The Padre
It is in the early days of California. Father Sebastian trudging his way on
foot from the Mission, his attention is attracted to the wail of an infant
coming from the crest of a ridge. He finds the body of a Spanish woman.
Sitting beside its dead mother, a tiny baby greets the Padre's gaze.
Lifting the infant tenderly in his arms, the Father resumes his journey,
accompanied by an Indian woman, to whom he has intrusted the care of the
orphaned child.
Years pass by and we see the infant grown to manhood strong, handsome and a
true worshipper; the bright eyes of a pretty Spanish maiden turn the head of our Jose,
causing him to forget his duty.
How, after the Padre has warned him of his danger, he disregards the advice of
the Father and flees in the night with his inamorata; how, in their ignorance of the
trails, they wander out into the terrible desert and almost die from thirst and the
burning heat; how they are found by some American prospectors and nursed back to
life; how Jose lies in a delirium of fever and Papinta turns to another, and the long
search of the patient Padre for his adopted son, which is rewarded at last by finjding him.
The settings are real and beautiful, the locations being chosen from in and about
San Gabriel Mission, the sea coast, the Sierra Madre mountains and the great desert
of Southern California.
Selig Polyscope Go.
45-47-49 Randolph St.
CHICAGO, U. S. A.
