Isidro

VI

THE BRIAR

THE rain was over and gone when Isidro woke in the grapevine hut of Peter Lebecque. It was clear day overhead, and the sun coming up resplendent. Peter Lebecque was busy about the cooking pots; said he,—

“Well, señor, are you for the road?”

“Most assuredly, señor; the sooner the better.”

“It is so,” said Lebecque; “the Padre Presidente is not a man to be kept waiting.” They broke their fast in silence; the boy, Isidro judged, had been fed; the sheep jangled their bells for the start. El Zarzo came up with Escobar’s horse and a kicking pinto saddled for himself. He gave no greeting, but his eyes were distinctly friendly. He was dressed more in the fashion of the time, and showed more slenderness. He wore no hat, but the kerchief on his head was black and new. Rid of the fantastic garnish of leaves, his brows showed under it a fine black line meeting across the thin high nose. Straight black locks clipped his face around and fell under the chin like a veil; so much of his skin as showed had a deep touch of the sun. He was to ride with Isidro and the sheep to find Mariana’s men, who would be by this time in the place called Pasteria.

There was no ceremony of parting other than this: the trapper called the lad aside and thrust a packet in his bosom; there passed some words between them in a strange tongue, —French, guessed Isidro, — but no farewell.

Escobar, who, now that he was fed and astride of a horse, felt the world to go very well with him, sang as they passed out of the cañon of the vines.

Rain still shook from the laden trees; it lay heavily on the slanting grass, heaviest on the folded poppy buds. Little runnels lined the gravelly slopes; the streams were over-full. Woolly patches of cloud clung about the shouldering hills and flocked in the cañons. Where their horses trod among the wild oats there was a sound of showers. It was a morning of deep, unmastered joy. They went slowly by dim, sweet trails,for the lambs made small progress in the wetness.

The sun warmed and dried them soon enough; warmed the blood of the lad, who played a thousand impish tricks,— scurried on steep hillsides, went needlessly about in the scrub to increase the way, chased the hill creatures, and gave them call for call. He rode one of the wild horses native to those hills, on a saddle of Indian make, lacking the high pommel of the Spaniard, and rode like an Indian, indifferently on one side or the other, on neck or rump. With all he watched Escobar with alert intentness.

At mid-morning they struck into a belt of chaparral in the wash of a sometime flood, very gaudy at this season with wild gourd and cactus flower. Rabbits herded here, scarcely fearful of men or dogs. In the clear vault above them eagles swooped and hung. Suddenly one dropped with a great spread of pinions on the cactus scrub. It struck and halted, sweeping forward slowly for the rise, and from its pierced quarry came a cry anguished and human. Isidro, startled out of a muse, clapped spurs to his horse. As the eagle rose to his level, he struck it sharply with his silver-handled quirt. The great bird, amazed, loosed his hold upon the rabbit, which made off in the chaparral, squealing pitifully. The eagle showed fight for a moment, thought better of it, sailed off to new depredations.

El Zarzo rode up astounded. “What!” he said.

“My faith,” said Isidro, “but I can never hear one of them scream for pain and be quiet.” He was ashamed of his weakness and ashamed of his shame.

“ Rabbits were made to be eaten,” said the shepherd lad, “and eagles to cat them.”

Isidro recovered himself.

“It is not fitting that a priest should see killing done,” he said.

The boy edged up his pony and slacked rein; clearly this fine gentleman was not to be feared, and might repay study.

“Are you a priest, señor?”

“I am about to be.”

“What is he, a priest?”

“ A priest, Virgen Santisima ! A priest is a very holy man, in the service of God and our Saviour and St. Francis, or other of God’s saints. Hast never seen one?”

“ One. He was fat, and had small hair, and wore a dress like a woman’s. You look not like such a one. When my mother lay a-dying she was all for a priest. ‘A priest, a priest,’ she would cry, but when one was fetched she was already gone.”

“ She was, no doubt, a very good Christian.”

“She was a Cahuiallas,” said the boy,

“A Cahuiallas! Thou?”

“Of that tribe.”

Isidro looked at the fine, small face under the fall of hair. “ Nevertheless, you are no Indian,” was his thought.

“But what does he do, a priest?”

“ My faith, the boy is a stark heathen! ” cried Isidro. “A priest is for marrying and christening and burying. He doeth on earth the works of our Father Christ.”

“My mother had a Christ,” said El Zarzo, “silver, on a black cross. In the sickness it is a great comfort.”

Isidro had a fine feeling for situations; he tuned himself to the boy’s key. Their talk was all of the wood and its ways, trapper’s and shepherd’s talk, suited to their present shift. For food the boy had brought jerke of venison, barley cakes, and dried figs. They took their nooning under an oak with great content.

El Zarzo pushed the sheep shrewdly; their way lay by high windy slopes, by shallow cañons under a sky of leaves. They worked up water courses reeking sweet with buckeye bloom; they forded streams swollen with the rain. So evening brought them to the place called Pasteria, — a long valley running north and south between broken ridges full of lairs. Spare branched pines spiked the upper rim of it; oaks stood up here and there; along the shallow groove that sometimes held a stream, a fringe of birches. The sheep passed down the shore of the valley, and the purple glow of evening lapped them like a tide; burrowing owls began to call; night hawks set their dusky barred wings above the scrub. Far across the pastures a rosy flame blossomed out against the dark, and settled to a glow. It was the camp-fire of Mariana’s men.

“They come this way,” said the boy. “Rest here, and by the third hour after sunrise they will come up with us.” They lit a fire of sticks,and had a meal. Pasteria flooded with soft dusk, and the rim of it melted into the sky. Noé and Reina Maria kept their accustomed round.

“Señor,” said the boy as he lay in his bright serape by the dying fire, “do you like it, being a priest?”

“It is a great honor, and greatly to the soul’s salvation to serve God and Holy Church.”

“But do you like it?”

“Yes,” said Escobar, forced to deal simply in the face of such simplicity. As well put on airs with Noé or Reina Maria.

“Do women become priests ever?”

“Sacramento! Women! It is a man’s work, being a priest, though there are many holy women who serve God and the saints in convents. Santa Barbara was such a one, and Santa Clara.”

“What do they do?”

“They say prayers and do penance; also they do the work of the convent, and visit the sick.”

“Is that all? Do they never go out?”

“ There may be other matters requiring their attention, but I do not recall them. For the most part they pray.”

“Do they never marry?”

“Santisima! They are the brides of the Church.”

“Nor have children ?”

“Never!”

El Zarzo brooded over these things for a space, and Isidro settled himself for sleep.

“It is stupid, I think,” said the boy, “to get married.”

“Ah, no doubt you will come to think differently.”

“You are not for marrying?”

“I am to be a priest.” Isidro said his prayers and crossed himself; El Zarzo did the same; it appeared he was a Christian, though somewhat lacking in instruction. The deep velvet void closed over them,blurred with stars; the coyotes were beginning their choruses.

