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 and even mirth, passed over the faces of those who stood around to hear. But it was only on the face of Padre Ignacio that the smile was to be seen.

"So much for the vanity of the Spaniard, who says his tongue is the only one fit to address the Almighty in," he said. "Take him aside where he will be at ease, Brother Mateo; give him tobacco, if he wants it, and draw his story from him. When I have finished my supper I will hear the account. Well," looking the stranger over again with gentle humor in his brown dry face, "you are a big bird to fly so far from home."

Don Geronimo and Sergeant Olivera attended the stranger and Padre Mateo to the bench on the arched portico beside the door. Padre Ignacio had finished his supper long since, and was sitting with his goblet of sour wine before him, enfolded in meditation, the stranger probably far out of his thought, when Padre Mateo and his charge returned.

"It is a strange tale that he tells," Padre Mateo said, a coldness, a doubt, a withdrawing as of suspicion, in his manner. He bore himself like a man who wanted to believe what he had heard, yet feared the judgment of others in the light of its improbability.

Padre Mateo stood by with thumb hooked in the cord that gathered his rough gown about his middle, a florid man of good stature, with sturdy, well-borne shoulders, and good-natured, rather rustic face. He seemed hesitant over his beginning. The