e wilds of their
heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence
of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed
to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious.
Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the
protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but
especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed
to cherish an unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church.

As they wound through the _canon_, charming birds disported upon boughs
and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy
water-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on
the hill-side. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark
green masses of pine, and occasionally the _madrono_ shook its bright
scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father Jose
sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination
of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific
mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying
significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and
declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey
wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single
heathen face.

It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in an
appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp, and had
sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up and
perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The Evil
One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his fore
paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving this
remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions, the
worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, he
instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from the
effects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared.
Father Jose, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to
chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one
whom a single _ave_ would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit.
What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, in
commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called _La
Canada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero_, or "The Glen of the Temptation
of