Shepherds are a simple folk, slow of wit, little wondering, accustomed to mysteries. They have an affinity for sheep. Those who had the care of Mariana’s flock came up with Isidro and the lad about mid-morning. It is doubtful if Nicolas and Ramon understood their part in the affair, but they made no objection. Here were sheep of Mariana’s lacking a shepherd, and shepherds of Mariana’s hiring. They met and mingled as of duty bound. Further than that the matter furnished them material for days’ thought and night talks by many a coyotescaring fire. The adventure of Noé and Reina Maria passed into the Iliad of the hills. By the week’s end Nicolas and Ramon, who had traversed the length and breadth of the affair, concluded that they should go and look for Mariana.

Isidro and El Zarzo, once they had done with them, struck across the valley for the outposts of the Santa Lucia. On leaving Las Plumas it had been the purpose of Escobar to drop into the public road at the Mission San Antonio de Padua de Los Robles. From there he could reach San Carlos in a day’s riding. This business of Noé and Reina Maria had set all his plans awry. He was now out of his own riding and all at sea. El Zarzo, who knew the land like an Indian, led him a sharp pace. They rode hard, made a hunter’s camp that night, and slept the clock around on stacked dried grass.

From that the directions for the way were plain enough; keep to the trail as long as it ran west, where it broke and wavered in stony ground cut straight over the hill crest. It did not matter greatly how; take the easiest going and keep a certain bulk of blue hill always to the left. So you came to a valley with a river; the ford was by the road house; the rest was open highway. Isidro rose early, slipped a silver piece under the shepherd lad’s serape, and gave him a friendly pat. The boy breathed lightly in sleep.

The way was long, and Escobar struck out with a light heart. Lilac and laurel bloom brushed his saddle-bow and at times engulfed him. The Santa Lucia rose up, blue and wooded slopes; seaward on those high and lonely altars bloomed the tall spike of yucca, called the Candles of our Lord. He pricked forward singing. The wood was very still. It came upon him once or twice that something moved behind him in the trail. Twigs snapped; a stone rolled clattering to some leafy deep. His horse grew restless, cocked an ear back upon the path. It might be deer or bear. Too noisy for one Isidro judged, too still for the other. His horse whinnied and halted. Wild horses, no doubt, or an Indian riding at random in the scrub. He had come to the end of his trail and was forced to pick his way. Once in the pauses of this business he heard the clank of bridle bit, but nothing came up with him. By this he became sure he was followed. Little hints of sound, a pricking between his shoulders, the unease of his horse, kept him on the alert. Covering the rise of the hill, he looked back to see the scrub moving where a horse, led by his rider, came after him. His own horse saw and whinnied; the led horse answered. Then began a conversation between those two; it seemed of friendly import, but conveyed no information to the rider. Isidro cleared an open space at a gallop, backed under a hanging rock, and waited.

It was by this time noon, hot and dim; a bank of white cloud hung low in the west above the sea; purple haze lay like a web along the scrub. No birds broke silence but the telltale jays. Isidro could hear the horse slowly breaking his way up the steep. Since the rider had dismounted Isidro could make nothing of him until he came full into the cleared space before him. It was El Zarzo. He must have expected to come up with Isidro hereabout, for he gave neither start nor sign when the other hailed him. Said he, —

“How goes the trail, señor?”

“My faith, lad, you gave me a turn. Where go you ? ”

“ I, señor ? I go to the Presidio of Monterey in your company.” The lad was imperturbably impudent.

“Caramba! I cannot take you; it is ridiculous! What will the old man say ?”

“That you are very discourteous, since I have guided you so far, and you refuse me the same.”

“Eh, it can prick, this Briar,” said Isidro. “ Did he bid you follow me ?”

El Zarzo looked calmly out across the lilac bloom. “It grows late,” he said.

Isidro became grave.

“Think, lad, there is no friend there to do you a kindness. As for me, I know not how I shall fare where I go, nor how long remain.”

“There have been few to do me kindness that I should look for it.”

“ Your father ” —

“He is not my father.”

“I refuse to take you.”

“The trail is free, señor.” The lad breathed deeply and his face was troubled, but he was not to be shaken.

“ Peste! ” cried Isidro. He wheeled his horse about, and made off at a keen pace; his mount was of good blood, and proved the mettle of his pasture, but the hill pony had the lighter load. He was never a full cry behind. On a stony slope, Isidro, doubling on his trail, came once face to face with him.

“Boy, boy!” he cried, “do you know what you do ? ”

“I go to Monterey, señor.”

Isidro unbent suddenly with laughter.

“So;” he said, “we will go better in company.” They struck into the valley presently, and jogged on comfortably side by side.

VII

THE ROAD TO CARMELO

The riders were now upon the main ridge of the coastwise hills; from this vantage they saw the land slope, by terraces unevenly wooded, to the floor of the valley where the Salinas ran. Here was a sag in the ridge that gave easy passage. North and south the range showed brokenly; west, the valley rolled up into blunt rounded hills; beyond them lay the sea. They watched the shift and play of light above it all day long. Between the trees on the slope the scrub was thick and close; all the gullies were choked with the waste of years. There were deer here, but no antelope; even at this distance they could make out a number of bears feeding on mast under the wide oaks. The riders steered by the road house that made a white speck by the river; an hour later they heard the singing of the ford.

They had shrewd shift crossing, for the river ran full and swift; the horses had to swim for it. The Escobar finery was hardly so fine by now. They slept early at the road house, where the lad passed for a servant, and lay at Isidro’s feet; dawn end saw them riding forward in a weeping fog, saddle weary, but very good company. Isidro turned questioner in his turn; the lad told him freely of himself and his way of life. That was not much; he stuck to it that his mother was an Indian, a Cahuiallas; Peter Lebecque no kin of his, — “my mother’s man,” he said. Their life was all of the hills, hunting and trapping, following the shifting of wild creatures for their food and housing. They had never gone into the settlements; it seemed there was some obscure reason for this. Isidro made a shrewd guess that the woman might have been enticed away from one of the Missions, and was wary of a forced return. The lad had seen only Indians, vaqueros, and some such wayfarer as Escobar. It had been a rough life, but he showed no roughness; he had been servilely bred, but used no servility.

Of his errand at the Presidio of Monterey, if errand he had, he would say nothing. He showed Isidro a package of coin, curious concerning the value and use of it, avowing that he had it from Peter Lebecque; upon which the young man made sure the trapper had sent him, but he gave over trying to probe that affair.

“Keep your own secret, lad,” he said good-humoredly. “But you are young to be seeking your fortune in this fashion. Where will you go in Monterey?”

“Ah, with you, señor,” breathed the lad, with something quick and wistful in his eyes. Isidro laughed. Priest or no priest, he had a good deal of the zest of life in him; the sense of companionship quickened it. If the lad took kindly to him it was no more than the kindness he showed to the lad. By Our Lady, they would see something of the world, even out of a cassock. Their blood sang to a pretty tune; they rode forward merrily. By noon they saw below them the chimes in the east tower of Carmelo. They saw the sea, and that being new to them, stayed rein to snuff the wind of it like a strong wine of excitement. Riding into the mission grounds Isidro grew grave.

