His first impulse had been to seek his wife, regardless of discovery or consequences, at Hymettus, where she had said she was going.  It was on his way to the rendezvous at Marshall’s claim.  But this he as instantly set aside, it was his son he must find; she might not confess, or might deceive him—­the boy would not; and if his fears were correct, she could be arraigned afterwards.  It was possible for him to reach the little Mission church and school, secluded in a remote valley by the old Franciscan fathers, where he had placed the boy for the last few years unknown to his wife.  It would be a long ride, but he could still reach Heavy Tree Hill afterwards before Marshall and the expert arrived.  And he had a feeling he had never felt before on the eve of a desperate adventure,—­that he must see the boy first.  He remembered how the child had often accompanied him in his flight, and how he had gained strength, and, it seemed to him, a kind of luck, from the touch of that small hand in his.  Surely it was necessary now that at least his mind should be at rest regarding him on the eve of an affair of this moment.  Perhaps he might never see him again.  At any other time, and under the influence of any other emotion, he would have scorned such a sentimentalism—­he who had never troubled himself either with preparation for the future or consideration for the past.  But at that moment he felt both.  He drew a long breath.  He could catch the next train to the Three Boulders and ride thence to San Felipe.  He hurriedly left the room, settled with the landlord, and galloped to the station.  By the irony of circumstances the only horse available for that purpose was Mr. Hamlin’s own.

By two o’clock he was at the Three Boulders, where he got a fast horse and galloped into San Felipe by four.  As he descended the last slope through the fastnesses of pines towards the little valley overlooked in its remoteness and purely pastoral simplicity by the gold-seeking immigrants,—­its seclusion as one of the furthest northern Californian missions still preserved through its insignificance and the efforts of the remaining Brotherhood, who used it as an infirmary and a school for the few remaining Spanish families,—­he remembered how he once blundered upon it with the boy while hotly pursued by a hue and cry from one of the larger towns, and how he found sanctuary there.  He remembered how, when the pursuit was over, he had placed the boy there under the padre’s charge.  He had lied to his wife regarding the whereabouts of her son, but he had spoken truly regarding his free expenditure for the boy’s maintenance, and the good fathers had accepted, equally for the child’s sake as for the Church’s sake, the generous “restitution” which this coarse, powerful, ruffianly looking father was apparently seeking to make.  He was quite aware of it at the time, and had equally accepted it with grim cynicism; but it now came back to him with