As Arrio continued to walk on, apparently unconcerned, Zepherin followed him, a look of growing amazement in his eyes.

"Enough is enough," Arrio went on. "A prayer once in a while is all right, but every time I want you to go to the city with me, where do I have to look for you? In the chapel -- always in the chapel, always on your knees. It's too much of a good thing, and it can't get you anywhere. Don't you think they're growing just a little bit tired of you up there?" Arrio's thumb pointed heavenward.

At this point Zepherin stopped in his tracks and refused to go any further. I could not agree with you less!" he burst out indignantly. "I could spend the whole day praying!"

Arrio pooh-poohed the idea. Zepherin stared at him in disbelief, then asked, "Do you not believe that in heave we shall spend all our time in the company of the saints?"

For the rest of the journey he continued to explain to Arrio how he looked forward to seeing -- yes, even talking to -- God. It was to Arrio, also, that he confided the horror he felt at the manner in which many people at the Oratory made the sign of the cross. "What a shame!" he exclaimed. "It's the first sign of Christianity, and it represents the mystery of the passion and death of our Savior. Yet see how carelessly it is done." Then he added determinedly, "As an act of reparation I will do it often and I will do it well!"

Incidents such as these were all further signs, as many observed, the Zepherin's piety was acquiring deeper roots, and that his devotion to prayer and the sacraments was growing more constant with each passing day. It was natural that a spirit like his should flourish at the Oratory where, according to a visiting bishop, "one lived in a climate of saints."

Cagliero took his protégé on a round of visits to friends and benefactors. To them, to Cardinal Richelmy, the archbishop of Turin, and to the members of his own society (the Salesians), he presented Zepherin enthusiastically as "the most perfect fruit of our missionary effort."

While Zepherin stayed in Turin he was treated as a celebrity. Peopled referred to him as "a colored Dominic Savio." Enterprising journalists sought interviews with him, published his picture, and splashed his name across the front pages, invariably referring to him as "the young prince of the Andes." At a splendid reception prepared for the return of Cagliero, the glory of the Salesians, Zepherin was not forgotten. Introduced as the "son of the great cacique, Manuel Namuncura," he received a thunderous ovation.

The effect of so much publicity and praise would undoubtedly have had a bad effect on a less solid character. But according to eyewitnesses, Zepherin simply ignored any compliments that came his way. Besides, there were times when his humility was put to a far different kind of test.

Bishop Costamagna, in particular, seemed to live in such dread that all this adulation would go to Zepherin's head; thus he made a point of trying to counteract its ill effects. Whenever he could, he would whisper to Zepherin phrases such as: "Don't think you're a supermen!" "See how the little peacock preens himself!" "Remember, what they're telling you is a pack of lies!" Once he spotted Zepherin walking along the corridors and upbraided him for wasting his time.

"What do you think we brought you here for?" he asked.

"To study, of course."

"Then why don't you study?" thundered Costamagna. "Where are the books? All I ever see you do is wander about the corridors either taking the air or showing off!"

Zepherin did not tell the bishop that he had been ordered to "take the air." Instead, he at once returned to his books and began to study with such intensity that in view of the harm it was doing him he was told a second time to "take the air."

Finally, Costamagna one morning discovered him standing near a fountain. To him this could only mean that he had again found Zepherin idling. Quietly filling a pail with water he approached on tiptoe, then without warning dashed it over the unsuspecting Zepherin!

"There!" he snapped. "That should cure you of your pride!"

The treatment the fiery Costamagna was meting out to him became so harsh that eventually people complained that he was overdoing it in his efforts to protect Zepherin's humility. The youth's invariable reaction to all this was to smile with his eyes, but say nothing.

When news of these incidents reached Cagliero, he shook his head, commenting, "Our young Indian has certainly come a long, long way. He seems to have caught up with, even surpassed, the rest of us."

Things seemed to be moving along pleasantly enough for Zepherin, when, like a puma that lurks in the tall pampa grass ready to pounce on the unwary traveler, his old enemy struck again.

