Old Mission Stories of California Part 7

Father Uria had been pacing to and fro in front of the mission for more than an hour, waiting impatiently for the expedition from Mexico, which had been expected two days before, its regular time of arrival. It was not at all unusual for these bands to be delayed three or four days, and that without meeting with any accident on the way; but news from home was infrequent to a degree that made an expedition to the province awaited with almost unreasonable impatience. Mail, as well as everything else, came usually by sea; but to send letters by the desert route was by no means rare.

Father Uria was known to all his fraternity in the country for his eccentricity. He was a small, rather stout man, about sixty years of age, every one of which had left its mark upon him; for his had been a life of toil surpa.s.sed by but few, even among those self-denying workers in the Lord's vineyard. But the hardships of his life had not quenched his jovial spirits, which were, indeed, irrepressible. A laughing greeting for every one he met, Mexican or Indian, was his habit, one that might have begotten a measure of contempt in the beholder, had the Father not possessed a sternness, latent for the most part, it is true, but which could, on occasion, be evoked to prop up the apparently tottering respect due him. Father Uria was fond, too, of company, not only for its own sake, but because it gave him an excuse for the pleasures of the table, and, in especial, for enjoying the delights of the wine made at Mission San Gabriel, and which was in demand by all the missions. This was a weakness seldom indulged in, for the Father cared not for imbibing this delectable liquid unless a.s.sisted by pleasant company; and occasions when this could be had were rare. Let not the reader infer from this that our respected fraile was guilty of drinking more than was good or seemly for him. There had been a whisper one time, going the rounds of the missions, that he had been uproariously drunk on some occasion in the past; one slanderous tongue said the priest had been reprimanded by President Sanchez, but we do not believe a word of this. And who would grudge him all the pleasure he might get from the good San Gabriel wine? Think of the poor padre, expatriated for the rest of his days, and in a land that wanted much to make life seem worth the living! Our hearts go out to the Father, as to all the other good men who had done likewise, in deepest sympathy.

It is not our intention to enumerate all the peculiarities of Father Uria. But there was one, before which all the rest sank into insignificance, and that was his excessive fondness for cats. The love of cats is more particularly a feminine trait; and this, together with his strength of mind, marked though it was usually by his geniality, makes it the more surprising in Father Uria's case. Yet such was the fact, and as such was it recognized by all with whom he came in contact; for in this instance it was "love me love my"--cats! This hobby of the friar was one he had had from childhood; but gaining man's estate, he had kept it in subjection (fearing it was not in accord with the strictest propriety, especially after taking orders) until he came to California. Here he had found a life of such loneliness, that, as a refuge from almost unbearable ennui, he had gone back to his youthful feline love with more than youthful ardor. When he came to take charge of the Mission, San Buenaventura, three years before, he had brought with him, carefully watched over, four immense cats, which had long been his pets. These he still had, and in their companionship he found his greatest solace for a life of solitude.

Father Uria continued his walking to and fro, gazing off to the east along the road which the expedition from Mexico must traverse on its way to Monterey. Behind him, almost at his heels, trotted one of his pets, seeming to be perfectly content to follow the footsteps of her master, and showing unbounded joy, when he stopped for a moment to pet and speak to her.

"Well! gat.i.ta mia, you are the only one to stay with your old master.

Where are the others? Off hunting for gophers, I suppose. But here are the travelers at last," and he hurried down the road toward the approaching train, the cat bounding along at his side, or running off every few feet, now this way, now that, to chase a b.u.t.terfly or mosquito hawk. Once, in her haste to overtake her master, she encountered a horned toad. With a spring to one side, and a loud "spst!" she pa.s.sed it, for this pet of Father Uria was acquainted with these hated objects, but could never overcome her intense horror of them. We are much afraid this puss is a sad coward.

The Father reached the band of travelers, and he received from the commander the packet of letters destined for the mission. Then, with a few words of welcome to all, he bade them follow him to the mission, where they would find refreshment and shelter for the night. On the way, singling out Benito and Maria (the former from his resemblance to Diego) Father Uria questioned them as to their journey, and plans for their future home at his mission. Benito related his story, and hopes of finding some occupation.

