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 adventure as naturally and lawfully as other men. There is no doubt that he smiled quite frequently in the shadow of his broad hat as he rode at his companion's side.

This other was a man garbed in all essentials like Pedro Mateo himself, in the brown gown of the Franciscan brotherhood, the flat-crowned black hat with broad brim, the severe cord of hemp about his waist. Only this one wore long stockings with his sandals, as the upraised gown revealed. A cloak carelessly thrown over the horn of his saddle fell down the mule's withers almost to the rider's toes.

A mule-drawn cart, its wheels almost the height of a man, came behind the two monkly travelers. It was covered with a weathered canvas, which rested not on bows, but upright pieces supporting horizontal braces, making the top square instead of round, after the fashion since the first covered cart rumbled down the long white slopes of Spain. The driver was an Indian of middle age, falling about in the second generation of the padres' era in California. In front of them, scouting the way, Cristóbal rode, mounted on a young horse thin-legged and fleet, his lariat coiled at his saddle-horn, his bow and arrows, the only weapons the neophytes were permitted, ready to his hand.

It was a winding way across a broad valley that the travelers followed, where the dark green of and the brighter leaf of sycamore stood high above the grey tone of the general landscape. Shrubs grew so near the broken road through the