THE ROAD TO MONTEREYA Yankee Sailor wages a lone-hand fight among the Cattle Dons of Southern CaliforniaByGEORGE WASHINGTON OGDENPart II
A Yankee Sailor wages a lone-hand fight among the Cattle Dons of Southern California
ByGEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN
Part II
When Gabriel Henderson, young and keen for adventure, shipped aboard a Yankee ship, and sailed around the Horn to California, he little guessed how his future was to lie in that land of golden fortunes.
It was in the days of bucko skippers and Gabriel, driven beyond endurance by brutality and injustice, deserted ship while they were loading skins from the ranch of Don Abrahan Cruz y Garvanza, not far from the pueblo of Los Angeles.
He escaped, but only from one servitude to another, for Don Abrahan befriended him only to reduce him to peonage on his ranch. Don Abrahan was a power in all that district of California, his cattle grazed on a thousand hills, and his name was feared for many square miles.
Young Henderson finds that, though suave in manner, the don has him in his power, and he accepts his bondage—but only until he can plan escape, which is a difficult matter, owing to the power of Don Abrahan.
He is made the servant of Don Roberto, son of old Abrahan, and his lot is every moment a trial to his proud spirit. At the feast celebrating the coming of age of Don Roberto, Henderson is questioned by Helena Sprague, affianced wife of Roberto as to his presence as a servant. They are talking—which fact alone would compromise a woman in that country—when Roberto and a friend come along. Helena escapes up a tree, but her slipper falls into the hands of Roberto's friend.