This venerable Mexican and old-time voyageur of the almost obliterated Santa Fé trail, when I last visited him at his hospitable home in the mountains, fourteen years ago, entertained me by relating some of the more prominent characteristics of his strange _compagnon du voyage_ during that memorable trip with the "hermit priest" from Council Grove more than twenty years previously. He said that the strange man would never ride, either on horseback or in one of the wagons, despite the earnest invitation extended to him each recurring morning by the master of the caravan; preferring to trudge along uncomplainingly day after day during the sunny hours beside the plodding oxen through the alkali dust of the desert, and faltered not. Neither would he at night partake of the shelter of a tent, constantly offered but as constantly and persistently refused, preferring to roll himself up in a single coarse wrap, seeking some quiet spot removed from the corral of wagons, where for an hour or two under the scintillating stars he would tell off his beads, or, accompanied by his mandolin, chant some sad refrain to the Virgin, until long after the camp had gone to sleep. For his subsistence he himself caught and cooked the prairie dog, ground squirrel, and gopher. Only occasionally, when hard pressed, would he accept a meal, which was constantly proffered by the Mexican teamsters, begging the "hermit priest" to share with them; for in their love for the Catholic Church, to which they were so devoted, he seemed to their untutored minds a most zealous but humble exponent of their religious tenets and visible form of their sacred faith. Thus reticent, thoughtful and devout, he marched with the caravan for many weeks, until at last the city of Holy Faith, the quaint old Spanish town of Santa Fé, was reached. There he parted company with his escort, and for nearly a year afterward wandered all over that portion of the Territory of New Mexico, and into Arizona, still seeking the Alnaschar of his dreams, a suitable abiding-place in the recesses of the hills, and a people whose souls might be made to attune with his. But he miserably failed in all that he desired during his sad pilgrimage throughout the Southwest. Then, turning northward again, he slowly and almost despairingly retraced his steps until he arrived in the sequestered valley of the Sapillo, where he at last found a humble class and his coveted cave on the summit of the mighty mountain described at the opening of this chapter. There, content after so many years of unsatisfied wandering, he commenced that life of religious ministrations, and exercised those unselfish acts of kindness and love, whose remembrance is imprinted so indelibly on the hearts of his devoted followers; for, "Through suffering he soothed, and through sickness he nursed."