“Look now,” he said, “here is the end of my going at my own will. I shall find the Padre Presidente here or at Monterey and give myself into his hands. Whatever I am able to do for you that will I do, but you must be obedient in all things; so you will win the Padre’s good will, and in any private concern I will bespeak you fairly. More I cannot promise. Here let us rest.”

By a brook under an oak Isidro braided his hair and set his dress in order. They fell in with a band of neophytes going to dinner from a meadow where they had been marking calves. The Indians had stripped to the work, but they had each a shirt which they put on as they went. They wore little else, — a loin cloth and a strip of kerchief about the brows. Some of them had protected their legs with strips of hide wound about and about.

A great body of white cloud brooded over the land; the shadow of it dappled the hills. A wind came up from the sea and brought the breath of orchard bloom. The neophytes fell into lines two and two; another band came in from the fields and streamed alongside them. They raised a crooning chant, timing their feet as they went. The bell cried noon from the tower.

The Father President came out of the church, and Isidro knelt to receive his blessing. At the meal which followed he was made acquainted with the resident Padres, — Pablo Gomez and Ignacio Salazar, — and with Fray Demetrio.

It was a very comfortable meal: soup with force-meat balls, chicken, beef dressed with peppers, a dish of spiced pumpkin, another of fried beans, fine flour cakes, and light sour wine of the Mission’s own making. An Indian servitor stood at the Father President’s back; the napery was white and fine. Isidro gave the news of Las Plumas, the progress of his father’s malady, the tale of the flocks, the growth of the vine cuttings Father Saavedra had sent the year before; but of his journey, of the incident of the Indian under the oak, of Noé and Reina Maria he said nothing; these were matters too small for the Father President’s ear. Neither did Saavedra say anything of his schemes, nor what he would advise for the young man; the time was not ripe.

They walked out afterward in the pleasant air. The neophytes were getting back to their work, children lay asleep, and women sat spinning and weaving in the sun. The Mission San Carlos Borromeo stands on an elevation, its buildings inclosing an imposing square. On the north side the church, which was built in a single aisle, reared its two towers, brooding above the first foundation of Junip’ero Serra, el Capella de los Dolores. Adjoining the church were the cloisters of the priests, opening into the long diningroom; beyond that the kitchen. The storerooms, shops, smithy, the quarters of the major domo, and the huts of the neophytes made up the four sides of the quadrangle, in the midst of which stood the whippingpost and stocks. All the walls were of adobe, whitewashed, shining in the sun; all the roofs of tile,brick red; all the floors, except that of the church, of stamped earth, swept daily. Two bells hung in the west tower, three in the east, reached by an outside stair. One was rung for meals, for rising, for beginning and quitting work. For the offices of Holy Church they rang the chimes. So Padre Vicente explained to young Escobar.

Very pleasantly, very much at ease in the golden afternoon, they went from storehouse to smithy, from chapel to orchard. They saw the rows of huts of the married neophytes, orderly and four square like a village street; saw the carved Christ above the high altar flanked by the patron of the Mission, and San Antonio with the Child. They said a prayer by the bones of Serra, and bowed before the Stations of the Cross. Then they went out into the quadrangle to see a man flogged for stealing a hen.

The fellow had fifteen lashes, and bore them stolidly, putting on his shirt again with the greatest good-humor; doubtless he thought the dinner worth it. Isidro looked out to sea; he felt a little queasily at the sound of blows, and so missed the point of the Padre’s observation on the Church’s duty of rendering spiritual relief according to the fault. At Las Plumas they had Indian servants who did about as pleased them, except when the old Don was in a passion, and threw things at them. If the women misbehaved, their husbands dealt with them in a homely fashion, but they never called it spiritual relief. Isidro had a moment of doubting if he should really make a good priest.

He walked after that for a space with Saavedra in the mission garden, where young fruit was setting on the trees, and the vines blossoming. The Padre showed him some experiments in horticulture newly under way, — grafting of delicate fruits on wild stock. They flourished hardily. “ So,” said the Father President, “is the vine of Christian grace engrafted on this root of savagery, fruitful unto salvation.”

Isidro was not thinking of souls just then. He was suddenly smit with a sense of the material competency of the Brotherhood of St. Francis. He remembered his life in old Mexico with his mother, where all his thoughts of the priesthood had gathered about the cathedral and the altar services. Now it occurred to him that to be a good priest in this new land one must first be a better man. It was not by blinking the works that men do that the Padres had established themselves among the heathen, but by doing them; making themselves masons, builders, artists, horticulturists; dealing with sheepscab, weeds, alkaline soil, and evil beasts. It appeared that God was also served by these things. This prompted him to put some question to the Father President concerning the disposition of himself. Saavedra responded with an invitation to Isidro to make with him the round of the Missions of Alta California, which progress should begin within a fortnight. The proposal fell in with the young man’s mood of adventure. The Father President and Escobar began to be well pleased with each other.

Returned to the mission buildings the Padre found work cut out for him; a poor soul wanting the mercy of the Church. Padre Salazar was at a bedside in Monterey, Padre Gomez in the meadow of oaks overseeing the counting of calves ; the Father President himself went into the confessional. Outside they heard the evening bustle of the Mission as of a very considerable town, — children crying, dogs barking, and the laughter of young girls. Men gathered in from the farthest fields; the smell of cooking rose and mixed with the smell of the orchard and the sea. It was the hour for evening service, and an altar ministrant crept up to snuff the tall candles that burned before San Antonio with the Child. The ringers in the belfry shook the chimes; a veil of fog came up and hid the sea.

The poor soul at the confessional rocked sidewise uneasily upon his knees; not much account to look at, a shepherd by his dress, young, low-browed, dark, with dirty, fidging fingers, a fresh cut upon his face running into the unshaven jaw. Most plainly of all he was in the grip of grief or terror too large for his shallow holding, that marred his smartness as the bubbling of pitch fouls the pot. The penitent’s tale ran on, mumbled, eager, with many a missed word painstakingly recovered: “I accuse myself of the sin of envy — of drunkenness, of neglect of holy ordinances ” — various sins of omission and commission. All this was merely perfunctory; counter to it ran the deep mutter of the priest, “What more, my son, what more?” At last it was all out, — envy and drunkenness and hate, ending in a slain man lying out on a pleasant heath with his mouth to the earth and blue flies drinking his blood.

All judgments are mixed. Padre Saavedra might have bidden the man surrender to the civil authorities, but he thought perhaps the civil authorities claimed too much, and there are better uses to put a man to than execution. Besides, here was a reasonable doubt as to the degree of criminality; both men were drunken, one of them had suffered grievance, — without conscious fraud Ruiz had put that forward, — and no knowing whose had been the first provocation. Whatever Mariana’s share in it, and the confessor judged it must have been considerable, he was now gone out of the Padre’s jurisdiction. Perhaps he had known the Portuguese without finding in the knowledge any warrant for holding him blameless. Was it fair, then, that the other should bear the brunt of punishment ?

