast Rancho Los Palos Verdes cleft the
horizon: Don Mateo Castanada was one of the wealthiest grandees in the
Californias, and his sons could gallop all day without crossing the
boundary line of their future possessions. The rancho was as level as
mid-ocean in a calm; here and there a wood or river broke the sweep;
thousands of cattle grazed. Now and again a mounted vaquero, clad in
small-clothes vivified with silver trimmings, dashed amongst tossing
horns, shouting and warning.
But Roldan saw none of these things. There was reason for his disquiet.
News had arrived an hour before which had thrown his young mind into
confusion: the soldiers were out for conscripts, and would in all
probability arrive at the Rancho Los Palos Verdes that evening or the
following morning. Roldan, like all the Californian youth, looked
forward to the conscription with apprehension and disgust. Not that he
was a coward. He could throw a bull as fearlessly as his elder brothers;
he had ridden alone at night the length of the rancho in search of a pet
colt that had strayed; and he had once defended the women of the family
single handed against a half dozen savages until reinforcements had
arrived.
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