It was a picture to impress one with its mystery and magnificence. The
two men gazed upon it with an oddly blended sense of awe and exultation.
And as they looked the sunlight triumphed, scattering the fog into queer
floating shapes, luminous and fraught with weird suggestions of castle,
dome, of turret, minaret and towering spire. One might have thought a
splendid city lay before them in the barren cove of sand-dunes, a city
impalpable, yet triumphant, with its hint of destiny; translucent silver
and gold, shifting and amazing--gone in a flash as the sun's full
radiance burst forth through the vapor-screen.

"It was like a sign from Heaven!" Garvez breathed.

Ortega crossed himself. The younger man went on, "Something like a voice
within me seemed to say 'Here shall you find your home--you and your
children and their children's children.'"

Ortega looked down at the dawn-gold on the waters and the tree-ringed
cove. Here and there small herds of deer drank from a stream or browsed
upon the scant verdure of sandy meadows. In a distant grove a score of
Indian tepees raised their cone shapes to the sky; lazy plumes of
blue-white smoke curled upward. Canoes, rafts of tules, skillfully bound
together, carried dark-skinned natives over wind-tossed waters, the ends
of their double paddles flashing in the sun.

"One may not know the ways of God." Ortega spoke a trifle bruskly. "What
is plain to me is that we cannot journey farther. This estero cuts our
path in two. And in three days we cannot circle it to reach the Contra
Costa. We must return and make report to the commander."

He wheeled and shouted a command to his troopers. The cavalcade rode