There, apparently, things had been going well.

Sixty converts were baptized on October 3, and the priests rejoiced at the success of their efforts.

But the Indians back in the mountains were alarmed and hostile.

Who were these white-faced strangers causing their brother aborigines to kneel before a strange God?
What was the meaning of that mystic ceremony of sprinkling with water?
The demon of priestly jealousy was awakened in the breasts of the _tingaivashes_--the medicine-men--of the tribes about San Diego, who arranged a fierce midnight attack which should rid them forever of these foreign conjurers, the men of the "bad medicine." Exactly a month and a day after the baptism of the sixty converts, at the dead of night, the Mission buildings were fired and the eleven persons of Spanish blood were awakened by flames and the yells of a horde of excited savages.

A fierce conflict ensued.