y kindly interest, this after supper talk of the
strange white men of the iron and the beasts, who had come again to
their land. The priest made a cigarro--then another one, lit both and
passed the first made to the oldest chief--the Ruler of the Indian
group. The Indian accepted it with a breath of prayer on the hand of
the reverend father, and the latter sent out smoke in a white cloud
ere speaking.

"Every brown skin here is a worshipper of false gods, and is therefore
a son of Beelzebub--yet to slaughter them for that won no favors for
the last Capitan-General who led an army across this land," he
remarked, "and mine must not be the task to judge of their infidelity
to the Saints or to Christ the Son who has not yet spoken to them!"
The words were uttered with an air of finality. Plainly he did not
mean to encourage blood lust unless necessary to the work in hand. Don
Diego sulkily made the sign of the cross at the Name, and Don Ruy
noted that the good father was good on the parry--and if he could use
a blade as he did words, he would be a rare fencer for sport. One
could clang steel all day and no one be the bearer of a scratch!

"Since the illustrious and much sought for Greek is without doubt
serving his master as a flame in hell, it would add sweetness to a
fair night if you would tell us how he fared at the hands of his brown
brothers," suggested Don Ruy--"and how the Devil found his own at
last. These others will be much entertained to hear what share he had
in the finding of the gold. Strange it is that I never thought to ask
the name of the man--or you to tell it!"

The priest hesitated ever so slightly. Was he of two minds how much
to tell these over eager adventurers? Especially that one of the
curses! But the truth, as he had told Don Ruy in part, was an easier
thing to maintain, and keep memory of, than a fiction dressed up for
the new man. And the man was watching him with compelling eyes, and
the boy Chico, with eyes agog, was also alert for his endless notes.

"Yes, he had to do with the gold--much!" he said at last. "He was the
only white man who had been told the secret of it."

"Ah-la-la!" murmured Don Ruy, plainly suggesting that such evidence
would be the better for a trusty witness.--Padre Vicente heard him,
and puffed his cigarro, and half closed his eyes in his strange
patient, pale smile.

"But it is true for all that!" he insisted. "And of all places we have
crossed since Culiacan was