Late one afternoon when the sunlight was slanting through the trees and wavering upon the adobe walls of the Pueblo of Los Angeles, when the only sounds were the whispering winds in the higher boughs, and the thrumming of a stringed instrument from the soldiers’ quarters, a tall Spanish mule came clattering into the village with two boys astride its back. They were bronzed, sinewy looking youngsters; each held a long barreled rifle. A barefooted sentry, his piece over his shoulder, looked up at the sudden sound; and as the mule was abruptly checked beside him, and the two lads slipped from its back, he whipped his weapon about and with a brown thumb upon the trigger, cried:…
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