"Diego tells me you are skilled in gardening," said the Father. "Would you like to take charge of my garden and orchard? My gardener is growing too old for work, and I have long had thoughts of retiring him. I have waited only to find some one to take his place, and when Diego told me of you, I thought you might be the one I want. What say you?"

"I thank you heartily, my Father," replied Benito. "I should, indeed, be happy and proud to do that, if I can prove worthy."

They reached the mission, and there Benito found Diego waiting to welcome him. After bidding Benito to come and see him in the morning, as Diego led them away to his own little home, the Father went in, his cat following. Leaving her in the house, the Father pa.s.sed on to the church, where he performed the usual short evening service of the rosario, after which he returned to his habitation. No sooner was he in the house, than he was fairly bombarded by a small army of cats, or so it seemed; for although there were only four, including the one with whom we are already acquainted, one might have thought, from the noise and confusion they made, trying to get at their dear master, that there were a dozen at least.

"Now, my cats, you really must behave yourselves a little better than this," said the Father, with a tone of sternness, which, however, had not the slightest effect, since he began at once to pet them, first one and then another, as they crowded around him. "I know you are hungry, but that is no excuse for making such a disturbance. Come, we shall have supper," and with these words he went into his dining-room, the cats trooping after him.

Father Uria always had his table set with as much variety and luxury as his meagre salary, and the resources of the mission, allowed. He was not a hearty eater, nor, as we have said, did he drink largely of wine, unless he had the support of congenial company, but he insisted on variety. His vegetable garden was his pride, and the object of extremist solicitude. In it he had, in flourishing condition, every sort of edible, including, as well, the fruits especially adapted to that climate. As he was seldom favored with guests, he had made it a custom to have his pet cats bear him company at his meals; and he had trained them so well that they were, in general, as perfectly behaved, in their limited capacity, as the best mannered human being; only occasionally, when hunger gained the upper hand, did they break the bounds of cat-decorum. They had their places opposite the Father, in two chairs, two cats, side by side, in each chair; and there they would sit, looking with meek but hungry eyes, first at the Father, then at the meat and cream destined for their repast.

But it is time these cats were introduced to the reader, for such intimate and (if we may be permitted to use the word) personal friends of the priest should have a regular introduction. Let us begin then, with the first, and, as it happens, the oldest and most sedate one. His name is San Francisco, a solemn-looking beast, large and handsome; he is a maltese, and is admired by all who have seen him. The cat sitting quietly by his side in the same chair is Santa Barbara, a maltese like her companion, but younger and not so handsome, only because not so large. Next comes, in the second chair, the cat whose acquaintance we have already made, Santa Clara, the Father's usual companion at all times, for she has less roving blood in her veins, and prefers remaining with her master to hunting and other feline diversions. She, too, is maltese, but has white paws, the only deviation from pure blood that any of the four cats show. The last, the youngest and smallest cat (although she can boast of five years of age, and, in any company but the present, would be considered a fine large animal), is Santa Inez, the daughter of Santa Barbara. She is the one to get into all the mischief of which cats are capable; to run away and lead every one a lively chase until she is found, for the Father (let us whisper it under our breath) would feel nearly as much sorrow at the loss of one of his cats, as he would at losing the soul of one of his neophytes.

We fear much that our reader will be ready to set Father Uria down as a mere fool, or a half-crazy old man, and to sneer at him and his precious cats. But are not we all crazy on some subject; has not each one of us some hobby or idiosyncrasy which makes us appear more or less demented to our neighbors? And just because the twist in our poor Father's mind takes the particular form of a love for cats: why should we, how dare we, say he is crazy? No, he was no more crazy than are we; and perhaps his beautiful cats kept him from becoming so, in very sooth, forced to live in the wilderness, if we may call it that, deprived of all the happiness of his native land, and of the friends for whom these cats make a poor subst.i.tute at the best.

