Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/98

76 and against this we were constantly on our guard. I had always treated them kindly, as the Virgin is witness; but treachery is their appropriate element: it is their very nature to steal—doubtless their destiny, poor creatures! and they could not help it.

"Father Pablo—a priest, whose arrival in the neighbourhood occurred shortly after my own—acted as resident priestly missionary to the pueblo: he too had a household, and a happy one; and so it might have continued, but for his avarice and ambition. Although his estate was considerable, he was continually grasping to enlarge it; and he increased his stock of cattle and horses proportionably: so rapidly did his responsibilities multiply, that at length, when one or two of his domestics fell sick, he had not sufficient herdsmen to keep his cattle and stock of all kinds properly together.

"His growing wealth and fancied security offered an undue temptation to the Indians; and, in an unlucky hour, they planned a descent upon his property. One bright moonlight night the padre was aroused by an unusual noise on the premises, and looking out, he was just in time to behold a great number