After the Indian had gone, he arose and extinguished the torch, and listened for a moment at the door, until he was sure his host was squatting there. It was troubled sleep he had, for the surroundings were peculiar, and he did not fully trust his host. A step beside the couch caused him to awaken and spring to his feet, pistol held ready. “Within an hour, _señor_, it will be dawn,” he heard the voice of the old Indian say. “I have more wine and food ready, and water fresh from the spring. It is better that you are gone before others awake, then none will know of your passing.” The caballero ate again, and followed his host outside, carrying saddle and bridle. When the horse was ready, he mounted, then tossed the native a coin. “No, _señor_--not from you, if you please,” the Indian said. “It has been a pleasure----” “White man and red--both give me hospitality and refuse payment,” remarked the caballero. “At times I think myself the most fortunate of men, at other times the most unlucky. One fray aids me and another refuses to sell me a horse. It is a peculiar world!” “The _señor_ will not forget me--that is all I ask,” the Indian muttered. “Be assured I will not! _Adios!_” “_’Dios!_” The caballero trotted his steed for a mile, then broke into a gallop. Forty miles more, and he would be at San Diego de Alcalá, his journey’s end. He laughed aloud as the dawn came and showed him the sea sparkling in the distance. His spirits had revived wonderfully. “Poor self-styled Juan who once owned a mule!” he murmured. “He loses a couple of pieces of gold, I take it, since it is not to be believed that he has reached the goal before me. I wonder what would have happened if I had gone to the inn on the plaza at Reina de Los Angeles?” He was in the hills again now, yet the highway was seldom masked, and he felt secure in the knowledge that a foe could not approach without being seen. The miles flew beneath his horse’s hoofs. A cool breeze came in from the sea and neutralised the heat of the sun. In the distance he could see a broad valley, and he knew that the end of his journey was near. Another ten miles, and then, stopping his horse on the crest of a hill, he saw San Diego de Alcalá before him. Near the shore of the bay was the presidio, topping a knoll. Six miles up the valley was the mission proper, and near it an orchard surrounded by a wall, and fields of green. “’Tis a bit of paradise in the wilderness!” the caballero said aloud. “And there is an angel in it, I have heard.” He chuckled and urged the horse on. Purposely he avoided the presidio for the time being and made his way toward the mission. Only a few neophytes were to be seen, and even they disappeared as he approached. The mission buildings formed three sides of a square; the fourth side was an adobe wall nearly ten feet high. Through a space between two of the buildings the caballero rode his horse. Not a human being was to be seen in the plaza.