between stones, making shoes, fashioning the simple
garments worn by priest and Indian. Between the
main group of buildings and the natural rampart
of the "San Bruno Mountains" was the Rancheria,
where the Indian families lived in eight long rows
of isolated huts.

In spite of vigilance an Indian escaped now and
again to the mountains, where he could lie naked in
the sun and curse the fetich of civilization. As the
Russians approached, a friar, with deer-skin armor
over his cassock, was tugging at a recalcitrant mule,
while a body-guard of four Indians stood ready to
attend him down the coast in search of an enviable
brother. The mule, as if in sympathy with the
fugitive, had planted his four feet in the earth and
lifted his voice in derision, while the young friar, a
recruit at the Mission, and far from enamored of
his task, strained at the rope, and an Indian pelted
the hindquarters with stones. Suddenly, the mule
flung out his heels, the enemy in the rear sprawled,
the rope flew loose, the beast with a loud bray fled
toward the willows of Dolores. But the young
priest was both agile and angry. With a flying leap
he reached the heaving back. The mule acknowl-
edged himself conquered. The body-guard trotted
on their own feet, and the party disappeared round
a bend of the hills.

Rezanov laughed heartily and even the glum vis-