not ground as much wheat as he had turned into flour these past two months. It was beyond him, this ingenuity of the man from a strange land. As he laved his hand in the stream of flour, guarding its temperature as carefully as a physician the heat of his patient, the gratitude for such bountiful outpouring was calm in his heart like a benediction.
Cristóbal had been advanced from the drudgery of the fields under Don Geronimo's lash to the station of assistant to the miller. His duty was to attend to the hoppers, and to tally off the number of bags ground daily. Padre Ignacio had withdrawn the mill from Don Geronimo's superintendence, placing it entirely in Juan's hands. Diplomatically, nicely as the priest had made this new arrangement, it had not been accomplished without umbrage on Don Geronimo's part. That gentleman's feather-edged dignity was as difficult to avoid trampling on as a cat's tail.
"So they are gone," said Padre Mateo, looking from the door of the mill toward the lumpy-backed low mountain that marked from a distance the point where the pass led into the valley of San Gabriel and the Pueblo de Los Angeles. "I, for one, have neither fears for the future nor tears for the present. The air seems sweeter to me this morning for having those gaming, drinking, dishonest fellows out of it. Let us hope that the road will be a long one that brings the next soldier here."
"I'll be able to cross the road, at any rate, with-
