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 you are ready to pay us the damages we have suffered, and keep it where it is. The soldiers have not eaten up all of your gold."

"You discover the honesty of your purpose here, Alvitre," Padre Ignacio returned, contemptuous of this offer to compromise for a price.

"And there is a horse at this mission belonging to me," Alvitre pursued, unshaken, unabashed, bold as he ever was when he took away a man's money on the king's road. "I must include the horse in my terms of settlement. Bring us two thousand dollars in gold, good padre, and my horse, and you will see us ride away from here. With that money we can put down wells; we can endure till the rains come."

The others, some of whom were drawing off at the priest's half-spoken threat of the church's awful displeasure, Manuel Roja, the fat citizen among them, came crowding near again when Alvitre began this proposal of compromise. Comisionado Felix, little better than his second, caught at this offered adjustment with hungry zeal.

"Indemnity, that is all we ask, or it might be said with more truth, aid in finding water somewhere in the ground that we can't find in the river any longer, since the padres at San Fernando shut it up to their own selfish use," Felix said.

"It is plain that your purpose is robbery, if not of one thing, then another," Padre Ignacio replied, more sad than indignant to see such rascality stripped of all pretense. "Poor knaves! you do