Page:Death Comes for the Archbishop.pdf/54

 the two missionaries were startled by a volley of rifle-shots and blood-curdling yells without, and the galloping of horses. The Bishop half rose, but Father Joseph reassured him with a shrug.

“Do not discompose yourself. The same thing happened here on the eve of All Souls’ Day. A band of drunken cowboys, like those who came into the church last night, go out to the pueblo and get the Tesuque Indian boys drunk, and then they ride in to serenade the soldiers at the Fort in this manner.”

the morning after the Bishop’s return from Durango, after his first night in his Episcopal residence, he had a pleasant awakening from sleep. He had ridden into the courtyard after nightfall, having changed horses at a rancho and pushed on nearly sixty miles in order to reach home. Consequently he slept late the next morning—did not awaken until six o’clock, when he heard the Angelus ringing. He recovered consciousness slowly, unwilling to let go of a pleasing delusion that he was in Rome.