The herald., 1895-02-24

his life go out. 1t was worthless life at
best and no friends were there to mourn,
for Ricardo was an outlaw, not an ordi-
nary bandit, but the worst criminal in the
whole country.
The story of Ricardo is part of the story
| of the mission. When the Senorita Mocha
came again to the plateau one night the
padre told her, as tenderly rs he could,
all about Ricardo's end.
A band of sheepherders found him ly-
| ing one day in the dust on the Mesa trail,
| just back Of San Diego. He was not dead,
but there was a bullet hole near his heart
and great pool of blood under him. They
carried him to the mission at San Diego,
where the good fathers cared for him until
| he died.
The padre told Mocha that Ricardo had
confessed his sins and died contrte, and
that Heaven had forgiven him. The child
mourned for her dead friend for many
day.
But Ricardo had done more than confess
his sins. This outlaw, whose life had
been full OF crime, was very rich. The
people say he alone knew the secret of the
wonderful mine OF silver. If another
man, by chance, would get the secret,
then that man would die, and his body
would be found in some lonely place, II
silver bullet in his heart. Ricardo nodded
all his bullets of silver.
AS the bandit lay on the bed of death
with the good padres around him he
ceased to curse the unknown hand that
had caused the death wound in his breast
and fell to repenting OF his sins Per-
haps he was a coward and thought to ease
his mind but whether that is so or not
i t is said he told the padres the secret of
the wonderful mine and dying requested
them to go there and build a mission.
This is the story of the mission in the
canyon; but the great mystery OF the un-
completed walls that are now ruins is still
i lie. tl,A FA
gone; the shadows of twilight stretch
across the walls as OF old. But there is
more mystery than ever, for the holy
father, who in all his life never harmed a
single being, was murdered too. He
walked alone one night and some one stole
plunged a knife in his heart No one ever
solved this awful mystery; no one ever
tried to solve it, and it stands yet.
Perhaps another story that is told about
the old life in the canyon has something
to do with the secret-a love story ending
in hate and crime-like some love stor-
les do.
There was one woman who was very
beautiful. All the young men in the coun-
try worshiped at her shrine. And for a
time she had a smile and a gracious well
come for them all, but that ended just as
it always does. One there was who came
and who was in her eyes more handsome
and brave and noble than all the rest,
and her heart was gone. She gave all she
had to give him-heart and soul-and he
gave her only his smile and tlattery, and,
at last curse. Then he left her and went
his way, but his image was always i'll her
mind when she fed at her breast a little
babe, and when the days and the months
went by and he came not again her love
died out and in the place of it came ter
rible hate. And she grew to hate the
child. Her hate was like that of all her
race. 1t was the deep, sullen kind that
can only be smothered for a time, and
then breaks out in fierce desperation. The
child s name was Mocha.
She did not resent it when they carried
her child away. She took TO wild ways.
She would carry rife and hunting knife
and ride the horses until the poor brutes
almost dropped down from sheer exhaus-
tion under her. The people let her have
her way. They pitied her.
When the body of Ricardo lay on the
cot in the mission at San Diego, woman
came there and asked to look Just once
upon the face of the dead outlaw She
shed no tears--she looked for time
straight into the sightless eyes and then
went away. RICARDO was the lover who
was false. I1he woman was Nocha's
mother
The people in the valley still tell the
story of the Ipisson and the padre
death. They still believe in the lost mine
and search for ia constantly. They some
times tell of Mocha S mother, but never do
they put these stories together as one, and
so the mystery oG Ricardo's death is yet
shadow, and the murder OF the good
Father Sorrano remains a mystery still.