CAPTAIN DEL VALLE, commander of the military forces in the jurisdiction of Pueblo de Los Angeles, whose headquarters was at the Mission San Fernando Rey de Epaña, sat alone at table with Padre Ignacio in the lofty dining-hall that night. There had been other company at an earlier table, some of whom had taken the road again, others being that moment seated on the benches which ran along the wall outside under the long colonnade of arches, where they smoked and passed the news of the king's road that linked mission with mission from San Diego to Monterey.
Padre Ignacio was a man who came late to the table at evening, for he carried a multitude of cares. The office of host usually was filled by his younger assistant, Padre Mateo, who liked the chatter of drovers and traders, and such as were becoming more common on the roads of Alta California every day, such as every ship from Mexico added numbers to. Padre Ignacio was made sad by this invasion which had been increasing so rapidly through the past ten years. There was a forecast in it that disturbed him, a thing that had given him many a sleepless hour and set him pacing the length of his vast chamber overhead. These men were as the dust that came ahead of the rising storm of change that Padre Ignacio knew in his heart soon would sweep the old order away in Alta California. But to a man who was younger, who had come after the trails were worn broad, the last adobe long since laid in the last mission walls, the last tile fixed, it did not signify so much. A younger man could bear it better, having no memories to be wrenched away.
Padre Ignacio had come down from his chamber only a little while before, to join in meat with Captain del Valle. The padre's room, spacious as the quarters of a king, and bare as if its occupants had deserted it and carried everything of value away, extended across the width of the mission building in the east end. It was floored with tiles, in which the feet of Padre Ignacio and those who had gone before him had worn little channels, or paths through the hard surface down to the softer core, which appeared tracings of duller red on the red-brown of the fire-baked adobe.
From door to altar, from altar to window, from window to the low, hard, austere couch, these little markings of sandaled feet were traced; and down the length of the room in its very center, the broadest and deepest line. Here Padre Ignacio wore down his troubles, spent his meditations, worked out the welfare of the hundreds, wild men and women but a little while before, who were gathered there under his hand.
A mighty cedar beam, the mark of the broadax in its squared sides, bridged the room across its width, not quite the height of Padre Ignacio's head from the floor. A man must remember this beam, as he must have in mind forever and unceasingly the obstacles of life, and not dash without a thought for his chamber door in the dark. He must have it in mind when he paced, hands at his back, head bowed in somber meditation, like a-penance which he could not for a moment forego. It was an obstacle in the current of serenity which a man forgot at his peril.
Now, as Padre Ignacio sat at supper with Captain del Valle, there was a red welt across his forehead, as if some one had given him a blow. Captain del Valle said nothing, although his eyes made inquiry with curious insistence. Padre Ignacio wet a napkin in wine and held it to the flaming excoriation.
"I forgot the beam that crosses my chamber," he said, contritely as if he had been discovered in some humiliating case. "I should have remembered, but a thing happened this evening that caused me great perturbation, and I inflict my own punishment, as a man must suffer always for his remissions."
Padre Ignacio smiled, dabbing the wet napkin to his hurt. A spare, tall man, almost frail, he seemed, in spite of the amplitude of his long brown gown of coarse serge which magnified his form. His face was long and narrow, and he was brown as sun and wind could turn him, even to the tonsure of his crown which time had broadened so that a razor was no longer called for there.
"I heard that Don Geronimo had been putting the scorpion on somebody's back," Captain del Valle said.
"Yes, it was a youth called Cristóbal, a quick-minded lad who is not understood by Geronimo, I fear. The poor fellow, in some sort of wild resentment, got on a horse and tried to run away, to join this fellow Alvitre, Geronimo says, but I think there is only fancy in such a charge. Geronimo grows too severe; I must ask our president to put a restriction on him."
Captain del Valle looked up sharply, as if he had heard a discord in the rendition of a maestro. He was a short and puffy man, grown fat from idleness and much feeding at this mission post and that; a man of middle age, whose brown hair was cut close to his well-shaped head, whose pointed brown beard was penciled with streaks of silver-grey. It was his habit to fill his cheeks with breath in any period of astonishment, expectation, small crisis or small climax of his rather inconsequential life, which gave him the appearance of a squirrel carrying acorns.
He knew that Padre Ignacio referred to the president of the missions when he spoke of having a restriction put on the mayordomo of San Fernando. Captain del Valle was a man who had run counter to ecclesiastical authority in California during his day; there was no love in him for the president of the missions.
"Is Padre Tápis expected, then?" he asked.
"He will come on his periodical inspection in a few days, unless delayed in the south. What is this?" Padre Ignacio rose as Don Geronimo appeared at the door which led through the butler's pantry into the kitchen.
