Berkeley High School - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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He finally arose and forced himself with trembling knees to enter and cross the further wing; here he would find the good Anselm. As he stood before the father ' s door he heard a murmur near the altar at his left and turning with straining eyes beheld the figure of a girl kneel- ing in prayer. His heart seemed to club him from within, and he stood sensing some great thought or message. The figure grew clearer as he looked, and it was Guadalupe. She wore a white robe and her dark hair fell in a mass about her shoulders and upon the foot of the altar. Rahelio heard his name murmured and saw her hands raise in supplication, and he cried out with all his might, and his voice sounded like a vague whisper. Things grew dim and confused to him ; he hated himself ; he came wretched, bloody with guilt and damned, and he loved her. Guadalupe rose and turned toward him startled, the look of a saint in her face. Rahelio fell clutching her feet and crying like a child. Guadalupe raised and led him into the open air where he gradually be- came coherent enough to be understood and he told her the whole story. And O Guadalupe, I loved you so ! and I have been a fool and I feel very low. And then 1 was proud and 1 turned back to honor my name and you and I have dishonored both ! And he held his bowed head in his hands. A moment so and then he stood up l efore her and throwing his arms wide and looking over the peaceful moonlit valley, he cried : And I love her, love her with all the soul I have and she must now despise me ! Guadalupe De La Torre said softly. Rahelio, my aunt stays here at the mission tonight to talk with Father Anselm about my future. When she awakes in the morning my future will already be. I love you. Now we will ride far away. Rahelio took her in his arms and kissed her many times. Together they closed the rusty creaking gates, and climbed on to his horse and lifted her before him. Together they rode down into the silent valley and up into the rolling Santa Lucias. They stopped for a last look at the peaceful scene, the rolling fields, and the moonlit mission standing big and solemn before the silver waters. Then they took the trail of the Padres for Mexico. JOHN DOUGLAS SHORT. 15

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■ I think she still loves young- Castro, and that is why she is not here to- night. The one in the center leaning on the stone coping turned his head, and the moonlight showed Rahelio the look of malice and hatred on his features as he answered: ' Well I. Louis Sanchez, Avho speak to you now — I tell a-ou she Avill find her lover strung up for a bandalero one line dav. ' Castro ' s blood leaped at the insult to his love and his name, and Sanchez, his Avords scarce finished, saw him climbing over the Ioav coping, saw the furious face and the flash of a knife, and that Avas all. Rahelio saAv the blood spatter on the grey Avails and his fury left him. Som.e one cried out and someone ran at him. He knocked them flat and fled as he had come. His speed frightened his horse and he leaped into the saddle on the run, and theA ' AA ent pounding down the hard Avet shore and faded into the night. There Avas no room in Rahelio s mind noAv but for terror and a desire to fly aAvay, aAvay before the coming sun, a thousand miles away. His horse ne ' er galloped harder, yet it seemed hours to Castro before they reached the county road and climbed panting and straining up the Carmel hill. At the top of the hill the gloom of the dark shadowy pines Avith here and there a streak of ghostly moonlight, brought sharply to his mind the Avords of a young vaquero at El Adobe: T tell you Avhat, I don ' t like that Carmelo hill one bit. AMien I go that Avay I ' m not at all scared you un ' er- stand. but just the same I don ' t waste no time. I just grab my gun and dig my spur and ride like hell I I tell a-ou that man Tom Doud he ver ' bad man. Rahelio did likcAvise, but Avith more reason than the A ' aquero. Around the Avinding grade they flew, in the moonlight here and the darkness there, beating hard and fast along the silent dusty road. The Avay gradually be- came more open as they got down into the A ' alley, and coming around a sharp hill, there lay the Carmel Mission in the broad smooth fields Avith the sih-ery waters of the Lagoon and baA- behind. The sight brought dear Father Anslem to his mind and his years of confidence and confession. He Avas a father and a brother and a confessor to Rahelio, and he felt even noAv he must see him, even now Avith this terror on his soul. He sloAved doAvn as he came to the first adobes and Avalked his horse up to the A-enerable church. The poiuiding hoofs seemed to strike more noise out of the ground the sloAver they AA ' alked. and each beat struck a neAv dread into Rahelio ' s heart. He dismount ed and swung open the great iron barred door. As he looked into the A-aulted church, his courage fled and he dropped on his knees, clutching the barred gate. He dreaded to take his sacrilegious person into the sanctuary and yet he must; he groaned aloud in his despair. 14

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S ' §@)@S lK SKULL$1 1HAA E always been more or less interested in Indian remains. 1 was ever on the w tch. while I was in the Sierras amon - the rcnn- ' nts of the ancient Indian tribes, for any relics that might have snrvived the ransacking- of the gronnd. by the placer miners. So one day when a friend who knew of my collecting instinct mentioned to me that he had seen a re- markable looking skull on exhibition in the town store, I at once became anxious to obtain it. And so I did, and an interesting specimen it proved to be. It was a dirty grey color, fine and round and shiny, with a hole in the top of it and three teeth in its jaw. I considere d it a great acquisition. It was evident th ' t it had originally belonged to an Indian, or perhaps, I thought, it might ha e belonged to a member of those prehistoric races that scientists claimed once inhabited the west. I was really excited about it : I measured it with a tape in the manner of a tailor measuring a man for a new suit: I sketched it from every angle; I compared it with illustrations of a Fuegian ' s skull from Cape Horn and decided it belonged to a much more primitive type ; it even seemed to bear a close resemblance to the famous Neanderthal Skull and to the Calaveras Skull, which has been found in a gravel mine, under an ancient ri ' er channel, about forty miles northeast of our mining camp. I concluded that it must ha -e belonged to a man con- temporary with these skulls. In the excitement aroused by these specula- tions 1 thought that I might be able to pro -e the Calaveras Skull was no hoax, as had been claimed by some prominent scientists ; I saw my name on the front page of the Prospector, described as Our prominent fellow citizen, and then half a column in the city papers, and then I began to trace the pedigree of my find. It had been given by one know i as Spec, to my friend. Spec had with an eye to profit gi ' en three tops and a bullet mould to some one else, who had got it from a gentleman who kept a hotel, whose wife objected to his using it for a paper-weight. This gentleman, a Mr. Jones, had been pre- sented with it by a man who had worked on the Coulterville road when a new bridge was being l uilt across Jackass creek. My hopes seemed almost realized, for. on the nearer end of the liridge there was a high bank of conglomerate. If the find had been made here. 16