But there is one point on which we cannot find excuse for the Father, that is, in giving his cats the names of some of the most respected and venerated saints among the Franciscans; going so far, indeed, as to bestow upon his finest cat the name of Saint Francis himself, the founder of the order. It is difficult to conceive of such irreverence in a priest, himself a member of that great order in the Catholic Church; and it is this, if anything, which would show a weakness of the mind.

But even here, let us say, not as excuse, but in mitigation of his offense, that only from inadvertence did the Father speak to, or of, his cats by these names in any one's hearing; and there were only two or three people at the mission who knew after what august personages they were called. Besides, their full t.i.tle was usually reserved for occasions of reprimand, and with these well-mannered creatures such occasions were rare indeed.

"Well," said the Father, beginning his own supper, after having given the cats each their portion of meat in a large deep plate, flanked by a saucer br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of sweet cream, "aren't you pretty cats to go off and leave me the whole afternoon? Clara was the only one to keep me company. What is the use in having four cats to amuse me, if you mean to run off whenever the notion seizes you? I want you cats to be home all the time. You, San Francisco, should have stayed here with Clara as you are the largest. I think I shall have to tie you up to-morrow. No, I believe I'll punish you now by taking away your supper," saying which, the Father reached across the table and removed the plate of meat and the cream from in front of Francisco, who had just begun to devour his repast. "Miou! Miou!" said Francisco, piteously, looking after his supper, which the priest put down on the table near his own. It was too much: Francisco forgot his manners and with one bound he leaped across the table, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of meat, and, with a growl of defiance, began chewing it vigorously. The Father laughed and returned the cat's supper. "I am afraid, Francisco, you did not catch much in your hunt this afternoon, for you appear to be as hungry as usual. So I won't punish you by depriving you of your supper. Go back to your place."

After supper, the Father, accompanied by his friends, made a tour of the mission to see that everything was safe for the night; then, returning to his house by the church, he spent the evening reading the letters and messages brought to him that day, and in studying for an hour or so by the help of the few theological books his library boasted. Father Uria was an intelligent and well-educated man, and took delight in the investigation of the abstruse subjects and doctrines his Church afforded. He did this from natural inclination, and not from any practical use to be made of such study in his capacity as head of the mission. People in Nueva California, in those days, not only the Indians, but the Mexicans and Spaniards, were of the utmost simplicity of mind, entirely unable to grasp anything beyond the rudiments of their faith.

Early the next morning Benito made his appearance. The Father conducted him out to his garden, and showed him the method he had pursued in bringing everything to a high state of cultivation. Irrigation was not absolutely essential, as at many of the other missions; but, notwithstanding, Father Uria had evolved a miniature system in his garden by means of a spring in the foot-hills, half a mile away, from which water was brought in a narrow flume. This had long been in use for the general needs of the mission; but it was reserved for Father Uria to apply some of the surplus water to the garden. Father Uria had once visited the garden at Mission San Gabriel which had been the special pride and comfort of Father Zalvidea; and it was with complacent satisfaction that, in comparing it with his own, he saw the latter suffered no disparagement. His was in fully as flourishing condition, but the element of picturesque beauty was lacking; his needs for a garden were entirely utilitarian, while Father Zalvidea required beauty quite as much as use. The two gardens were typical of the two men. So Benito was installed as his gardener.

While the Father was showing Benito the garden, and explaining to him about the plants, the cats which, as usual, had followed him, employed the time in roaming around among the bushes, searching intently for anything alive which might make fair game. They scattered in all directions, one after a humming-bird, another chasing a b.u.t.terfly; the third wandered off lazily to a big patch of catnip for a sniff of its delightful aroma; while the fourth began to career to and fro after a dragon-fly, in the wildest fashion. The priest and Benito had moved off to an asparagus bed, to consult about the best treatment to give it, for the plants were slowly dying, and the Father was in a quandary. The dragon-fly alighted to rest on his broad-brimmed hat. All unconscious of its presence, he talked on with Benito, expounding his theory of the proper treatment for the asparagus, when, suddenly, as he bent over a plant to look at it more closely, with a blow that almost knocked him down, his hat went flying from his head, and fell to the ground several yards away, while at his feet dropped the venturesome Inez. She was up in an instant, looking for her prey, but it was out of sight.

