They gambled, slept, shot game in the
forest, exercised the horses, which were in corral about a mile from the
camp. The boys shot deer with Anastacio, and wrestled in the plaza.
Occasionally the taciturn Indian unbent when sitting by the great
bonfire in the open at night, and told wild tales of savage life before
the padres came. Roldan admired his splendid supple body and fearless
manhood, but the Indian was too sinister to inspire affection. Adan was
loudly bored. Roldan's ardent imagination sustained him.
At the end of the week the scouts having failed to discover any sign of
the enemy, Anastacio determined to go down to the river in the valley
for a fortnight's salmon fishing. He, too, was bored. The fangs of
civilisation are long and tenacious.
It was on a brilliant winter's morning that Anastacio, his captives, and
his five hundred men wound their way down through the cold forest on the
mountain into the soft warm air of the valley. There had been no rain
for three weeks, and the river was not more than half full; and it was
very quiet. They camped on the bank, well away from the scattered groups
of trees, that they might not lose a ray of sunshine; and Roldan and
Adan forgot that they were under constant surveillance.
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