ttle understood. If the Dona of the
scarf were aught but an amiable maniac the thing would be different. I
would stay--and I would find her and together we would weave a new
romance for a new world poet! But as it is, gather your cut throats
and name the day, and we'll go scouring the land for heathen souls and
yellow clinkers."

Padre Vicente de Bernaldez was known by his wonderful mission-work to
be an ecclesiastic of most adventurous disposition. Into wild lands
and beyond the Sea of Cortez had he gone alone to the wild tribes--so
far had he gone that silence closed over his trail like a grave at
times--but out of the Unknown had he come in safety!

His fame had reached beyond his order--and Ruy Sandoval knew that it
was no common man who spoke to him of the Indian gold.

"Francisco de Coronado," stated this padre of the wilderness, "came
back empty handed from the north land of the civilized Indians for the
reason that he knew not where to search. The gold is there. This is
witness. It came to me from a man who--is dead! It was given him by a
woman of a certain tribe of sun worshippers. To her it was merely some
symbol of their pagan faith--some priestly circle dedicated to the
sun."

"It sounds well," agreed Don Ruy--"but the trail? Who makes the way?
And what force is needed?"

For a guide the Padre Vicente had a slave of that land, a man of
Te-hua baptized Jose, for five years the padre had studied the words
and the plans. The man would gladly go to his own land,--he and his
wife. All that was required was a general with wealth for the
conquest. There were pagan souls to be saved, and there was wealth for
the more worldly minds. The padre asked only a tenth for godly
reasons.

Thus between church and state was the expedition of his Excellency Don
Ruy Sandoval ignored except as a hunting journey to the North coast of
the Cortez Sea--if he ranged farther afield, his own be the peril, for
no troops of state were sent as companions. The good father had
selected the men--most of them he had confessed at odd times and knew
their metal. All engaged as under special duty to the cross:--it was
to be akin to a holy pilgrimage, and absolution for strange things was
granted to the men who would bear arms and hold the quest as secret.

Most of them thought the patron was to be Mother Church, and regarded
it as a certain entrance to Paradise. Don Ruy himself meekly accepted
a role of the least significance:--a mere se