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.