the more
spacious way, and they followed without consultation.

The crushed grass looked like green blood, but there was no other
evidence of slaughter; the mustangs had been fleeter than the cattle.
The latter had evidently kept well together, for on either side of a
swath some three hundred yards in width, the grass stood high.

They were in a wide valley now; they could see the great mountains,
still faint under their vapourous mist, the redwoods as rigid of
outline as if the heart of the world beneath had never changed its
measure. Just beyond this valley was a wood, then the Mission. Were
twenty thousand hoofs trampling among its ruins?

They left the valley, entered the wood, galloped down its narrow path,
and emerged. The Mission stood on its plateau above the river, as
serene and proud as the redwoods on the mountain. She had held her own
against many earthquakes and would against many more. But there was not
a horn, a horse, a man, nor a woman to be seen.

The boys dismounted, not daring to think. They walked toward the
buildings, then paused to listen. Through the open doors of the church
rolled the sonorous tones of Padre Osuna's voice, intoning mass. The
boys ran forward to enter the building. They paused on the threshold,
held by a sight, the like of which had never been seen in California
before, and never shall be again.

Near the entrance of the vast building were a multitude of half-clothed
dusky forms, prone. Between them and the altar were more than an
hundred horses, caparisoned with silver and carved leather, and gay
anquera. They stood as if petrified. On them, huddled to the arching
necks, in an attitude of prostrate devotion, were magnificent bunches
of colour; scarce an outline could be seen of the proudly attired men
and women who had fled before a tidal wave of tossing horns. Father
Osuna, in his coarse brown woollen robes, stood before the altar,
chanting the mass of thanksgiving. The church blazed with the light of
many candles. The air was thick and sweet with incense.

XVII

After the mass was over the boys learned the sequel of the morning's
terrible adventure. Between the second valley and the wood the cattle,
diverted by one of those mysterious impulses which govern masses of all
grades of intelligence, had deflected suddenly and raced for the hills.
The gay company was much shaken, but somewhat restored by the calm of
the church and the solemn monotonous roll of Father Osu