ow massed at
Santa Clara, within a day's march of the bay.

About a mile from the Presidio and almost opposite the Juno's anchorage
were six great stone tubs sunken in the ground and filled by a spring
of clear water. Here, once a week, the linen, fine and heavy, of Fort
and Presidio was washed, the stoutest serving women of households and
barracks meeting at dawn and scrubbing for half a day. Rezanov had
watched the bright picture they made--for they wore a bit of every hue
they could command--with a lazy interest, which quickened to thirst
when he heard that they were the most reliable newsmongers in the
country. In every Presidial district was a similar institution, and
the four were known as the "Wash Tub Mail." Many of the women were
selected by the tyrants of the tubs for their comeliness, and each had
a lover in the couriers that went regularly with mail and official
instructions from one end of the Californias to the other. All
important news was known first by these women, and much was discussed
over the tubs that was long in reaching higher but no less interested
circles; and domestic bulletins were as eagerly prized. The sailor
that brought this information to Rezanov was a good-looking and
susceptible youth, already the victim of an Indian maiden from the
handsome tribe in the Santa Clara Valley, and sister of Dona Ignacia's
Malia. Rezanov furnished him with beads and other trinkets and was at
no disadvantage thereafter.

There was nothing Rezanov would have liked better than to see a Russian
fleet sail through the straits, but he also knew that nothing was less
likely, and that from such rumors he should only derive further
annoyance and delay. Two of his sailors deserted at the prospect of
war, and his hosts, if neutral, were manifestly alert. Luis and
Santiago had been obliged to go to Monterey for a few days, and there
was no one at the Presidio in whom Rezanov could confide either his
impatience to see Concha or at the adjournment of his more prosaic but
no less pressing interests. These two young men had been with him
almost constantly since his arrival, and demonstrated their friendship
and even affection unfailingly; but there was no love lost between
himself and Gervasio. This young hidalgo had the hauteur and intense
family pride of Santiago without his younger brother's frank
intelligence and lingering ingenuousness. With all the superiority and
inferiority, he had made himself so unp