Captain del Valle, his back in that direction, squirmed in his chair to see. "What is this parade, Geronimo?"
"It is this savage from no man knows where," Don Geronimo replied. "He appeared at the door a little while ago as if he had dropped from the clouds, carrying a rifle under his arm. I have brought him for your disposal."
Padre Ignacio went forward, brows drawn in his sharp scrutiny of the crudely garbed stranger, severe, unfriendly to behold.
"Where do you come from?" Padre Ignacio asked.
The stranger leaned forward in his eagerness to grasp the meaning of the words, a keen look of intelligent concentration in his eyes. He shook his head slowly, disappointment coming over him like a shadow.
"He doesn't understand Castilian," Don Geronimo explained.
Padre Ignacio was not much of a linguist, outside the Indian dialects and the Latin he had used so long that it had become more as a natural endowment than an accomplishment. He tried the stranger in the Indian tongues of the several tribes spread up and down the California coast, winning only a deepening of the look of perplexity; tried him with medieval Latin, only to see a baffled look come into the man's eyes, and an expression of intense confusion rise in his face that seemed to cloud his intelligence like a smoke.
"We'll get nowhere with him at this," Padre Ignacio said. "What languages do you know, Captain del Valle?"
"Only Portuguese besides my own, father."
"If he understood one he would catch something of the other; that will not help us any. See how the poor creature looks from face to face, gentle giant that he seems to be, as if seeking even some modulation of expression that he can interpret. Let us give him the countenance of friends, at least."
"We have fed him, he has been kindly received," Don Geronimo said.
"You have done well, Geronimo. Let us have Father Mateo at him; he is master of many modern tongues."
Padre Ignacio went to the door to summon his coadjutor from his gossip with the travelers, and the enjoyment of his pipe, also, it must be confessed, for Padre Mateo was a man who wisely plucked as many of life's comforts, which he found blossoming along his way, as he could carry. He came quickly at his superior's summons, followed by several of the guests for the night, who had glimpsed the stranger's remarkable presence through the open door.
"Behold this wanderer from God knows where, Brother Mateo. See if you can get anything out of him with the modern tongues; I can do nothing with him."
"What is this, now?" said Padre Mateo, clapping the stranger heartily on the shoulder, smiling assuringly. "You look like a German; let us try you in that voice. Can you speak German, friend?" he inquired in that tongue.
The stranger's face beamed at the sound; the light of a smile leaped in his eyes.
"Nein, nacht, nicht," he stammered; "Ich vas—Ich bin—American—United Stateser."
"Oh, American. Then English is your tongue," said Padre Mateo, with the greatest ease of transition, addressing him in the idiom that he understood.
The stranger was so pleased to hear intelligible sounds issue again from a human mouth that he almost leaped. He grasped Padre Mateo's hand, unawed by the priest's strange dress, strange to him, no doubt, as his own barbarous covering of hairy skins was to them.
"Padero, you don't know how glad I am to meet somebody that can talk God's own language!" he said.
"What does he say?" Padre Ignacio inquired.
Padre Mateo translated the words, at which varying expressions of disgust, disdain, astonishment and even mirth, passed over the faces of those who stood around to hear. But it was only on the face of Padre Ignacio that the smile was to be seen.
"So much for the vanity of the Spaniard, who says his tongue is the only one fit to address the Almighty in," he said. "Take him aside where he will be at ease, Brother Mateo; give him tobacco, if he wants it, and draw his story from him. When I have finished my supper I will hear the account. Well," looking the stranger over again with gentle humor in his brown dry face, "you are a big bird to fly so far from home."
Don Geronimo and Sergeant Olivera attended the stranger and Padre Mateo to the bench on the arched portico beside the door. Padre Ignacio had finished his supper long since, and was sitting with his goblet of sour wine before him, enfolded in meditation, the stranger probably far out of his thought, when Padre Mateo and his charge returned.
"It is a strange tale that he tells," Padre Mateo said, a coldness, a doubt, a withdrawing as of suspicion, in his manner. He bore himself like a man who wanted to believe what he had heard, yet feared the judgment of others in the light of its improbability.
Padre Mateo stood by with thumb hooked in the cord that gathered his rough gown about his middle, a florid man of good stature, with sturdy, well-borne shoulders, and good-natured, rather rustic face. He seemed hesitant over his beginning. The stranger stood close by the padre's side, alert to all that was going forward; between them and the door, as if making a background for the drama then shaping, the travelers who were guests of the mission, Don Geronimo, Sergeant Olivera and Captain del Valle were grouped, none of them wiser for what had passed between the American and his interpreter than Padre Ignacio himself.
"If it is a strange tale, it fits the man," Padre Ignacio. "Proceed, Brother Mateo."
