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 fice, or might be taken as a plea and a justification for a desired reward.

"You see me here again, like a dog that can't be kicked from the door," Juan said, rising at the priest's kind word of greeting.

"You had no choice, with your sufferings upon you, but to come back, my poor Juan," Padre Ignacio replied. "I must open the shutters to have the light—can you bear it?"

"In a day or two I'll go on again, this time for good," Juan persisted in his effort to be understood. "If I am not able to see my way, I only ask you to let one of your young men guitle me to Cristóbal, who is waiting for me in the mountains."

Padre Ignacio turned from the little window set low in the north wall, placed his hand on Juan's shoulder and pressed him gently into his chair. "You shall not leave San Fernando again, my son, unless the vengeance of the soldiers drive you away," Padre Ignacio said. He drew Juan's head back and pressed the swollen flesh from his eyes, saying nothing until he had completed the examination. "Don Geronimo has told me all," he said, the weight of sufficiency in his tone.

"I would not have followed them, but I found Don Geronimo's hat, and saw that you had missed the trail."

"A deed of mercy needs no plea of justification in my ears. Do you feel the light?"

"It is like a spike driven into my eyes!"