"Bravo!" said a voice from behind the horses. All turned with a start.
It was the priest. "Coliar was never better done," he added graciously;
and Rafael felt that the day was his.
The priest had ridden up unnoted in the tense excitement of the last few
moments. He sat a big powerful horse, and his bearing was as military as
that of the two great generals of the Californias, Castro and Vallejo.
As the boys, congratulations and modest acknowledgement over, were
making for home and breakfast, the priest pressed his horse close to
Roldan's. "I interested you much at the race yesterday, Don Roldan," he
said, with a good-humoured smile. "Why was that?"
Roldan was not often embarrassed, but he was so taken aback at the
abrupt sally he forgot to be flattered that the priest had evidently
thought it worth while to inquire his name; and stammered: "I--well, you
see, my father, you are not like other priests." Which was not
undiplomatic.
The priest smiled, this time with a faint flush of unmistakable
pleasure. "You are right, my son, I am not as other priests in this
wilderness. Would to Heaven I were, or--"
"Or that you were in Spain?" Roldan could not resist saying, then caught
his breath at his temerity.
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