"Stanislaus," asked a man near him, "can our fellows get into this place where the girls are? At Monterey they are behind doors you couldn't smash with an ax in half a day." "Cayetano," was the reply, "I was major-domo here for years. The task set for those of us sent inside is easy. The peonas are spunky," he continued, "but they'll be the better wives in the wild hills we go to. If the enemy comes, our tepees will not be undefended in our absence." Indians carrying struggling neophyte peonas filled the porch of the house. They sprang to the ground below and upon the backs of the waiting mounts. Soon two hundred horses were bearing double burdens. "Any more to come?" called Stanislaus. "No," from a lieutenant who had been in charge of the inside squad. "Our way of finding wives may not please the padre, but it's the only resource left us," said the chief. "It's a quicker method than the padre's," returned the lieutenant, "and we're sure of our own pick." "Now to the hills!" commanded the leader, adding: "When Padre Osuna trails us home he can perform a hundred double weddings at once." The raiders spurred away eastward. Some of the girls, inert from fear, made no movement in their captors' arms, others continued screaming and struggling. Shortly their cries died away in the distance, and the desolated Mission was left to the wailing matronas and the old peons whose resistance had been too feeble to attract notice from the marauders. As unexpectedly as had the tumult begun across the way, a clanging sounded from the topmost tower of Mendoza's hacienda house. It was an iron bar striking with lightning rapidity the rim of a bell suspended in the tower. Three strokes a second it supplied, under nicely arranged mechanism of block and pulley. The clamor aroused every peon on the Mendoza grant, for that call meant each task must be left without delay, and all speed made to the hacienda house, as if in matter of death and life. Peons rushed from the Arroyo Seco, leagues to the north, leaving their herds without caretakers. Plowmen in the soft vegetable fields at the mouth of the Arroyo Alameda flung the traces upon the horses' backs, and galloped the heavy work animals toward Mission San José. Sturgeon-catchers in the far-away Alviso marshes withheld the spear as their boat floated above the rotund quarry. "Ding, dong, ding," the hills were faintly echoing. The fishermen knew their duty, and straightway discarding implement and fish, they pushed their mustangs helter-skelter through slough and marsh to their master's home ten miles distant. Carmelita Mendoza stood in her father's bell tower, her hand firmly pressing a lever. This lever controlled the heavy tongue striking the call to rescue. The girl had witnessed from her window the attack on the Mission; had seen the renegades ride away with the stolen neophyte girls.