Their first glance at Pomponio revealed to them the meaning of
the shot they had heard.
Pomponio was buried that night, secretly and in profound silence. His
comrades, determined his enemies should never find his grave and body,
bore it into the deepest recesses of the forest, and there interred it,
afterward removing all trace of any disturbance of the earth covering
it. There they left him, at rest, his little part in life's drama ended.
Pablo's story of his killing Pomponio was not believed when he told it
at the mission and the presidio. No one, however, could contradict him,
and as time went on, and nothing farther was heard of the neophyte, and
the marauding at the mission became less, until it ceased altogether,
his assertion came, in time, to be regarded as the true account of
Pomponio's death.
Note. - The writer has taken the liberty of altering the real facts of
Pomponio's end. He was captured by a party of four soldiers, tried by
court martial at Monterey, in February, and shot, about September, 1824.
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