to the sea. It was here that the trade winds, shorn of their fury and
strength in the heated, oven-like air that rose from the valley, lost
their weary way in the tangled recesses of the wooded slopes, and
breathed their last at the foot of the stone cross before the Mission.
It was on the crest of those slopes that the fog halted and walled
in the sun-illumined plain below; it was in this plain that limitless
fields of grain clothed the fat adobe soil; here the Mission garden
smiled over its hedges of fruitful vines, and through the leaves of fig
and gnarled pear trees: and it was here that Father Pedro had lived for
fifty years, found the prospect good, and had smiled also.

Father Pedro's smile was rare. He was not a Las Casas, nor a Junipero
Serra, but he had the deep seriousness of all disciples laden with the
responsible wording of a gospel not their own. And his smile had an
ecclesiastical as well as a human significance, the pleasantest object
in his prospect being the fair and curly head of his boy acolyte and
chorister, Francisco, which appeared among the vines, and his sweetest
pastoral music, the high soprano humming of a chant with which the boy
accompanied his gardening.

Suddenly the acolyte's chant changed to a cry of terror. Running rapidly
to Father Pedro's side, he grasped his sotana, and even tried to hide
his curls among its folds.

"'St! 'st!" said the Padre, disengaging himself with some impatience.
"What new alarm is this? Is it Luzbel hiding among our Catalan vines, or
one of those heathen Americanos from Monterey? Speak!"

"Neither, holy father," said the boy, the color struggling back into his
pale cheeks, and an apologetic, bashful smile lighting his clear eyes.