Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/238

 high around the mission grounds at this point; it ran to the corner of the main building on one hand, far along the field-edge on the other. Sergeant Olivera and his soldiers could not ride over it; there was no way around.

They told the story long years afterwards, how Padre Mateo held the gate that day until Juan and Cristóbal were safe in the bosque in the mountain canyons; how he threaded his arm through the iron brackets that held the great oak bar, telling the soldiers that they must dismember him to open the gate and ride after his oppressed children. Sergeant Olivera, being a reasonable man, turned and rode back to the church, and led his men through the little burying-ground at the farther side of it, and took the roundabout way to the king's road again, where the trail of Juan Molinero and Cristóbal was by that time cold in the dust.

Juan Molinero, in the meantime, found himself in the mountains behind the mission, where it did not require much of the craft that he was master of to conceal himself from such clumsy trailers as these soldiers who went about their business with no more than half a heart, at the best. He was mounted on a good horse, provided with a good saddle, and two pistols in the holster at the saddle-horn. There was nothing more. He had no hat, no cloak, no food. He was dressed like a Spanish gentleman, in black silk jacket and buff trousers, and ruffled shirt open at his neck. His red sash was fringed and tasseled with gold thread. It was fit for nothing