With an exclamation rather stronger than was quite proper in one of his cloth, the Father turned to the cat.

"What is the meaning of this business, Inez? Really, you are getting to be insufferable. I cannot allow you to come out with me if you carry on in this way." Benito had run to pick up his hat, and offered it to him, his eyes dancing with merriment, and the corners of his mouth twitching.

The Father took it, and noting the gleam in his eyes, smiled himself.

"These cats of mine will be the death of me some day, I expect," he said, laughing. "Go along, Inez, and remember to show a little more respect for your master another time."

These saints of Father Uria were given the run of the entire mission, and were known to all its inhabitants. Although every one was kind to them, the cats were dignified and distant toward all but the Father and Benito, after the latter had lived there a few months. It had gradually become one of Benito's duties to keep an eye on them; shut them up when the Father did not wish them around; and when, as occasionally happened, they ran away, to search for them. Usually they would return of their own accord the second day, if not found the night before; but the Father could not sleep unless he knew his precious animals were housed safely, and an effort was always made to find the truants before night set in.

From the time Benito and Maria made San Buenaventura their home, Fortune again turned her face toward them. Benito, with steady employment as the Father's gardener and trusted servant, was prosperous and happy; while Maria once more had her chickens, although the demand for her poultry and eggs was smaller than she had found in her former home in Mexico.

She seldom missed her old a.s.sociates, busy as she was, and content with her simple tasks the whole day long. What a quiet, peaceful life was that at the California missions in the old days! Perhaps, reader, you think humdrum would be the more appropriate adjective to use than peaceful or even quiet. And to one like our Father Uria, thousands of miles from his early home, cut off from all the pleasures and advantages of ordinary social intercourse, it was, as we have seen, more, much more, than humdrum. But for Maria, the life at the mission was not unlike that they had been accustomed to in their former Mexican home.

California was Mexico in those days, and the life greatly similar.

About two years after Benito's arrival at San Buenaventura, a dreadful misfortune befell Father Uria, in the death of his largest and finest cat--San Francisco. This saint had always manifested a most singular and inveterate propensity, to hunt tarantulas. More than once he had been discovered when just on the point of beginning a battle with one of those monsters, and had been stopped in the nick of time. With almost constant watchfulness, the Father had succeeded in preserving the life of his cat for many years; but the reader has already guessed what the end was to be. After an absence of three whole days, during which the Father was almost distracted, Benito found the saint dead on the plain, fully a mile from the mission. On one paw, which was slightly swollen, a minute wound was discovered, supposed to have been the bite of the venomous spider, although the Father could not tell positively. Poor Father Uria was inconsolable, and from that day his health, which had been deserting him for many months, yet so gradually as to be hardly perceptible, took a sudden change for the worse, and with the long years of toil he had lived, soon made great inroads on his strength. Less than a year after this dire event, he became so feeble that, at his own request, he was relieved. The last thing he did before leaving San Buenaventura was to give his three remaining friends into the charge of Benito, who promised to care for them faithfully, so long as they lived.

Much the Father would have liked to take them with him, but he was growing too feeble to care for them; and once retired from his position as head of the mission, he would not have enough power and authority to be able to treat them as such old and dear friends should be treated. We shall not attempt to depict the sorrowful parting between the Father and his cats--it would need the master hand of a d.i.c.kens to keep the comic element in the pathetic scene within due bounds. The Father, poor old man, felt no further interest in life, broken down in health and obliged to give up his companions, his only comfort being the thought that his remaining days were few, and would soon pa.s.s.

He removed to Mission Santa Barbara, and there, some months later, at the close of the year 1834, he died, worn out in the cause of his Master.

