The viceroy, having a hint of this, did not trouble St. Denis again; but he decided to establish posts and missions throughout the New Philippines—as Texas was still called—with garrisons armed to prevent contraband trade. Captain Domingo Ramon was appointed to carry on this work. He set out at once from St. John the Baptist for San Antonio, with a company of soldiers and several friars under his command. St. Denis, in high spirits and sure of his own success in spite of Captain Ramon, rode with him, acting as his guide. 2. COWL AND CARBINE. Mission and presidio, as already stated, meant church and fortress. The places chosen for these buildings were generally in the very midst of populous and fierce Indian tribes. For the object of the builders was not only to hold the country against France, but also to reduce the savages and convert them to the Catholic religion. The Red Man had already his own rude belief in the Great Spirit who sat behind the clouds and watched over the flight of his arrows and the tasseling of his corn. He loved to tell about the Happy Hunting-grounds to which he would travel after death, attended by his horse and his dog. It required a great deal of patience and perseverance on the part of the missionaries to make these wild creatures understand the meaning of the strange things they saw and heard: the hymns and prayers which broke the stillness at morning and at eventide, the candles blazing on the altar, the tinkling of bells, the movements of the priests, the humble attitude of the proud Spanish soldiers at mass. They crowded about the chapels, now accepting the new faith with childlike confidence, at other times seeking a chance to massacre priest and soldier in cold blood. But these missionaries belonged to an order whose business it was to be patient. They were Franciscans from the monastery of St. Francis at Zacatecas in Mexico, and they were pledged to poverty and self-denial. Gentle, but sturdy, these barefooted friars, in their coarse woolen frocks and rope girdles, exercised a strange fascination over the Indians who fell under their influence. [Illustration: A Franciscan Father.]