“Is there any circumstance known to you,” he had asked Ruiz, “by which it is possible that any other should come to suffer for the evil you have done ?”

“None, none,” protested the poor herder.

“But should any arise” —

“Ah, Padre, Padre,” interrupted the penitent, “I am a poor man, and of but small account. Give me ease for my conscience, and if it should come to pass that any be falsely accused or suffer because of me, I am in your hands. Do you but come after me, Padre, and I shall make all things plain.”

Ruiz had not much imagination. This was a safe promise he thought, for once freed of blood-guiltiness he could not conceive how it should come up to trouble him again.

There was an art once of making cups so that if but clearest water was poured in them it became medicated, turgid, or hurtful, with the properties of the vessel; so, often, the saintliest soul takes a color from its human holding. Did the Padre, flinching a little at the abasement of his divinely derived authority before the encroachments of the state, and leaning always toward mercy for the sake of this simple people from whom he might yet be torn, appease himself with the secret exercise of priestly powers ? At any rate, he made the shepherd an obligation of prayers and alms, masses said for the murdered man, no more drunkenness. This was hard, and, moreover, he should go back and bury the dead decently out of sight. This was harder, but here was no family to compensate, no restitution of stolen goods to make. What else ? Then he made inquiry where the place of the unblest grave might be found, for he had it in mind to pass by it in his itinerary and do what lay within his holy office for the sake of the murdered man. And having concluded these things he gave Ruiz release.

“Go in peace, my son, and may the God of Peace go with thee. Absolvo te. ” The penitent crept out into the dark with a mingled expression of cunning and relief.

Indians gathered in to the evening service; the candles glowed on the high altar. Isidro went in with the others. He had not attended service in a church since he had been a child in old Mexico; the recollection came back dimly, and with it a memory of his mother. He remembered why he was here and what it purported. The smell of incense and candle smoke, the rising and falling of the bent worshipers as they followed the ritual, the mellow droning voices lifted his soul above the sense of time and things. He saw the saints in Paradise and souls in Purgatory; sweat broke out upon him; a great panting shook his heart; he was taken with the hunger of souls. There was no doubt about it that Isidro would make an excellent priest. Toward the end of the service, a little wearied of his own fervor and the hardness of the floor, his eyes strayed to the lad Zarzo, who watched him from his station under the choir. He met two great eyes of burning and amazement, a hint of wonder, and along with it something of the dumb brute’s envy of the man. A wave of kindness overtook the young man. It occurred to him that although the lad was plainly a Christian there remained much that might be done for his soul’s good.

VIII

MASCADO

Isidro judged himself done with the business of Juan Ruiz and his sheep, but, in fact, he was not yet to see the end. The night that Escobar supped with the Father President at San Carlos, Peter Lebecque had also a guest. He came at dusk, lighting down from his horse, — a newly caught wild bronco of the hills in a rawhide halter. He came as one accustomed to that hostel, and gave no greeting. The old trapper silently made additions to his evening meal; the dogs came one by one and put their noses to the newcomer in recognition. He was, no doubt, an Indian, but owning a lighter strain, a skin less swart, a mould less stocky, a hint of hotter, swifter thought. Except for the loin cloth he was naked; his blanket, folded, served him for a saddle; around his neck in a deerskin sheath hung a knife; around his brows the inevitable bright bandeau of woven stuff, the knotted ends, fringed with abalone shell, hung down and mingled with his hair. His breast was black with bruises and scars of half-healed cuts.

“Where from, Mascado?” said Lebecque.

“Los Tulares; the elk shift their feeding-ground from the lake to the river; the young are dropped early this year.” So he gave the news of the road, — three hundred calves branded at Las Plumas, Red Baptiste slain by a bear, a feud between the Obehebes and Chio’s following. Lebecque answered with the tale of his traps and pelts. All this was made talk, while the renegade’s eyes kept a-roving, up the swale, along the creek, in the alleys of shade under the grapevines; his ears appeared to prick a little like a dog’s at noises. Lebecque leered at his cooking pots with his back to his guest, his mouth screwed in a fit of obscene mirth.

“Eat,” he said at last, when all was done; but no talk interfered with that business. After food, drink. Lebecque fished up a bottle from some crypt under the vines; with drink, talking.

“Eh, Mascado, wine is good!” cried the trapper; “drink, Mascado, drink deep. Another cup ? ” The old rascal’s tongue had got wagging at last. “Drink, Mascado; El Zarzo will not come. You are looking for him ? You have something to say to him ? Well, you will have to say it to me, Mascado; it will be long before you see him again. Drink, Mascado.”

The Indian took another cup to beat down the embarrassment that threatened to rise and flood him.

“Where is she?” he said.

“ Where ? How should I know ? Who keeps the trail of a flown bird ? Ah, Mascado, you are too late; the Briar has bloomed in your absence, and another man has plucked the rose.”

The Indian’s lids narrowed.

“Speak straight, Lebecque.”

The old trapper began to sigh and wag his head prodigiously.

“Ah, the women, Mascado; they are all of a piece; you think you have known them all your life, you think you have them; comes a fine sprig of a caballero and gives them the tail of his eye, off they go.”

The Indian struck the table with his hand until the bottle jumped.

“Where is she?” he said again.

“Where? At Monterey, I think. It is a very pleasant town I have heard, a gay town. Eh, Mascado? If you should go there, Mascado, you could tell me how my Briar blooms in the sea air.” He leaned his arms on the table and shook with chuckling. The Indian was a renegade from the Mission San Carlos; if he so much as put his nose in that direction he smelt the whipping-post.

“Have you let her go, Lebecque, have you let her go ? ”

“Ah, what is an old fellow like me to a fine young gentleman in velvet? Velvet smallclothes, Mascado, with silver trimmings. You see, Mascado, I am old; my face is not good to me; I have no fine garments, no silver, no lace, no manners. Ah, ah, what could I do?” The old villain’s allusions were pointed each with a leer; his shoulders shook. “Why now, Mascado, you take it hard. My word, you are quite excited over it. So am I; see how my hand shakes.” (So it did with indecent mirth.) “ Take a drink, Mascado; it will do you good.”

Said Mascado, “When?”

“Ah, a matter of two or three days ago, quite three days ago. They will be in Monterey by now. More wine, Mascado ? Wine is good against grief, and you are plainly grieved, Mascado. So am I.”

There was something keen in the old man’s feeling of the situation, something earnest in the dry sobs of laughter, something hidden that stung, something open that was meant to soothe; the Indian sat fuming, but uncertain.

“I have watched, Mascado; the old man has eyes. I have seen the thought grow in you; you would have set my Briar to grow in your own door, Mascado, and now she has gone. He was a very fine gentleman, a very good family, and rich, Mascado, very rich.”

The Indian sprang to his feet. “A fine gentleman, say you ? Was he smooth and young? Had he an eye like a bird’s? Had he a bay horse with one white fore foot and a long scar on his belly? Ah, ah!” The man twisted and shook like an eel in a spit; his eyes stood out; his words choked him. He shook his knife; he was plainly in a great fume, and something warred with his rage to beat it down.

