Six miles from the town was a little settlement of them, in
hiding, in the bottoms of the San Carlos River, near the old
Mission. The Catholic priest advised him to search there;
sometimes, he said, fugitives of one sort and another took refuge
in this settlement, lived there for a few months, then disappeared
as noiselessly as they had come. Felipe searched there also; equally
in vain.
He questioned all the sailors in port; all the shippers. No one had
heard of an Indian shipping on board any vessel; in fact, a captain
would have to be in straits before he would take an Indian in his
crew.
"But this was an exceptionally good worker, this Indian; he could
turn his hand to anything; he might have gone as ship's carpenter."
"That might be," they said; "nobody had ever heard of any such
thing, however;" and very much they all wondered what it was that
made the handsome, sad Mexican gentleman so anxious to find
this Indian.
Felipe wasted weeks in Monterey. Long after he had ceased to
hope, he lingered. He felt as if he would like to stay till every ship
that had sailed out of Monterey in the last three years had returned.
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