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 his outlawed days was well accustomed to that kind of work. He went about it with surprising security and quickness of foot, although the labor of it was heavy. Juan was nothing extraordinary as a rider, knowing little about easing or sparing his mount in such a pressure as this, yet his sympathies were keen and his heart tender, to such a degree, in fact, that he drew up and dismounted as the passage grew steeper, with the intention of hitching the horse to a shrub and going afoot the remainder of the way.

He was astonished at this point to notice the growth of the fire, which had spread from its place of beginning in the half hour that he had been toiling up the slope, to a long front which was girding the mountain. It was still too far away to give him much concern; it must eat its way through the green brush, tall and dense below him, thicker and greener a little way ahead. But it was making a tremendous smoke, and the outrunning spread of it was mystifying.

It might be that the Indians not attached to the mission—a tribe lived there in the vicinity of the pass, he knew—were setting the fire to drive out rabbits, according to their custom at that time of the year, as Padre Mateo had told him. It seemed an unlikely place for such a sport, yet it was certain that somebody was extending the fire line. There was little wind; the smoke rose high, so dense that the view of the distant San Gabriel valley was cut off. All the world visible to Juan was that grey