as helpless as a little child and taken away his pistols and his sword.
Padre Mateo and Juan Molinero rode behind the cart in which Gertrudis Sinova sat on a pile of blankets, her possessions' about her. Which of her boxes, if any, contained the gold she was believed to have inherited, Juan did not know. Against the advice of Padre Mateo she had tucked the canvas cover of the cart aside, to give her a view of the new land that was to be her home, she said.
Juan thought she appeared very frail and oppressed by sorrow, her face as white as a summer cloud under the dark scarf drawn over her head, her large cloak making her shapeless as she swayed in the jolting cart. Her gentle eyes, too sad to seem eager, watched the narrow winding road now ahead, now through the opening at the cart's end, wonderingly, expectantly, with a great loneliness that struck his heart like a pain. Sometimes when her eyes met his, where the compassion of friendliness had nothing to hide, she smiled.
Gertrudis understood that perils might await them on their journey to the mission, although strife and outlawed men seemed out of keeping with the serenity of that gentle land. Here were no rocky crags, no down-pouring torrents, no shadowed forests, no insidious greenery of swamp and brake. A clean and friendly land it seemed, where one might advance with his fears behind him. She waited eagerly what the breaking of the fog would reveal.
