A grey dawn came that morning to San Diego de Alcalá, for the heavy fog hung like a pall over the valley, rolling in great billows against the hills. The mission bells rang, and into the church trooped frailes, soldiers, ranch owners, loyal neophytes, none appearing more devout than those same soldiers whose license and cruelty had done much to make the Indians dissatisfied and undo the work of the frailes. Collectively they may have been a boisterous, fighting, drinking, gambling lot--but individually they were properly religious. The _comandante_ had taken charge and done everything possible in preparing the defence. It had come to a question of deciding between presidio and mission, for there were not men enough to defend both. It was a question, too, which the hostiles would attack first--the presidio offered arms and ammunition, food and wine; the mission offered more loot. Did the savages have greater hatred for the soldiers or the “long gowns”?--that was the question the _comandante_ would have liked to have had answered. Sergeant Cassara, pacing the plaza after service, pulled at his long moustache and waited for his officer to appear. There were some things Cassara had not fathomed. With his own eyes he had seen the savages take Rojerio Rocha to the house at the rancho, and he knew that the women had been there. And now, so he had been told, both women were back at the mission, and unharmed. This was something new in Indian warfare. The _comandante_ came from the church, two of the older frailes with him, and went toward the padres’ quarters, Cassara falling in behind. Since there was no other officer here, Cassara, by virtue of his long experience, had been appointed a temporary second in command. Inside the building, with the door closed and a man on guard outside to prevent interruption, the frailes sat down at a long table, the _comandante_ at the head of it, Sergeant Cassara at the foot. There was silence for a moment, and then the lieutenant lifted his head and looked down the length of the table, ignoring the frailes and gazing straight into Cassara’s eyes when he spoke. “Ensign Sanchez of Santa Barbara is due this morning with twenty men, unless he has met with disaster on the highway. I understand from the courier who arrived late last night that Sanchez has picked up some good fighters along the way, especially at Reina de Los Angeles, where the old pirate, Gonzales, now a godly man, and some of his cronies joined the standard.” “Give me a score of men like this Gonzales and we sweep the hostiles into the sea!” Cassara exclaimed. The lieutenant rebuked him with a glance, and the sergeant, his face flushing, turned to look through the window.