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 "Then the king must lift the ancient law and permit the priests to carry arms," the sergeant said, unmoved by the jeer at the valor of his kind.

"Or send women to guard them," the blacksmith suggested.

"When you have been in California as long as I have," Sergeant Olivera reproved him, pausing with knife upended in one hand on this side of his plate, fork clasped in like manner on the other, "you will be kinder in your judgment of all men, including soldiers. It is a hard way, comrade; a man has to be deeper than the crown of a hat to know it all."

"Eight years ago I came to this mission," said Borromeo, resenting the implication of unseasoned judgment, "marching from Baja California in the track that Brother Padre Serra himself made across the wilderness when he came to found the king's missions in this land for the reclamation of the gentiles' souls. Yes."

"It is a distinction to come in the footsteps of Father Junipero," Sergeant Olivera declared, nodding seriously. "You are honored to follow in the path of that sanctified man."

"I don't know that I'm honored more than old Padre Serra," Borromeo contended, bristling like a boar from his manner of drawing the skin of his forehead down toward his eyes, throwing his short-clipped stiff hair erect on his crown. "He was the king's priest; I am the king's blacksmith."

"That is well said, blacksmith," Sergeant Oli-