His great body stretched on the dirt floor in a shady corner of the barracks-room of the presidio ... a fortified military settlement ... his long moustache drooped, his big mouth open, Sergeant Carlos Cassara snored.
His face was purple from wine and the heat; for the air was still and stagnant this siesta hour, and empty vessels on the table nearby told of the deep drinking that had been done.
Scattered about were a corporal and a dozen soldiers, all sleeping and snoring. Against the wall, half a score of feet from the slumbering sergeant, an Indian neophyte ... a new entrant ... had dropped his palm-leaf and was glancing around the room from beneath eyelids that seemed about to close.
Outside was the red dust, a foot deep on the highway, and the burning sun. The fountain before the mission splashed lazily; down at the beach it seemed that the tide had not its usual energy. Neophytes slept in the shadows cast by the mission walls. Here and there a robed friar went about his business despite the heat and the hour. There was no human being traveling El Camino Real—the king’s highway—as far as a man with good eyes could see. You can hear the whole story.
Johnston McCulley (1883–1958) created his most famous character, Zorro, in 1919. He was the author of hundreds of stories, fifty novels, and numerous screenplays for film and television. He wrote sixty Zorro stories during his career.
John Rayburn is a veteran broadcaster. He served as a news/sports anchor and show host, and his TV newscast achieved the largest Share of Audience figures of any major-market TV newscast in the nation. John is a member of a Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.