command being a relative of the Garvanza family, owing his station to its wide influence.
Toberman had told Henderson, and Helena Sprague had confirmed it, that the news of his escape from Don Abrahan's enforced service would have been carried to Monterey by the third day, incredible as it appeared to him. News spread with great rapidity among the Indians and lawless Mexicans who worked as vaqueros on the cattle ranches, and Don Abrahan had posted a reward of twenty dollars, gold, for the fugitive's capture and return.
Twenty dollars gold on the California coast in those pastoral days was equal to four head of cattle. A laborer would toil many months to earn that much. A vaquero did not gain a sum like it in half a year's riding after the herds. It would not be a matter of enmity toward him, Henderson understood, but the plain business one of making a handsome sum of money quickly, that would set the hand of every man, high and low, between Los Angeles and Monterey against his passage.
But there was an obscure way through the mountains, Toberman had told him, long and rough, that might lead to freedom if a trustworthy guide could be found. There seemed to be none in his employ whom he would trust in that capacity. It was on this business that Toberman had engaged to return this day and report.
Henderson watched the valley for his coming from the peak of a hill which seemed a mountain
