who had watched Rezanov from a distance with
some curiosity, saw his sister's beautiful face
emerge from the wall to disappear at once behind
another rampart, he turned abruptly on his heel and
could have wept as he thought of Pilar Ortego of
Santa Barbara. But there was a hope that he would
be a cadet of the Southern Company before the year
was out, and his parents and hers were indulgent.
Even as he sighed, his own impending happiness in-
fused him with an almost patronizing sympathy for
the twain with the wall between, and he concealed
himself among the willows that they might feel to
the full the blessed isolation of lovers. His Pilar
presented him with twenty-two hostages, and he
lived to enjoy an honorable and prosperous career,
but he never forgot that night and the part he had
played in one of the poignant and happy hours of
his sister's life.

Day and night a great silence reigned in the Mis-
sion valley, broken only by the hoot of the owl, the
singing of birds, the flight of horses across the
plain. Even the low huddle of Mission buildings
and the few homes beyond looked an anomaly in
that vast quiet valley asleep and unknown for so
many centuries in the wide embrace of the hills. Its
jewel oasis alone made it acceptable to the Spaniard,
but to Rezanov the sandy desert, with its close com-
panionable silences, its cool night air sweet with
the light chaste fragrance of the roses, the simple,