Roldan's. "I interested you much at the race yesterday, Don Roldan," he
said, with a good-humoured smile. "Why was that?"

Roldan was not often embarrassed, but he was so taken aback at the
abrupt sally he forgot to be flattered that the priest had evidently
thought it worth while to inquire his name; and stammered: "I--well, you
see, my father, you are not like other priests." Which was not
undiplomatic.

The priest smiled, this time with a faint flush of unmistakable
pleasure. "You are right, my son, I am not as other priests in this
wilderness. Would to Heaven I were, or--"

"Or that you were in Spain?" Roldan could not resist saying, then caught
his breath at his temerity.

The priest turned about and faced him squarely. "Yes," he said
deliberately, "and that I were a cardinal of Rome. Such words I have
never uttered to mortal before; but if I am not as other men, neither
are you as other lads. Some day you will be a Castro or an Alvarado; it
is written in your face. Perhaps something more, for changes may come
and your opportunities be greater. But I--I am no longer young; there is
no hope in California for me."

"Why do you not return to Spain?"

"I have written. They will not answer. In my youth I was wild. They
forced me to come here. I had no money. I was obliged to obey. I have
christianized a few hundred worthless savages who were better off in
their barbarism, and I have made myself a power among a few thousand men