ar, do you?"

"I hope not," replied Father Salvierderra, cautiously; "but since the
way that all the lands of the Missions have been taken away, I have
small faith in the honesty of the Americans. I think they will take all
that they can. The Church has suffered terrible loss at their hands."

"That is what my father says," replied Alessandro. "He says, 'Look at
San Luis Rey! Nothing but the garden and orchard left, of all their vast
lands where they used to pasture thirty thousand sheep. If the Church
and the Fathers could not keep their lands, what can we Indians do?'
That is what my father says."

"True, true!" said the monk, as he turned into the door of the room
where Juan Can lay on his narrow bed, longing yet fearing to see Father
Salvierderra's face coming in. "We are all alike helpless in their
hands, Alessandro. They possess the country, and can make what laws they
please. We can only say, 'God's will be done,'" and he crossed himself
devoutly, repeating the words twice.

Alessandro did the same, and with a truly devout spirit, for he was full
of veneration for the Fathers and their teachings; but as he walked on
towards the shearing-shed he thought: "Then, again, how can it be God's
will that wrong be done? It cannot be God's will that one man should
steal from another all he has. That would make God no better than a
thief, it looks to me. But how can it happen, if it is not God's will?"

It does not need that one be educated, to see the logic in this formula.
Generations of the oppressed and despoiled, before Alessandro, had
grappled with the problem in one shape or another.

At the shearing-shed, Alessandro found his men in confusion and
ill-humor. The shearing had been over and done by ten in the morning,
and why were they not on their way to the Ortega's? Waiting all day,--it
was now near sunset,--with nothing to do, and still worse with not
much of anything to eat, had made them all cross; and no wonder. The
economical Juan Can, finding that the work would be done by ten, and
supposing they would be off before noon, had ordered only two sheep
killed for them the day before, and the mutton was all gone, and old
Marda, getting her cue from Juan, had cooked no more frijoles than the
family needed themselves; so the poor shearers had indeed had a sorry
day of it, in no wise alleviated either by the reports brought from time
to time that their captain was lying on the ground, face down, under
Senor Feli