“A fine gentleman, ha! All in black with silver, and a way with him that said,

‘ You are the dust under my feet, therefore expect no harm of me.’ Ah, I know him.”

Lebecque pricked up his ears.

“If you know him I doubt you know nothing good.” Again the Indian shook like a candle in a gust. “And if you know him, Mascado, you can perhaps tell me how he came by the flock and the dogs of Juan Ruiz.”

“This day week,” said Mascado, “ Juan Ruiz fed the flock at the Mesa Buena Vista; he had with him Noé and Reina Maria. I have not seen him since.” It was plain he had no notion how this should concern him.

“Three days ago,” said Lebecque, “this caballero came to my house, here at the Grapevine, at sundown. He rode a bay horse with a white fore foot; I did not notice the scar. He was driving the flock of Mariana the Portuguese. I knew the brand, and by the dogs that were with him I knew the flock for that one kept by Juan Ruiz. The dogs were plainly fagged; Noé had the marks of teeth on him.”

“Said he anything for himself?”

“Why, that he had found them at the head of Oak Creek by the ford, and no sign of the shepherd. A likely tale think you, Mascado? For look now, the flock had not been frightened, — that was plain, — nor diminished since I saw it, and that in a land where the coyotes are like cattle for numbers, and the bears carry off the sheep from under the shepherd’s eyes. And look you again, — this young man washed before meat, and there was blood on his hands and on his ruffles. I saw it; blood, Mascado.”

The half-breed’s lips curled backward from his teeth, his breath came whistling.

“Which way came he?”

“By Deer Spring, where we killed the big buck. He came on Zarzito suddenly in mid-afternoon, and professed not to know whose sheep he had.”

“Which way went he?”

“Toward Pasteria, to bring the flock to Mariana’s men. Maybe; maybe not. What should an Escobar care for a stray flock? Foul work, Mascado.”

“Ay, foul.” The mestizo ran over with curses that made the flesh creep. Lebecque pushed over the bottle.

“ Cursing is dry work,” he said; “what would you do?”

“That!” Mascado whipped his knife into the table until the tempered blade rapped the handle on the boards.

“They are not your sheep, Mascado, nor your shepherd.”

“There is Zarzito,” said the Indian.

Lebecque sniggered. “Neither is that yours, oh, my friend.”

For all answer Mascado struck his blade into the table again.

“Ah, put up your knife; he has pistols, big and silver-handled; he is a fine gentleman, I tell you.”

“Fine gentlemen have throats.”

“Put up your knife, I say. He is in Monterey: the rose is plucked. Drink, Mascado.”

The night wore, the fire dropped flickering on the hearth, the candle guttered; Lebecque drained the bottle, drained himself dry of rascally wit, and stumbled off to drunken slumber. The Indian sat at the table ever of two minds, blown hot and cold. He sheathed his blade and unsheathed it; his muscles flexed and heaved; rage shuddered in him, and went out. The dying fire touched the high glistening curves of his body, and made moving shadows on his face. The fire snapped and went out. Dark lapped up about him; the little candle made an island of light for his face to shine in; it lit his high cheek bones, glimmered on the shell fringes of his kerchief, on the whetted blade. The candle guttered and went out.

Waking late, Lebecque found himself alone. “Eh, eh,” he grunted, “let him go. It will not be to Monterey, I warrant. The good Padres have a rod in pickle. The swine! He would have the Briar to bloom by his wickiup, would he ? The wild hawk would mate with the dove. And he thought Lebecque would give him his blessing? Eh, let him go; I have served him well.” So he grumbled over his morning meal.

Mascado had not gone to Monterey. He had done what would serve his purpose better for that turn. He went about to pick up the trail of Isidro and the sheep. The rain that had fallen between times made it slow going, but he knew in the main where the trail should be. In the course of the morning he came to the ford of Oak Creek. Here the storm had fringed out to a passing shower that had scarcely penetrated the thick roof of leaves. He found the bones of the sheep that Isidro had killed, and the remains of the fire. From there the trail was sufficiently plain. He noted the vagueness and indecision of the sheep, the absence of night fires; saw the broken flower tops and the bent grass where Noé and Reina Maria had settled their duty to the flock. But one thing he missed,—that was the trail of Juan Ruiz, for it lay in thick grass, and was a week old. He knew where the flock should have been, and judging from his encounter with Escobar under the oaks, knew where he should have passed it. He pressed on after the trail of the sheep. This brought him in time to the Mesa Buena Vista, and the body of Mariana.

One must believe here that the mestizo’s rage had put him at fault, since the truth, if he had known it, would have served his purpose quite as well. He knew Juan Ruiz very little, and Mariana not at all. The body had lain out a week of warm wet weather, and, besides, the coyotes had been at it. He made out a knife wound or two, and the evidences of a struggle. Some prompting of humanity or superstition, a remnant of his mission training, led him to gouge out a shallow grave with a knife and a stick. When he had pressed the earth upon it he started forthwith for the Presidio of Monterey. He reached there the third day, looked about, failed to find what he sought. Then he went to San Carlos.

Once a neophyte always a neophyte, was the rule of the Padres. It had been two years since Mascado had left the Mission without leave, and for the second time. The corporal of the guard had brought him back the first time. Mascado and the whipping-post kept a remembrance between them of that return. But now he chose his time. It was Sunday, at the hour of morning service. There was no one left outside the church. Mascado went and stood in the nave with unbent and unrepentant head; he stood still and heard the blessed mutter of the mass for the space of a Pater Noster. By that time he had seen all that he wished; but he had also been seen and recognized by Padre Pablo, by half-a-dozen neophytes, and by the servant of Isidro Escobar.

IX

IN WHICH NOTHING IN PARTICULAR HAPPENS

The time neared when the Father President should begin his annual progress through the Missions of Alta California; the rainy season drew to a close; the planted fields were flourishing, the cattle fat. Upon this journey he was to discover to Escobar the true glory of the Franciscan foundations, to send him off to Mexico primed with ghostly enthusiasm for the work which God in His wisdom permitted to be threatened by the temporal powers. But before that there were some lesser matters.

There was this affair of the Commandante’s, concerning which he must be better informed. Castro would be sending for him at all hours to consult upon some new conjecture which he had formed. There was, also, the affair of the renegade Mascado, who had been recognized at church the Sunday before. Such contumacy, such slighting of authority, must indubitably provoke a spirit of irreverence in the neophytes if not promptly brought to punishment. They should have Mascado back and flogged within a week, even though Saavedra must ask for a detail from the Presidio to fetch him. To be frank, the forcible detention of neophytes by the Padres met with scant countenance from the civil authorities, and at this time less than ever. The Father President felt he could ill afford to strain the relations between himself and the state, still less to let the offense of Mascado go unnoticed.

In the end he got a corporal and two men to go with the privates attached to the Mission; the Commandante’s own need of help made him kindly disposed. The expedition was dispatched to the south since Mascado was reported to have been seen in that direction. For that reason they should have gone in almost any other. At the moment of the soldiers’ departing Mascado lay within sound of the sea, in cover of a spaley oak wedged in a pit of dunes, known and comforted by several of the neophytes.