Note.--This story of Father Uria and his oddities is not wholly fanciful. In an early book on California occurs the following: "At dinner the fare was sumptuous, and I was much amused at the eccentricities of the old Padre (Father Uria), who kept constantly annoying four large cats, his daily companions; or with a long stick thumped upon the heads of his Indian boys, and seemed delighted thus to gratify his singular propensities." Alfred Robinson: Life in California, New York, 1846, Chap. IV, page 50.

Pomponio

Liberty! Liberty! For a half-century we have done nothing but repeat this word, and one would say that those mouths which p.r.o.nounce it belong to the heads which are ignorant of its meaning, or rather that it has no meaning; for, if one says: 'We are free!' ten others cry out at once: 'We, we are oppressed!' Such an one who found, a few years ago, too great a freedom, to-day demands very much more; and this is, doubtless, because each one has his own idea of liberty, and it is impossible to create a liberty for each one.--Liberty to empty the treasury of the state.--Liberty to seize public position.--Liberty to gather in sinecures.--Liberty to get one's self pensioned for imaginary services.--Liberty to calumniate, abuse, revile the most venerated things.--Is this to enjoy liberty? No, it is to abuse it, to profane it.

"It is, then, shown that no one is agreed on what is political liberty; but it is not that about which I wished to write. It is a freedom composed, I will not say of all men, but of all beings who are in existence; it is this that nature demands imperiously; it is this, in truth, that crime compels society to take away from the wrong-doer; but it is this, also, that injustice and force s.n.a.t.c.h away from the unhappy slave."

Thus wrote Captain Duhaut-Cilly in his journal for the year 1827, contrasting his ideal of freedom with the actual condition of the aborigines in California, under the domination, as they were at that time, of the Catholic Church, through its agent, the order of the Franciscans.

Just a few words are necessary here as an introduction to the story of Pomponio, to enable the reader to have a clear impression of the condition of affairs, political and ecclesiastical, in the province of Nueva California during the first thirty years of the past century.

When the country was explored and settled by the Franciscans, their ostensible and, in the earlier days, real, aim was to civilize the Indians, teaching them to live useful, moral lives, and instructing them in the doctrines of Christianity. But to do this, force was necessary to subdue the turbulence of insubordination. Gradually, at last, the greater number of the natives were forced under the rule of the friars, who brought them to such subjection as was actual slavery in all but in name. It is a matter of regret that this was so, yet, though an evil, it was a necessary one, for to do any measure of good to the Indians, an oversight in every detail was essential; and, after all, the savages were treated with almost uniform mildness, and the instances of cruelty and wickedness practiced toward them, as in this tale of Pomponio, were most happily very rare. It is a blot on the history of the Franciscans in California that there was a single instance of anything but kindness and humanity; but the truth cannot be ignored, however much it grieve us to know it. Let us turn to Pomponio. His is a strange tale.

Distant about a league south from Mission San Francisco stood a little Indian hut, made from the tules and rushes which were found growing with such luxuriance in all parts of Nueva California. It was built in the form of a cone with a blunt apex, was less than ten feet in diameter, and but little more than that in height. An opening near the ground gave communication with the outer air, and a small hole at the top of the hut allowed the smoke from the fire to pa.s.s away. This hut stood in the centre of a small open spot among the trees of the dense forest which surrounded it on all sides; small in extent like the many other wooded spots in the peninsula which terminated at the mission and the presidio of San Francisco, but sufficiently large to force a stranger to them to lose his way almost at the first step. But, difficult to find by the stranger, this little open s.p.a.ce was correspondingly safe from pursuit by any one bent on hostile deeds; and for this reason it had been selected by Pomponio for a retreat for himself.

