"Very true. Now, at a critical time you lose yourself in the wilderness, with no guard save a company of cutthroats who would take a man's life for a handful of pesos." "Ah, Mendoza, what you say is so. This is a critical time and my men would hardly ornament a Sunday school. But I shall meet a representative of the United States somewhere to the east of here, a thousand miles more or less, receive instructions from Washington, and send back my reports. I go through safely; another might not; so I am my own messenger. In the passing of three new moons, as the Indian counts, I shall again be in the Valley of Santa Clara." The big man laughed again. "You go through safely, you say. Are you sure?" "Absolutely. My dare-devils respect the man who is not afraid of them. Besides, I travel a country the chiefs of which are sworn Indian brothers to me." "And you trust them--these wild Indians of the mountains?" "Again I say, absolutely." "I hope your faith is not misplaced." "It is not. Mendoza, I have been for ten years among these fierce tribes. From them I learned the moods of the desert and the paths that conquer the mountains. Their tents were mine, and they shared their food with me. I came to know the Indian heart, and was willing to become blood brother with their chiefs. Yes, I trust them absolutely." "Blood brother?" "It is a covenant of friendship. I am as sure it will not be broken as I am that Kit Carson will keep word and meet me beyond the high mountains a month hence." "But this covenant of friendship--this becoming a blood brother--how did you manage it?" "By transfusion of blood from their veins to mine. The medicine men are surgeons--of a kind; the arm veins supply the blood." Mendoza looked closely at the frontiersman. "You are, then, an Indian leader." "I have the long hair of a chief, as you see. I allow my beard to grow, also, which the natives cannot do, to show I am a chief of chiefs." "A chief of chiefs! What of Yoscolo? Is he included in this unique brotherhood?" "No; decidedly no. Yoscolo disdains Indian virtues, replacing them by white men's wickedness." "Will you be safe from him on this journey?" "My friends would harry him out of the Sierras, and down to these valleys where he would meet destruction at the hands of your riflemen." "Very good, friend O'Donnell. But I am keeping you too long. I will come to the point now. I detained you from an early start on that long road of yours for an important matter. The English have been very active in creating a sentiment here favorable to annexing our province to Great Britain." "There are many signs of their activity; but others have been active too." "It is time your government should survey roads between California and your westernmost outpost."