the Pious Muleteer," a name which it retains to this day.

The next morning, the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a
long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity
was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and
volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark
against the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was just touched
by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father Jose
gazed with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence, the
muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation, "_Diablo_!"

As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable
life and companionable echoes of the _canon_ they had quitted. Huge
fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. A
few squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriously
before the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just
ahead. But whichever way Father Jose turned, the mountain always
asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid
valley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous
shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its
elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots
from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with
a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity,
he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far
different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful
solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and break-neck trails. The
converts, Concepcion and Incarnation, trotting modestly beside the
Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird
mythology.

At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father Jose
unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called
upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith. The
echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious
invitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that
night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although
he afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended, a
mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by
these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father Jose
declared hi