of the Blessed Innocents, he more than once stopped under the
shadow of a sycamore to rest his somewhat lazy mule and to compose
his own perplexed thoughts by a few snatches from his breviary.
For the good padre had some reason to be troubled. The invasion of
Gentile Americans that followed the gold discovery of three years
before had not confined itself to the plains of the Sacramento, but
stragglers had already found their way to the Santa Cruz Valley,
and the seclusion of even the mission itself was threatened. It
was true that they had not brought their heathen engines to
disembowel the earth in search of gold, but it was rumored that
they had already speculated upon the agricultural productiveness of
the land, and had espied "the fatness thereof." As he reached the
higher plateau he could see the afternoon sea-fog--presently to
obliterate the fair prospect--already pulling through the gaps in
the Coast Range, and on a nearer slope--no less ominously--the
smoke of a recent but more permanently destructive Yankee saw-mill
was slowly drifting towards the valley.

"Get up, beast!" said the father, digging his heels into the
comfortable flanks of his mule with some human impatience, "or art
THOU, too, a lazy renegade? Thinkest thou, besotted one, that the
heretic will spare thee more work than the Holy Church."

The mule, thus apostrophized in ear and flesh, shook its head
obstinately as if the question was by no means clear to its mind,
but nevertheless started into a little trot, which presently
brought it to the low adobe wall of the courtyard of "The
Innocents," and entered the gate. A few lounging peons in the
shadow of an archway took off their broad-brimmed hats and made way
for the padre, and a half dozen equally listless vaqueros helped