fireplace as the sparks were showered over the hard dirt floor. "'Tis a night for evil deeds!" declared Sergeant Pedro Gonzales, stretching his great feet in their loose boots toward the roaring fire and grasping the hilt of his sword in one hand and a mug filled with thin wine in the other. "Devils howl in the wind and demons are in the raindrops! 'Tis an evil night, indeed--eh, _señor_?" "It is!" the fat landlord agreed hastily; and he made haste, also, to fill the wine mug again, for Sergeant Pedro Gonzales had a temper that was terrible when aroused, as it always was when wine was not forthcoming. "An evil night!" the big sergeant repeated, and drained the mug without stopping to draw breath, a feat that had attracted considerable attention in its time and had gained the sergeant a certain amount of notoriety up and down El Camino Real, as they called the highway that connected the missions in one long chain. Gonzales sprawled closer to the fire, and cared not that other men thus were robbed of some of its warmth. Sergeant Pedro Gonzales often had expressed his belief that a man should look out for his own comfort before considering others; and being of great size and strength, and having much skill with the blade, he found few who had the courage to declare that they believed otherwise. Outside the wind shrieked and the rain dashed against the ground in a solid sheet. It was a typical February storm for southern California. At the missions the _frailes_ had cared for the stock and had closed the buildings for the night. At every great _hacienda_ big fires were burning in the houses. The timid natives kept to their little adobe huts, glad for shelter. And here in the little _pueblo_ of Reina de Los Angeles, where, in years to come, a great city would grow, the tavern on one side of the plaza housed for the time being men who would sprawl before the fire until the dawn rather than face the beating rain. Sergeant Pedro Gonzales, by virtue of his rank and size, hogged the fireplace, and a corporal and three soldiers from the _presidio_ sat at table a little in rear of him, drinking their thin wine and playing at cards. An Indian servant crouched on his heels in one corner, no neophyte who had accepted the religion of the _frailes_, but a gentile and renegade. For this was in the day of the decadence of the missions, and there was little peace between the robed Franciscans who followed in the footsteps of the sainted Junipero Serra, who had founded the first mission at San Diego de Alcála, and thus made possible an empire, and those who followed the politicians and had high places in the army. The men who drank wine in the tavern at Reina de Los Angeles had no wish for a spying neophyte about them. Just now conversation had died out, a fact that annoyed the fat landlord and caused him some fear; for Sergeant Pedro Gonzales in an argument was Sergeant Gonzales at peace; and unless he could talk the big soldier might feel moved to action and start a brawl. Twice before Gonzales had done so, to the great damage of furniture and men's faces; and the landlord had appealed to the _comandante_ of the _presidio_, Captain Ramón, only to be informed that the captain had an abundance of troubles of his own, and that running an inn was not one of them. So the landlord regarded Gonzales warily,...