and his companions. Several
times during the following two weeks he heard reports of the doings
of the mission from different ones of the Indians who went thitherto
reconnoitre. From these he learned that the soldiers were still kept
there, and while they remained on guard, nothing could be done. Once
Pomponio stole up to the more distant houses of the mission in the
gathering dusk of approaching night. He heard the chant of the fathers
and their servants at their evening devotions. All was calm and quiet,
and he was just about to risk the attempt to go to his old home, in
the hope of seeing Rosa, when a soldier came into view from behind
the church. Pomponio crouched down behind a shrub near which he was
standing, and waited until the man disappeared again from sight in
his round of the buildings. Then noiselessly he crawled away to his
companions in the forest.

It was about two weeks after Pomponio's flight. He had been holding a
council of war with his followers, and had told them that, at last, the
time was come to strike for liberty. The soldiers at the mission had
not been seen for some days, and it was thought they had returned to the
presidio. What a shout of exultation went up from the Indians! Now the
time was at hand, the time they had looked forward to for so long,
when, at one single blow, they hoped to free themselves from their hated
oppressors. Vain hope! Had they forgotten already what was the fate of a
similar uprising in the southern missions only a few months before? But
each one learns from his own experience. The Indian is sanguine, and
hopes to succeed where others have failed, or carries out his purposes,
desperately and without hope, to end in certain failure. This is not an
Indian trait exclusively; it is a question of the weak overpowered by
the strong, and has shown itself in all parts of the earth and in
every race of mankind. See how well treated were the Indians of Nueva
California by their conquerors, mild, humane and devoted to their
interests, having given up home and friends to isolate themselves in a
wild new country, solely to bestow on these gentiles the blessings
of civilization and, above all, the gift of Christ's religion. We may
wonder why they were not willing and glad to follow the fathers', almost
without exception, gentle guidance. But the one thing necessary to make
it a complete success was wanting--freedom. That was the keystone on
which all depended: lacking that, the w