It was a day in April, the year 1780, that the clan O’Donoju came to the Mission of the Four Evangelists to lend the dignity of their presence to the solemn service of re-dedication. More than that, Don Padraic O’Donoju, venerable head of the house and master of the Casa O’Donoju in the oasis named the Garden of Solitude, was come to witness a personal triumph. For it had been his money that had gone to the Franciscan College to be used in the rebuilding of the frontier post of God after the Apaches had raided and burned it fifty years before. And one of his own sons, Padre Felice, had been the architect and builder of the restored mission and was to continue the priest in charge. Padre Felice was fourth in a line of O’Donojus to take orders, one from each generation since the establishment of the grant. The O’Donojus--grandchildren, cousins and kin by marriage--had ridden five days and upwards from various sections of the Rancho del Refugio, up and out through the Altar desert to this remote sanctuary of God in the country of the Sand People. They came by the way called the Road of the Dead Men. Its asperities were softened by the quick desert spring which tipped each thorny cactus cone with candelabra tufts of golden and carmine flowers. The desert’s usual heat was tempered by the snows that lay in unnamed mountains to the north. They came in a lengthy caravan of horses and burros, with half naked Indians to herd the goats and the yearling steers that were to be barbecued for the secular feast to follow the religious rites; with a half-company of foot soldiers from the Presidio del Refugio to guard the company against roving Apaches; Indian maids on mule back to serve the needs of their mistresses, regally mounted on ponies of the Cortez strain; baggage porters, cooks, roustabouts. Fully a hundred of the clan O’Donoju and satellites on pilgrimage over the Road of the Dead Men. All of the O’Donoju were there but one, El Rojo--the Red One. The “Red One” was he because of the throw-back to the red Irish strain of his fighting ancestor Don Miguel. Red with the pugnacious red of Donegal was his hair; his cheeks had none of the sallow tan of the Spanish but were dyed with the stain of Irish bog winds; his eyes were blue lamps of the devil. A fatherless grandson of old Don Padraic, El Rojo had played the wild youth in the City of Mexico with only occasional visits of penance to the Casa O’Donoju in the desert country of the north until, when the tang of youth still was his, he had tainted his name with scandal. Followed his formal expulsion from the clan at the hands of the old aristocrat, his grandfather, and the closing of all doors of his kindred in Papagueria against him. El Rojo had ridden out to the wide world of sand and mountains an outcast but with a laugh on his lips; this a full year before the gathering of the family at the Mission of the Four Evangelists.