Pomponio was a mission Indian, had been connected with the religious establishment since boyhood, and had made, great progress on the way to becoming a civilized human being. He had a mind above the low level of the average Californian Indian intellect, and had been an object of solicitude to the padres, arousing in them an interest in his mental and spiritual welfare seldom evoked by the neophytes in general. For years Pomponio had been contented with the life he led under the tutelage and control of the fathers, receiving unquestioningly their teaching, and regarding their ordering and direction of his and his parents' life and actions in every particular with indifferent eyes. But when Pomponio left childhood and youth behind him, and acquired the mind of a man, Indian though it was, he began to see the state of things in a different light. "What right have these padres," he would say to himself, "to come here from far away, take our land from us, make us work for them, and order us about as we should women and children taken from our enemies in war? And what do they give us in return? They teach us the religion of their G.o.d, and make us learn their catechism. Is their religion any, better than ours their G.o.d more powerful than the Great Spirit? What better is it to till the ground for growing food than to kill the wild animals with bow and arrow? Why did my father's father and all the strong men of those days permit these espanoles to come here? I would have, withstood them to the last drop of my life's blood."

Thus would Pomponio question. The Indians of Nueva California were mild and gentle, having nothing in common with their neighbors, the warlike Yumas, and were easily subjected by the early Franciscans. But gentle and pliant as they were, there were always a few, fiercer than the rest, who did not brook calmly the sight of their subjection; and these bolder ones stirred up, from time to time, the other natives to insurrection.

Many were the uprisings at the different missions--one of the earliest at San Diego, in 1775, when the savages killed one of the padres; one, the last, and only a few months before the beginning of our tale, late in 1824, when the two missions, Purezima and Santa Inez, were almost destroyed. This last uprising had had more to do with Pomponio's change of att.i.tude toward the fathers than anything else; and it had fired his zeal to devote his life to the freeing of his kindred and tribe from the slavery in which they were held at Mission San Francisco.

Pomponio, simple savage that he was, knew little of human nature; either Indian or civilized. He judged others by himself, not realizing the great difference between himself and the generality of the tribe to which he belonged. He had had many talks with the various men of the tribe, trying to instill into their minds some of the ferment of his own; but to his amazement and anger they were too far sunk in their servitude to be roused by his projects. A few there were, young and venturesome like himself, who declared themselves ready to follow him as a leader; and among these were some of the fierce savages of the forests, with whom he was always in touch; but how could a mere handful of a score of Indians cope successfully with the men of the mission, aided, as they would be, by the trained soldiers of the presidio?

Pomponio had sense enough to see that such procedure would be foolhardy, and he abandoned the plan for the time, hoping his little body of followers would increase, when the disparity in strength and numbers between the two sides might be less.

Pomponio was some twenty-three years old. A short time before he had married an Indian girl, and, with her, lived in a little adobe house, a few paces from the mission church. Pomponio and Rosa had lived the regular life of the neophytes, working at various occupations of the community--Pomponio tilling the ground and caring for the crops, and helping in the making of bricks for the houses; Rosa spinning and weaving and cooking. After they were married they continued with their customary labors, still under the tutelage of the fathers. But about this time, Father Altimira had begun to notice the alteration in Pomponio's demeanor. Wondering at the change in one of his most promising neophytes, he had sought to find a clue to the mystery. From an unquestioning readiness in everything pertaining to his mission life, Pomponio had begun to neglect his duties, shirking the tasks given him, wandering off among the mountains and stirring up the mission Indians to a state of dissatisfaction and ill-feeling. Father Altimira had seen Pomponio's growing negligence with concern, but to his questioning Pomponio would give no answer as to the reason for his new att.i.tude toward his masters. The Father, finding that persuasion was of no avail in correcting Pomponio's disobedience, had him locked up in the mission prison for twenty-four hours, after which he was released with a reprimand and warning.

Pomponio walked out of the prison and to his house without a word. For a few days he was quiet and attentive to his work, not from fear of the consequences of doing otherwise (that is not the Indian nature, even of those poor natives of Nueva California), but because he was awaiting his opportunity for inflicting some injury on his persecutors, as he had come to think of them.

