ore they reached
the summit he turned once or twice to look back upon the Mission. How
small it looked, lying there in the peaceful valley, contrasted with the
broad sweep of the landscape beyond, stopped at the further east only
by the dim, ghost-like outlines of the Sierras. But the strong breath of
the sea was beginning to be felt; in a few moments more they were facing
it with lowered sombreros and flying serapes, and the vast, glittering,
illimitable Pacific opened out beneath them.

Dazed and blinded, as it seemed to him, by the shining, restless
expanse, Father Pedro rode forward as if still in a dream. Suddenly he
halted, and called Antonio to his side.

"Tell me, child, didst thou not say that this coast was wild and
desolate of man, beast, and habitation?"

"Truly I did, reverend father."

"Then what is that?" pointing to the shore.

Almost at their feet nestled a cluster of houses, at the head of an
arroyo reaching up from the beach. They looked down upon the smoke of a
manufactory chimney, upon strange heaps of material and curious engines
scattered along the sands, with here and there moving specks of human
figures. In a little bay a schooner swung at her cables.

The vaquero crossed himself in stupefied alarm. "I know not, your
reverence; it is only two years ago, before the rodeo, that I was here
for strayed colts, and I swear by the blessed bones of San Antonio that
it was as I said."

"Ah! it is like these Americanos," responded the muleteer. "I have it
from my brother Diego that he went from San Jose to Pescadero two months
ago, across the plains, with never a hut nor fonda to halt at all the
way. He returned in seven days, and in the midst of the plain there were
three houses and a mill, and many people. And why was it? Ah! Mother of
God! one had picked up in the creek where he drank that much of gold;"
and the muleteer tapped one of the silver coins that fringed his jacket
sleeves in place of buttons.

"And they are washing the sands for gold there now," said Antonio,
eagerly pointing to some men gathered round a machine like an enormous
cradle. "Let us hasten on."

Father Pedro's momentary interest had passed. The words of his
companions fell dull and meaningless upon his dreaming ears. He was
conscious only that the child was more a stranger to him as an outcome
of this hard, bustling life, than when he believed her borne to him over
the mysterious sea. It perplexed his dazed, disturbed