ng
feasts and saints' days, the half-yearly courier from San Diego, the
rare transport ship and rarer foreign vessel, were the mere details of
his patriarchal life. If there was no achievement, there was certainly
no failure. Abundant harvests and patient industry amply supplied the
wants of Presidio and Mission. Isolated from the family of nations,
the wars which shook the world concerned them not so much as the last
earthquake; the struggle that emancipated their sister colonies on the
other side of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. In short, it
was that glorious Indian summer of California history around which so
much poetical haze still lingers--that bland, indolent autumn of
Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican
independence and the reviving spring of American conquest.

The Commander turned from the window and walked toward the fire that
burned brightly on the deep ovenlike hearth. A pile of copybooks, the
work of the Presidio school, lay on the table. As he turned over the
leaves with a paternal interest, and surveyed the fair round Scripture
text--the first pious pothooks of the pupils of San Carlos--an audible
commentary fell from his lips: "'Abimelech took her from Abraham'--ah,
little one, excellent!--'Jacob sent to see his brother'--body of Christ!
that upstroke of thine, Paquita, is marvelous; the Governor shall see
it!" A film of honest pride dimmed the Commander's left eye--the right,
alas! twenty years before had been sealed by an Indian arrow. He rubbed
it softly with the sleeve of his leather jacket, and continued: "'The
Ishmaelites having arrived--'"

He stopped, for there was a step in the courtyard, a foot upon the
threshold, and a stranger entered. With the instinct of an old soldier,
the Commander, after one glance at the intruder, turned quickly toward
the wall, where his trusty Toledo hung, or should have been hanging. But
it was not there, and as he recalled that the last time he had seen that
weapon it was being ridden up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant
son of Bautista, the tortilla-maker, he blushed and then contented
himself with frowning upon the intruder.

But the stranger's air, though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful. He
was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea boots of
a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little about
him that was peculiar.

His name, as he informed the Commander, in Spa