ourselves, you know, and go shares."
The four men looked earnestly at each other. Already the lost Excelsior
and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents of the
morning--their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and the fact that
they were in the hands of a hostile community--appeared but as trivial
preliminaries to the new life that opened before them! They suddenly
became graver than they had ever been--even in the moment of peril.
"I don't see why we shouldn't," said Brace quickly. "We started out to
do that sort of thing in California, and I reckon if we'd found such a
spot as this on the Sacramento or American River we'd have been content.
We can take turns at housekeeping, prospect a little, and enter into
negotiations with the Government. I'm for offering them a fair sum for
this ridge and all it contains at once."
"The only thing against that," said Crosby slowly, "is the probability
that it is already devoted to some other use by the Government. Ever
since we've been here I've been thinking--I don't know why--that we've
been put in a sort of quarantine. The desertion of the place, the half
hospital arrangements of this building, and the means they have taken
to isolate us from themselves, must mean something. I've read somewhere
that in these out-of-the-way spots in the tropics they have a place
where they put the fellows with malarious or contagious diseases. I
don't want to frighten you boys: but I've an idea that we're in a sort
of lazaretto, and the people outside won't trouble us often."
CHAPTER X.
TODOS SANTOS SOLVES THE MYSTERY.
Notwithstanding his promise, and the summons of the Council, Father
Esteban, on parting with the Excelsior prisoners in the San Antonio
Road, did not proceed immediately to the presence of the Comandante.
Partly anxious to inform himself more thoroughly regarding Hurlstone's
antecedents before entering upon legislative functions that might
concern him, partly uneasy at Brace's allusion to any possible
ungentleness in the treatment of the fair Americanas, and partly
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