GOLD UNDER PIKE’S PEAK
“You have been complaining of inactivity, Father Joseph; here is your opportunity.”
Father Joseph, who had been growing more and more restless during the reading of the letter, said merely: “So now I must begin speaking English again! I can start to-morrow if you wish it.”
The Bishop shook his head. “Not so fast. There will be no hospitable Mexicans to receive you at the end of this journey. You must take your living with you. We will have a wagon built for you, and choose your outfit carefully. Tranquilino’s brother, Sabino, will be your driver. This, I fear, will be the hardest mission you have ever undertaken.”
The two priests talked until a late hour. There was Arizona to be considered; somebody must be found to continue Father Vaillant’s work there. Of all the countries he knew, that desert and its yellow people were the dearest to him. But it was the discipline of his life to break ties; to say farewell and move on into the unknown.
Before he went to bed that night Father Joseph greased his boots and trimmed the calloused spots on his feet with an old razor. At the Mexican village of Chimayo, over toward the Truchas mountains, the good people were especially devoted to a little equestrian image of Santiago in their church, and they made him a new pair of boots every few months, insisting that he went abroad at night and wore
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