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 again if you should not return to San Fernando with me; it was harder than converting an Indian medicine man to get his consent to this masquerade. But without it you could not have ventured on the road with me. It would have been foolish to leave the mission in your own skin."

"Well, if I look as foolish as I feel, the soldiers will see through me like a spyglass."

"No soldier in the world but would take you for a friar," Padre Mateo declared.

"I'd feel suspicious if I was to meet that rawboned sergeant, Oliver, is it you call him?"

"Not even Olivera would know you," Padre Mateo insisted, his confidence profound. "Last night you were hairy as a bear; today you are clean as a fish out of the sea. Since I shaped up your hair according to the contour of your head, as a true friar's hair should be, I would see you walk with confidence within a foot of Sergeant Olivera's nose."

"Well, I hope we don't meet him; he's a feller with a mighty shrewd eye."

Day seemed to plunge its torch into the sea, the light gave way so quickly to dusk when the sun disappeared behind the low, grass-covered hills. They rode on through the twilight, Cristóbal growing dim before them. The incense of burning cedar carried faintly to them on the little wind that came rustling like a doe through the chaparral.

"I smell Fabio Dominguez' hearth-fire," Padre Mateo said. "There is the comfort of home-