Isidro had a private matter which could be best attended to at this time. Out of the bowels of great mercy, and for the greater ease of souls, His Holiness Pope Pius VII had endowed the Church of the Holy Cross at Santa Cruz with this exceeding grace,—that every mass said there for the space of one hundred years would loose the soul in whose interest it was said from the pains of Purgatory. Isidro was to assist at masses there for his mother’s sake, and if so be she did not need them they were to go to the credit of Don Antonio, who had doubtless the longer account. To Santa Cruz, therefore, went Escobar, and with him went the lad Zarzito, who would answer to no Christian name, to the great scandal of Padres Gomez and Salazar. He had attached himself to Escobar in the character of a privileged dependent, and as such, largely for his soul’s sake, had won the promise of accompanying him on the pilgrimage. The two had become great friends by now. What a youth needs to smack the full savor of new times and adventures is the company of another youth. It had been seven years since Isidro had seen a larger town than Monterey, and Zarzito never at all. There was not enough difference of schooling between them to render one unsuited to the other’s mind, just enough difference of caste to leave no question who should lead.

It was very pleasant weather to take the road in; the way led between the burnt splendor of the poppies and the freshness of the sea, — and made one day’s riding from Monterey. The last mass celebrated at the Church of the Holy Cross, so the Padre had told them, had been said for the soul of a murdered man. Isidro heard the masses very devoutly, and in the interim watched the slaughter of a thousand cattle, the hides and tallow of which had been bargained for by a Yankee trading schooner lying off-shore. It was Monday when they set out, and Friday found them back at Carmelo. Still the Father President lingered over his preparations, waiting for tardy instructions from his college, fencing with the civil powers over small matters of privilege. Isidro found time to look about him, and put in motion the work of kindness which he purposed toward Peter Lebecque’s wild lad.

He had had occasion to begin it on the first night of their stay at the Mission. The retiring bell had rung, and of the night bustle remained only the shuffle of feet across the quadrangle. Isidro lingered in the corridor in late courtesy with the Father President, watching the neophytes to their quarters. It was a general rule of all Missions that the unmarried men and unmarried women should sleep each in separate buildings — monoferos — provided for that purpose, to which only an upper servant had the key. Doubtless the good Padres had reason. The married people slept in their huts and the young children with them. On this evening, about the time when there should have been a cessation of all noises, there came a sound of struggle and protestation. It edged across the patio from the direction of the monofero, and involved the voices of Padre Pablo, Fray Demetrio, and the Briar. Fages had the latter by the collar, but the lad contrived to keep an arm’s length between them.

“O abandoned! O apostate! Despiser of holy persons,” began the secretary, pushing the lad before him. Isidro cut him short. It seemed that the slight figure of the boy swayed a little in the direction of Escobar, as they came up, but the eyes were turned away. There was a kind of appeal that touched the young man in the very abnegation of all claim. Saavedra got the gist of the matter in a question or two. The boy had objected to being locked up for the night with the rest of the youths, and had registered his objections on the person of Fray Demetrio.

“Let him lie at my door,” said Escobar, “he is a good lad.”

“Who is he?” asked Saavedra.

“I had him from Peter Lebecque in the Cañada de las Uvas. His mother was a Cahuiallas, so he says. He is not of the Missions.”

“Is he a Christian ?”

“That I’ll warrant he is not,” cried Fages, thinking of his bruises. But the boy protested; his mother had always said— “ And, besides, there was a token.” He wrenched himself free of the secretary, and fumbling at his neck, drew out something on a cord, which he held toward them in a manner indicating that he would not have it touched. Padre Vicente came forward to peer at it in the candle flare; at sight of it he crossed himself devoutly; so did the others.

“A most holy token,” said the Father President. “How came you by it?”

“My mother said it was a token of my baptism.”

“The medal of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows,” said Saavedra. “I doubt there is another such in Alta California. Let him go with Señor Escobar; after all, he is but a lad, and, without doubt, a Christian, though somewhat ill instructed.” It occurred to Isidro that he could not begin better than by remedying that matter. Zarzo put back his treasure in his bosom; it was plain to see his own respect for it had risen, observing the respect it won from the others. For that night, then, he slept in the corridor at Isidro Escobar’s door. For the rest, he settled himself very well. It seemed he had come to an excellent understanding with a motherly soul among the Indian women, who had none of her own kin, and had quartered himself in her house.

“ A most commendable woman,” Padre Ignacio told Escobar; “ one who has known great sorrows, and digested them to her soul’s good. Ordinarily we do not expect the treasures of spiritual experience from these poor children of the wilderness, but Marta is something more than ordinary. Her father, in fact, was captain of the tribe,—a man of great influence in Serra’s time, — and Marta has the gift of testimony. I myself have been often lifted up to hear her descant upon the mercies of God. She has a son, born out of wedlock, though I cannot think it due to her fault, but a most rebellious youth. Twice has he left the Mission without leave, to consort with the Children of Darkness; it is, in fact, he whom the Father President has dispatched the guard to seek. I doubt they find him, but Marta is a submissive soul. Mary grant that this lad prove a comfort to her.”

He was a comfort, at least, to Isidro, who practiced upon him all the priestly airs which most people found to become him vastly. He also undertook the lad’s instruction in the foundations of Christian faith and the lives of the saints, much of which he had gathered directly from books of Saavedra’s. The lad heard him with that sidelong look of the eye which questions the tale but not the faith of the teller; but when they touched upon the visible workings of the Church they came to lively issue. Saavedra never entered upon any justification of the Missions; said, “Behold!” and considered the argument concluded. It was a manner not without weight upon the generality; so many Indians clothed, housed, and fed; such prodigious labors; so many baptized, instructed, ripe for the garners of Paradise. Isidro was disposed to give the fact its due. Said Zarzito: —

“ But why do they lock them up ? Is God glorified because there is a roof between me and the sky? To the citizens of Monterey they do not so, and there is much goes on there that is not of the Church. And what have they got by serving God? Food in their bellies? Even so. I have seen wild Indians in the mountains. In the hills there is not always food enough, but often there is more and the pleasure of feasting. And look you, señor, here is a whipping-post, so if a man works not he is flogged; but in the forest if a man works not he goes empty, and that is the greater pain. They serve God, say you, for their souls’ salvation. But my mother served God in the hills, and the priest who came after she died, — we would have had him before but the sickness was too quick, — the priest said she had of a surety seen salvation. And again, what is this talk that the Missions will be taken away from the Padres ? If that be so you will see what you will see; for now they are as the water of streams which are dammed, quiet as a pond, but when the dam is taken away they go roaring all abroad. One I have seen, Mascado, bred in this place, him whom the Padres hunt; fifteen years he lived in this place, and is now in the hills more wild and cunning than any other. So will all these be.”

It seemed that Isidro was likely to get other views of the policy of the Franciscans than Saavedra intended.