One night Father Altimira, who was a light sleeper, awoke, thinking he had heard a faint noise in the room adjoining his bed-room, which was used as a store-room for the books, the rich vestments embroidered with gold and silver threads, and the money belonging to the mission. At this time there was, in the strong iron-bound chest used for the safekeeping of these valuables, a sum of nearly five thousand dollars in gold, and the Father's first thought on waking, was of this money. Rising on his elbow, he listened. Hearing nothing, he was about to lie down, when again came the sound which had disturbed him, scarcely louder than the chirp of a far-away cricket, and which, but for the utter silence of the night, would have been swallowed up in the thick depths of the adobe wall between the two rooms. Springing out of bed, he threw on his clothes, and without a thought of danger to himself, hurried out to the cloisters and the next room. The night was dark, and he could not make out anything until he reached the window of the room from which came the noise. The heavy, wooden shutters were slightly ajar, and through the narrow upright opening between them, filtered the faint light from a small lantern in the room. With noiseless steps, Father Altimira approached the window, and looked through the crack between the two shutters. There, in front of the ironbound box, knelt Pomponio, busily at work on the stout padlock that guarded the treasures within. With all the strength of his powerful arms he filed away at the bar of the padlock. For a moment the Father, forgot his part in the nocturnal business, and stood, breathless, at the window, fascinated by the quick motion of the arm back and forth, and the strident sound of the file as it slowly ate its way through the steel. Suddenly Pomponio paused and looked up, with an expression of fear and hate on his face, dreadful, to see. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the lantern from the floor, he dropped it behind the great box, and ran to the window. The Father stooped, and crouched close against the wall under the window--for there had not been time to get away--and waited, hardly daring to breathe. Pomponio carefully opened the shutters and peered out, but he could distinguish nothing in the intense blackness. After listening a moment and hearing no sound, he closed the shutters and went back to his work. The priest waited until he again heard the screech of the file before he dared to move. This action of Pomponio recalled him to himself, and the responsibility resting on him regarding the safety of the mission funds.

With hasty strides, the Father started off to seek a.s.sistance. He hurried to the other end of the row of buildings, some three hundred feet distant, where lived the Mexican servants of the mission. At the house of the carpenter, which was the first he came to, the priest rapped loudly on the door, and called to the occupant to awaken. Juan, the carpenter, answered almost at once, and came to the door. Before he could e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e a word of surprise on seeing the Father, the latter had told him the trouble.

"Arouse, with all haste, the men in the next house, while I go for Rafael. Be ready when I come back," and the Father hurried off.

Juan lost no time in awakening the two men in the house near-by.

A moment after, the Father returned with Rafael, the overseer, and together the five men ran swiftly and silently to the scene of the disturbance. Nearing the window through which Pomponio had forced an entrance, the carpenter stepped up to it softly. The Father's absence had not been longer than five minutes, and the thief was still hard at work filing the padlock. Muttering to Rafael to follow him, and the other two men to guard the window without, Juan noiselessly pushed open the heavy shutters, and sprang through the window, Rafael close at his heels.

It was not until both men had pa.s.sed through the window, so quick were their movements, that Pomponio became aware he was discovered. Looking up, he dropped the file, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the lantern and hurled it against the wall, shivering it into pieces. Just as the light went out the men seized him. Pomponio fought like a demon, and was fast getting loose from their clutches, when Juan shouted to the men outside to come to their aid; but too late. As they clambered through the window, and sought to lay hold of him, which was not the work of a moment in the darkness, the neophyte broke from his antagonists and sprang to one side, avoiding the oncoming couple from the window. While the men were shouting and swearing, groping this way and that to find their prey, Pomponio slid softly to the window, jumped through it, and set off, at his utmost speed, for the open plain and not far distant forest. During the fray Father Altimira had remained somewhat apart, outside the room.

As Pomponio rushed by him, the Father, calling him by name, commanded him to stop. He paid no attention, but kept on his way, and was immediately lost in the darkness. By this time the four men had piled out of the window, falling over each other in their eagerness to pursue the fast escaping game.