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 often, in bodies that seem too frail to stop the sun. Remember Padre Serra, and his three hundred leagues with a sore on his leg that would have crippled an ordinary man."

"It is true," Dominguez nodded, his eyes speculative, pipe in hand. "Your tall Englishman from the yankee country—he is watching the road?"

"He is watching, with the hope in his blue eyes that Alvitre will come for his horse."

"And you did not meet the soldiers at the harbor? It is a strange thing. They must have gone to the pueblo. I tell you, Sebastian Alvitre has nothing to fear from them."

"They cannot plead the excuse that he outrides them now."

"What do you intend to do with his horse, Padre Mateo?"

"It belongs to Juan Molinero."

"Alvitre valued it equal with his life, it is said. The fellow will go desperate ways to get it back again, no doubt, even to a raid on your corrals at night. It might be better to shoot the beast, good animal that it is, and leave it beside the road where Alvitre, or somebody who will carry the news to him, will see it."

"There is a friendship growing already between the creature and our Juan," Padre Mateo said, pride and affection in his voice.

"But the man is a gentile, he may turn bandit