In Monterey, also, where he met Delgardo, and felt for him that anticipatory thrill by which nature warns men that they are about to be pitted against each other, he heard talk of another sort that set his wits stirring. Here the speech of young men was all of Liberty and the Republic. Liberty in the figure of a female finds easy worship among a people who count a woman chief among the Holy Family, and the new cult bred plots thicker than flies in August. There were clamors against the Governor because he was thought to favor the priestly power, counter clamors that he favored it not at all; people who contended that the removal of the Missions from the cure of the Franciscans would put the community at the mercy of savage hordes; cross contentions that the Padres held their charges in a condition more ignoble than they might achieve for themselves. Copious reasons were not wanting for naming the Padres both saints and sinners, all of which Escobar heard. He had a way with him which made men always anxious to explain themselves, quite sure of his countenance once they had delivered the facts. First and last there was a good deal of light thrown on the situation of the Missions of Alta California; some time later Isidro found that it stood him in good stead. At this present the only use he made of it was to try the case over again with Zarzito. Isidro was one who, in order to get the pith of any subject, needed to express himself, and for full expression required an audience. The lad’s part in it was chiefly to help the young man find out his own thought.

The pair had often much the same sort of companionship together that Isidro had at Las Plumas with his dog. Often, as he sat against the wall smoking in the sun, looking out over the hyacinthine slope when the smell of blossoming wild vines was sweet in the warm abundant spring, the dog would come and lay his head upon his knees, and Isidro would stroke the silky ears and sense the joy of life deliciously, more poignant for the companionable touch. So he got a double portion of zest in his new surroundings, — his own and the boy’s; but the Briar was not to be stroked, as became evident. Once, walking on the beach when a calling wind was on the sea and a tearing tide came in, for sheer delight of its wildness Isidro clapped him on the shoulder, and the shoulder slipped from under his hand as the wave under foot.

“No offense, lad,” laughed Isidro.

“No offense taken, señor, but I like not to be clapped.”

“Now by that token I know you for a true Indian; I am like to forget it else. You are as wary of touching as a wolf.”

They trod with joy on the fringe of the incoming waves, and sniffed the wet, bracing wind.

“ Oh, to be gone upon it! ” cried Isidro. “ South and south into Mexico. Shall you not miss me, lad, when I am gone ?”

All the boy’s spirit rushed into his eyes.

“No,” he said.

“What?” cried Escobar.

El Zarzo looked flushed and mutinous.

“No,” he said, “for I shall be upon the sea with you there.”

“Why, what will you do?” said Escobar.

“What will you do, señor, there in Mexico ? ”

“ I will serve God,” said Isidro; and being an honest youth, he added, “ I will also see the world.”

“ I also serve God and see the world,” said El Zarzo; but the words were bolder than his eyes, —“serve God and you, señor.” He had at times a certain quick and wistful air of depreciation, very engaging.

“Well spoken for an adventurous youth,” laughed Isidro, and but for his late warning would have clapped him on the shoulder again.

X

THE ARREST

If Padre Saavedra had been as wise in the ways of sinners as of saints he would never have sent his search party groping so far afield for the renegade neophyte, Mascado, who, having nothing to hope for from the clemency of the Padres, had not exposed himself at San Carlos without reason. The business that led him to brave the whipping-post would hold him in that neighborhood until it should be accomplished. His appearance in any quarter meant mischief; since nothing had happened it was safe to conclude him still within reach, as, in fact, he was, made comfortable by several of the Padre’s flock. Neither had Peter Lebecque, who had a hand in that business, anticipated so much hardihood. As much as in him lay, the old trapper wished good to the wild Briar that had grown up beside his door, but his love of provoking led him farther than he knew. Mascado, misled by the old Frenchman’s ribaldry, believed that Escobar had done dishonorably what he, as much as he was able, meant to do openly, and with credit, as, indeed, the temper of gallantry at that time gave him warrant for believing. He was ignorant of Isidro’s ignorance, and Lebecque thought it a point of humor to let him remain so. But Lebecque supposed by this time that Zarzito would be under the protection of the Father President, and in such case as to put an end to the Indian’s coveting. Also he thought Mascado very much of a coward, and expected no such good joke as that he would really go up to Monterey to find where the truth of the matter lay. The young man’s passion, though he sensed the fact of it, seemed to the trapper wholly ridiculous. But Mascado was minded to sift the affair, and this is what he found: first, the body of a slain man lying not far from the path of Escobar; then this fine gentleman with blood specks on his linen, giving himself priestly airs at San Carlos, where Zarzito passed for a servant, and slept at his door. Mascado made very sure of these things; he went into the church and saw the great eyes of El Zarzo, wistful and amazed, watching Escobar while he prayed, and wished for no further proof. After that he made his lair in the pitted oak, meditating vengeance. By night he sought food in his own fashion, and by day he sat among the dunes, and whetted his knife and his heart, wishing Isidro injury, but not able to compass it.

Escobar had done him a kindness, you will remember, under an oak in a certain open glade, but he had also done him a wrong. He had killed Juan Ruiz indubitably, and he had stolen Zarzito.

“ Eh, he would have a Briar, would he ? Well, here was one that would prick;” he stuck his knife furiously into the tree. His rage was great, but his passion overrode it; but still — Zarzito—to have her — to hold, to keep — rifled, despoiled,— but still to have her! Dimly it grew in his mind that when he had become a little less afraid of her, when use had dulled a little the edge of his desire, he might take it out of her, — might repay himself in her pangs for this keen tooth of injury. Perhaps in time he might beat her, but now he knew if she so much as noticed him it sent his wits all abroad. Body of her he would have though Escobar had her soul, — and Escobar had unquestionably saved his life; so he sat and fumed.

Meanwhile, Isidro and Zarzito had been to Santa Cruz and back, Father Saavedra had dispatched his search party on the renegade’s trail, — for that purpose Mascado had openly left a trail, — and Don Valentin had come to an understanding with the Commandante. He had gone south by the coasting schooner, Jesus Maria, at Castro’s cost, to find Padre Bonaventura, and bring back the heir of the Ramirez; to marry her if she proved marriageable. Delgardo admitted to himself that the condition allowed a good deal of latitude. Finally, the day was set for the departure of the Father President.

About this time, Ramon, shepherd to Mariana the Portuguese, came fumbling up from Pasteria with a great tale for the Alcalde of Monterey. Mascado, threading catlike between the pine boles behind the town, came upon him camped over a tiny winking fire at the end of his day’s trudge, and gave him a wayfarer’s hail. They two had supped by the same fire before now. Ramon, who was full of his tale, and, barring the gift of speech, more simple than his own dogs, unburdened himself. It was well that he had found stuff to practice his maunderings upon, otherwise the alcalde would have gotten a sorry tangle. Under Mascado’s guidance he got it fairly into shape.