"This stranger, then, says that he comes from a land called Kentucky, a place I have heard of, Padre Ignacio, and I think it may be true as he says. This Kentucky lies on the eastern shore of the Mississippi; it is a province of the new American republic founded by Washington—you will remember, Padre Ignacio, that a ship from the United States of America put into the bay of Monterey some years ago, but none of its men was permitted to land."
"I remember the ship, with its strange flag," Padre Ignacio said.
"This man tells a thing that is almost incredible, quite incredible, I believe, in the absence of verification. He says that Napoleon of France has sold to the president of the United States the territory of Louisiana. It is a thing that casts a doubt on his integrity."
"How long ago does he say this took place?"
"As much as three years, Padre Ignacio."
"It may be true; we have no right to doubt him. The wars that engage Spain have kept our ships said from the seas, we have had no news these five years from Europe here in California. But what has the sale of Louisiana to do with this man's presence here?"
"He says that the president of his country sent out an expedition to explore the new territory, through and beyond the Stony Mountains to the Pacific, Oregon already being part of the new republic's domain, as you know. This man was one of the party of surveyors or explorers, attached to the expedition as hunter. The party reached the Pacific, he declares, crossing the snowy mountains and passing in boats down the great Oregon river, which he declares has been named the Columbia. Midway of the mountains, on the return home, this man was lost in a snow storm which continued many days. His wanderings led him into a maze of mountain and desert, so far from his comrades that he gave up all hope of finding them. He made a course to the south, hoping to find Sante Fé, in Spanish territory, in which place he might meet hunters, or a caravan of French traders with whom he could return to the Mississippi.
"But no; he was too far to the west. Nothing remained to him in that misadventure, he declares, but to point his way like a mariner at sea, over desert and mountain toward California. A ship, he believed, might come some day to a port of that land and carry him to his own country. So he breaks out of his exile in mountain and wild waterless desert, and comes in the night like a moth led by a candle, to the open kitchen door of this mission, and here he stands, let his tale be true or false."
"How long ago does he say it was since he lost his comrades in the storm?" Padre Ignacio inquired.
"He says it was in April."
"And it is now September," Padre Ignacio said, looking with strange mingling of compassion and admiration upon the man who had borne such adventures in an unpeopled land. "Ulysses wandered longer, but he did not go so far. It is a strange tale, as you have said, Brother Mateo, but not incredible. Geronimo, see that he is well lodged. Give him suitable clothing; have the barber attend to his hair."
"Padre Ignacio, your pardon, but a word," Captain del Valle stepped forward quickly, still red about the eyes from the extraordinary puffing of his cheeks which he had practiced during Padre Mateo's recital of the stranger's story. "This is a matter for the civil authorities, a thing of the highest importance. I request that this man be delivered to me, to be held for the order of his excellency, the governor."
"It is a strange rudeness, Captain del Valle, to interfere with my hospitality. Upon what grounds do you justify this demand?"
"Padre Ignacio," Captain del Valle's voice was grave and severe, his manner suddenly that of the stern and haughty soldier who knows no greater law than that of his immediate duty, "the story this man tells of the purchase of Louisiana Territory by the yankee republic is true; we have known of it many months. The country of the yankee republic now touches the dominion of Spain; it is but a step from the purchase of Louisiana by some shrewd trick of this nation of sharp traders, to the seizure of the Spanish dominion of New Mexico, California. The military authorities have been warned; we have been watching. This man is a spy. I demand his surrender in the king's name!"
"It is folly," Padre Ignacio returned, leveling the captain's argument and demand to nothing with an impatient sweep of the hand.
"He stands condemned by his own act in entering California," Captain del Valle protested, his heat rising, his face losing its color in the seriousness of his purpose. "The edict of King Carlos and the cortes never has been revoked. California is closed to foreigners; to enter it is death."
"That applies only to those who come in the spirit of conquest, or to trade; not to a poor wanderer such as this. Peace, Captain del Valle! This man is under ecclesiastical jurisdiction; the hospitality of this place shall not be abused."
"You overstep your bounds, Padre Ignacio," the soldier contended, not new in this controversy between military and ecclesiastical authority in Alta California, a thing of growing bitterness. "You are not greater than king and cortes. But very well; tonight I grant the sanctuary you have given this innocent barbarian, as you seem to believe him. But let him set foot in the king's road"
"Peace!" commanded Padre Ignacio, sternly, lifting an interdicting hand. "Take him, Geronimo, as I have directed, and attend to his comfort. But stay; what is your name?"
"He says it is John Miller," Padre Mateo answered, after repeating the question. "In Castilian, Juan Molinero."
"Juan Molinero," Padre Ignacio repeated, strangely, as if he found a marvel in it. "What a propitious name!"