Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/158

 "Sneers? Don Geronimo sneers at you for embracing the holy faith?"

"It was a matter of expedience, rather than honest conviction, I heard him say to Sergeant Olivera. He didn't know I understood."

"He is dishonest in his heart when he utters such words!" Padre Mateo declared. "Let me hear him repeat it, and I'll scorch him in a way he'll remember!"

"So what would he say, and other men like him of the snake-cold blood, if I changed my citizenship? I never could live among them, Padre Mateo, for I'll bear no man's scorn."

"It is proclaimed in the way your body stands, in the high courage of your face, my son. When you stood between Don Geronimo and poor Cristóbal that morning the grapes were put in the press, I never beheld more dignity in a man, or more commanding power. And there is a day coming when we shall need you here, Juan, to stand between others of us who may not strike in our own defense, and the greedy ones who are making their sacks ready now to strip us and carry away all we own."

"Yes, they're working to throw all the mission property over to the state; it's an infection that seems to have gone up and down California like a plague of smallpox. I've sat at the table with travelers the past month who passed words of their plotting from mouth to mouth, traitors to the hos-