out reservation, how this strange wanderer was himself an outlaw from the very fact of his presence in California. The priest had relied on the rancher's sense of justice and gratitude to keep the stranger's identity to himself if Sergeant Olivera and his men should chance that way. Dominguez respected a man who moved boldly with a peril over his head; it was his profound hope that Juan Molinero should reach the safety of the mission without mischance.
Dominguez was considering sending his wife and daughter to the mission along with Padre Mateo's cavalcade, where they would be safe from the vengeance of Alvitre, which was certain to center particularly on that house. Alvitre would not rest until he had adjusted his account of humiliation and disgrace in his followers' eyes by some notoriously cruel and outrageous deed against the Dominguez family. It was a time when men of consequence, such as Dominguez, stood alone on their defense against such as Alvitre, the military force being small, the civil government weak and indifferent, full of dissensions and jealousies. A rancher in those early times gathered his own forces about him, like a baron in his fastness, and stood or fell as he might.
Twenty men could have been summoned to stand at arms in defense of the Dominguez mansion, as it was called, but that would have left the cattle on the range unprotected. It was a very good measure of the mettle in the early Californians that Domin-
