A story of the North; of those pushing upstream, their fortunes still ahead; of those coming downstream, the magic of the wild behind them. [Illustration] THE ROAD TO MONTEREY _A Yankee Sailor wages a lone-hand fight among the Cattle Dons of Southern California_ BY GEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN PART II THE ROAD TO MONTEREY GEORGE WASHINGTON OGDEN The previous chapters 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. CHAPTER VI IN THE PATH OF THE GOATS Henderson felt his wits revolving for a moment like a straw in a whirlpool. The unlucky arrival of Don Roberto, the doubly unfortunate chance upon the lost shoe by his companion, had forced him into a situation that would require either great audacity or greater diplomacy to come out of with the lady's honor untouched in the eyes of those jealous and biased moralists. He recalled her vividly in the light of the brief description she had given of herself, but with nothing of either the insignificance or the humility of the worm. She had not been present at the celebration before that day; her appearance among the belles of the _ranchos_, whose dark beauty was becoming rather tiresome, had been like a green hill to the mariner's eye.