priests, the padres, planting the first wheat and oil and wine to
produce the elements of the Sacrament--a trinity of great
industries, taking their rise in a religious rite.

Abruptly, as if in confirmation, Presley heard the sound of a
bell from the direction of the Mission itself. It was the de
Profundis, a note of the Old World; of the ancient regime, an
echo from the hillsides of mediaeval Europe, sounding there in
this new land, unfamiliar and strange at this end-of-the-century
time.

By now, however, it was dark. Presley hurried forward. He came
to the line fence of the Quien Sabe ranch. Everything was very
still. The stars were all out. There was not a sound other than
the de Profundis, still sounding from very far away. At long
intervals the great earth sighed dreamily in its sleep. All
about, the feeling of absolute peace and quiet and security and
untroubled happiness and content seemed descending from the stars
like a benediction. The beauty of his poem, its idyl, came to
him like a caress; that alone had been lacking. It was that,
perhaps, which had left it hitherto incomplete. At last he was
to grasp his song in all its entity.
But suddenly there was an interruption. Presley had climbed the
fence at the limit of the Quien Sabe ranch. Beyond was Los
Muertos, but between the two ran the railroad. He had only time
to jump back upon the embankment when, with a quivering of all
the earth, a locomotive, single, unattached, shot by him with a
roar, filling the air with the reek of hot oil, vomiting smoke
and sparks; its enormous eye, cyclopean, red, throwing a glare
far in advance, shooting by in a sudden crash of confused