n?' Thereupon the Visitador
replied: 'If St. Francis desires a mission, let him show us his port,'
and the Saint did!" the old face with its fringe of soft white hair was
transformed with religious enthusiasm. "He blinded the eyes of Portola
and his men so that they did not recognize Monterey and led them on to
his own undiscovered bay. And in spite of the fact that the Mission has
been stripped of its lands, we know that it is still under the special
protection of St. Francis, for it was not ten years ago that the second
miracle was performed."

"The second miracle!" we wonderingly repeated.

"Yes, it was at the time of the fire of 1906. The heart of San Francisco
was a raging furnace. The fireproof buildings melted under the
tremendous heat and collapsed as if they had been constructed of lead;
the devouring flames swept over the Potrero; they fell upon the brick
building next door and crept close to the walls of this old adobe, when
suddenly, as if in the presence of a sacred relic, the fire crouched and
died at its very doors."

We passed the altar and the old man crossed himself, while in our hearts
we, too, gave thanks for the preservation of this monument of the past.

"You must not go until you have seen the cemetery," said our guide as we
moved toward the entrance, and throwing open a door to the right he
admitted us to the neglected graveyard. Here and there a rude cross
marked the resting place of an early Indian convert and an almost
obliterated inscription on a broken headstone revealed the name of a
Spanish grandee. Shattered columns, loosened by the hand of time and
overthrown in recent years, lay upon the ground, while great willow and
pepper trees spread out protecting arms, as if to shield the silent
company from the inroads of modern enterprise. We picked our way along
vine-latticed paths, past graves over which myrtle and roses wandered in
untrimmed beauty, to where a white shaft marked the resting place of Don
Luis Argueello, comandante of the San Francisco Presidio for twenty-three
years and the first Mexican governor of California.

"How splendidly strong he looms out of the past," I said. "His keen
insight into the needs of this western outpost and his determined
efforts for the best interests of California will forever place him in
the front rank of its rulers. I wonder if his young wife, Rafaela, is
buried here also?" I drew aside the tangled vines from the near-by
headstones. "She was alw