“You had better rest, Saldado.  You are far from well.  Start to-morrow.”

Ortega shrugged.  “Meanwhile they mutter,” his eyes jerked to the indiscriminate company below.

“When men march and have a motive, they forget their grievances.  When they lie in camp the devil stalks about and puts mischief into their thought.  I have been a soldier for fourteen years, your excellency.”

“And I for thirty,” said the other dryly, but he smiled.  “You are right, my sergeant.  Go.  And may your patron saint, the reverend father of Assisi, aid you.”

Ortega saluted and withdrew.  “I will require three days with your excellency’s grace,” he said.  Portola nodded and observed Ortega’s sharp commands wheel a dozen mounted soldados into line.  They galloped past him, their lances at salute and dashed with a clatter of hoofs into the valley below.

Young Francisco Garvez spurred his big mare forward till he rode beside the sergeant.  A tall, half-lanky lad he was with the eager prescience of youth, its dreams and something of its shyness hidden in the dark alertness of his mien.

“Whither now, my sergeant?” he inquired with a trace of pertness as he laid a hand upon the other’s pommel.  “Do we search again for that elusive Monterey?  Methinks Vizcaino dreamed it in his cups.”  He smiled, a flash of strong, white teeth relieving the half-weary relaxation of his features, and Ortega turning, answered him: 

“Perhaps the good St. Francis hid it from our eyes—­that we might first discover this puerto christened in his honor.  We have three days to reach the Punta de los Reyes, which Vizcaino named for the kings of Cologne.”

For a time the two rode on in silence.  Then young Garvez muttered:  “It is well for Portola that your soldados love you....  Else the expedition had not come thus far.”  The sergeant looked at his companion smolderingly, but he did not speak.  He knew as well as anyone that the Governor’s life was in danger; that conspiracy was in the air.  And it was for this he had taken with him all the stronger malcontents.  Yes, they loved him—­whatever treachery might have brooded in their minds.  His eyes kindled with the knowledge.  He led them at a good pace forward over hill and dale, through rough and briery undergrowth, fording here and there a stream, spurring tired horses over spans of dragging sand until darkness made further progress impossible.  But with the break of day he was on again after a scanty meal.  Just at sunrise he led his party up to a commanding headland where he paused to rest.  His winded mount and that of Garvez panted side by side upon the crest while his troopers, single file, picked their way up the narrow trail.  Below them was the Bay of San Francisco guarded by the swirling narrows of the Golden Gate.  And over the brown hilltops of the Contra Costa a great golden ball of sunlight battled with the lacy mists of dawn.