It seemed that while he, Ramon, and Nicolas kept Mariana’s sheep in the northern end of Pasteria, sometimes called Angustora, a fortnight since, there had come riding a fine caballero, and that thin lad of Lebecque’s, him with the married brows and pricking tongue, having in charge the flock and the dogs of Juan Ruiz. And the caballero—yes, an Escobar — so the lad named him—had told a most strange story of finding the sheep of Ruiz, but no Ruiz, at the ford of Oak Creek. The flock was whole, but the dogs looked to have been at each other’s throats. The Señor Escobar had passed on toward Monterey. “And after,” said Ramon, “we went with the sheep to look for Ruiz; it was slow going, for the trail was cold.” Here Mascado might have helped him, but he chose rather to hear the end. “But this was most strange; Señor Escobar told that he found the flock at Oak Creek, but we found Ruiz at the Mesa Buena Vista in a new dug grave. Yes, we uncovered enough to see that it was a man; the coyotes had been at it. And look you, Mascado, whatever was done evilly was done at that place; so thinks Nicolas, so think I; for Noé here,” — he touched the dog at his feet, — “ Noé, when we came towards that place, when we were no more than at the borders of the Mesa Buena Vista, made so great a howling that the hair of our flesh stood up. And Nicolas thinks, and so think I, that whatever was done there the dogs were witness of it.” The man’s voice fell off to a whisper; he edged a little away from Noé, making the sign of the cross surreptitiously. “And when we came to the grave, — it was but poorly dug with a knife, as if one had come back hastily with fear upon him to cover it up, — when we came to that place, I say, Noé here left minding the flock, and went whining in his throat, so that we fell a-praying just to hear it. And there is more. When we went about with the flock to bring them towards the place of The Reed, at the edge of the mesa we came upon a track of a horseman riding, such a track as might have been made by the caballero who brought us the sheep at Pasteria; and the dogs, when they had found it, made as if to be pleased. Eh, what make you of that, Mascado ?”

Mascado made murder of it, and smacked the word as if it had a fine savor. Still there was more. The shepherds, it appeared, had taken thought to carry their news to Mariana, but when they came by the place of The Reed they found the door of the house open, and rabbits running in and out. Worse, they found the box at the bed’s head broken open and not a real left in it, not a real. Mascado shrugged away a suspicion of denial that lingered in the other’s voice; — that Mariana had been robbed was very much to his purpose; by whom, not so much.

“To the alcalde!” he cried, shaking with an evil joy; “to the alcalde; the caballero shall swing for it! These will be witnesses, you and Nicolas, Peter Lebecque and I.”

“And the boy,” said Ramon.

Mascado thought not. “We are four men,” he said. “ What do we want of the boy?”

The morning of the day that was to see the Father President started on his journey there was high mass at the Mission San Carlos. Within the church was a flare of color like a trumpet burst. Sheaves of poppies, last of the spring splendor, burned under the Stations of the Cross; el Capella de los Dolores glowed like a forge; wisps of incense smoke floated before the high altar like fog across the sun. All San Carlos huddled in the aisle. The candle lights of the high altar glimmered on the bare bronze skin of the worshipers. The eyes of most burned with a sombre fire. Isidro was beginning the practice of his priestly vocation by serving at mass. Saavedra himself officiated, glowing, like the Host, with a fervor of devotion. It passed over the kneeling horde, reached the acolyte and wrapt him as a flame. El Zarzo stood in the bell tower with the ringers, who made the sign of the cross with the ropes as they rang the chimes.

There went a little flicker of curiosity over the congregation toward the middle of the Introit, when the Alcalde of Monterey, with two officers of the constabulary, came well forward into the body of the church and knelt among the neophytes. Isidro felt their presence a check upon his devotion; the Father President made a motion of unease, but it passed; he was too full of his holy office. His voice streamed upward in a ghostly triumph, wavered into tenderness, turned upon the note of fatherliness into the deep wrack of a purely human concern, rose again through faith, and carried the hearts of his people to the barred door of Heaven itself.

“ Lord have mercy on us! ”

“Christ have mercy on us!”

The wail of the people beat upon it in an agony of entreatment; almost the door gave back. The naked souls of his cure, accustomed to the self-hypnotism of their own wild immemorial chants, missed no point of the spiritual exaltation. The people bowed, rose, and bowed again at the Elevation of the Host; the chimes rang in the tower. The smoke of incense passed, the murmur of devotion fell off into the rustle of departing, the people came blinking out into the sun, last of all Isidro and Saavedra stripped of their vestments and spent with spiritual passion. The alcalde, lingering by the great oaken doors, came up to them; there was bowing and a display of manners. But the alcalde had a taste for dramatics, the moment was propitious. He waved up his deputies and disposed them on either side of the young man with a gesture.

“Señor Escobar,” said he, “I have the exceeding regret to inform you that you are arrested for the murder of Juan Ruiz.” He might have managed differently, but, in fact, the alcalde was a little big man and a stickler for the Republic; he suspected the Padre Presidente of an intention to cry down his authority. To come into the Padre’s own jurisdiction and carry away his acolyte almost from the steps of the altar was a vindication of the civil right.

The blow was a shrewd one; you could see horror and amazement widening in the faces of the bystanders as a circle widens on the surface of a smitten pool. Isidro was simply puzzled and dumb. Saavedra rallied first. He fetched up a tolerable smile.

“A mistake, Señor Alcalde,” he said, “most annoying and yet almost laughable, but wholly a mistake. Juan Ruiz is not dead.” And then his smile slipped from him and left his mouth stretched and gray. The pallor reached his eyes, his tongue curled dryly in his open mouth, for he remembered what he knew of Juan Ruiz and how he knew it, and the inviolable seal of the confessional was over it all.

“You will have ample space to prove it, Padre,” the alcalde was saying; “I hope it may be so. There is also a charge of robbery.”

“ Señor Alcalde,” said Saavedra, “ there is much here that wants explaining.” The good Padre must be forgiven for regarding this as a new onset of the temporal powers against the spiritual business of the Brothers of St. Francis. Almost as if they guessed his purpose with Escobar, here was a plot to snatch him away out of the Padre’s power. As for the charge, he believed nothing of it; he had confessed Isidro as well as Juan Ruiz, and rejoiced to find him as clean as a maid.

“No doubt the Señor Escobar will be happy to explain upon all proper occasion,” said the alcalde. “In the meantime I must ask him to go with these gentlemen.”

“By whom is the charge preferred?” asked Saavedra; his wits were all abroad after Juan Ruiz, — how to come at him, how to shoulder the crime upon him and remain within his priestly prerogative.

“By his companions, Nicolas and Ramon, shepherds to Mariana, who have found the body.” The alcalde threw out his hands, “Forward, gentlemen.” The deputies took Escobar each by an elbow.

“Fear nothing, my son,” said Saavedra. “I have that in mind which shall loose all bonds.”

“And I,” said the alcalde, “have a duty to perform; we will go at once, if you please.”

“I go,” said the Padre, “to bring that which shall clear you. Go in peace my son, and may the God of Peace go with you.”

Isidro said nothing at all. Ten minutes later El Zarzo came out of Marta’s hut and dogged them unseen to Monterey.

(To be continued.)