With the coming of winter to Turin, despite his otherwise robust appearance, a pallor commenced to show in his cheeks, indicating that all was not well. His voice was failing and was not nearly as strong as it should be in such a young man. The cold, dank climate and dense fog usual to Turin at that time of the year was having its effect. It was decided, to his bitter disappointment, to send him to a milder climate where he could carry on his studies. They chose Villa Sora, a school in the Roman suburb of Frascati.

On his way through Rome a visitor from Viedma came to see him. Zepherin enthusiastically described to him an audience with the Holy Father. "When I return to Patagonia," he added, "I shall tell my people how the Holy Father loves them." Noting that he coughed persistently, however, the other advised him to take better care of his health. Zepherin replied, "They take the best possible care of me." Nevertheless, a plea crept into his voice: "Pray that I shall be ordained and go back to my people!"

Villa Sora, as far as Zepherin was concerned, had everything in its favor. To begin with, it was the ideal place to improve his health. A sixteenth-century mansion, it lay among the Tuscan hills on a farm which had once belonged to Gaius Lucilius Lucullus, patron of the arts, who had chosen the site precisely because of its healthy atmosphere. It was the summer resort of those wealthy Roman citizens who wanted to escape the suffocating Roman summers. Later, equally wealthy Italians of the Middle Ages had built castles on the identical site, often as not using the identical marble from the Roman ruins. They had filled these homes with treasures of art so that, set among the low hills covered with grapevines and olive groves, they might delight the eye both inside and out.

It was a place that should also have advanced Zepherin's education. Famous names had been written into the history of Villa Sora. Gregory XIII, for instance, in 1582, had invited his friend St. Charles Borromeo to stay with him. Still well-preserved on its walls stands out his papal coat-of-arms. St. Joseph Calasanzio had also lodged there; and the Bavarian Venerable John of Augusta had passed from its ornate apartments to his eternal reward.

Despite the good intentions of the padres, life at Villa Sora presented certain difficulties to Zepherin. As he wandered through those elegant rooms and salons, surrounded by the frescoes, sacred and profane, the furniture, the statuary, he must have felt more than a little out of place. Besides, a youth like him, older than the others and of a different race, was not readily accepted by the well-to-do type of boy who attended this school. To preserve his strength he was not allowed to carry a full load of studies -- something which set him still further apart. Finally, the diet to which he had been accustomed in Patagonia consisted mainly of meet, whereas the boys of Villa Sora preferred many other dishes. No special diet was prescribed for him and he preferred to suffer in silence rather than ask for it.

To the observant, this was further evidence that he was undergoing a serious change, that he was becoming more and more intent on sanctifying himself. Often he could be found walking alone under the porticos, gazing in the direction of Rome where above the horizon he could make out the cupola of St. Peter's. "I can see Rome from the playground," he noted in his letters. Rome for him meant the center of Christianity, the Pope. . . everything that was holy.

A still more subtle change crept over him. Up to now he had always been able to overcome by his lively conversation and constant good humor the inclination to melancholy he had inherited. At this stage, however, it began to reassert itself. He rarely joked, and it was only when he raised his head could one see that his eyes were still smiling.

The reason for this transformation became apparent during Christmas of that year, when he wrote to a friend in Buenos Aires that he had been in Rome for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and had assisted at the Mass said by the Pope. "I wanted to date this letter December 25th," he pointed out, "but the four days I spent in bed would not let me. I commenced it on that date but I had two more pages to finish. Now my hand is too weak even to write."

It soon became evident that he was going downhill. His face grew thinner, his movements slower, and the cough which had so often tormented him now returned with even greater violence, leaving him no peace day or night. "The smile in his eyes," remarked one close to him, "is often replaced by a look of resignation."

Secretly alarmed, the padres finally made a painful decision: he would have to discontinue classes. But even while resting in the infirmary he tried to keep up with his studies. Finally the infirmarian told him bluntly, "Throw those books in the fire! Then go out and get some fresh air!"

"I think," he wrote later, "that they will send me to Castellammare di Stabia, outside Naples. The sea air will do me a world of good. This climate of Frascati is too harsh for me. When I have completely recovered, they will send me back to Buenos Aires and then to Viedma. This means that very soon I shall be seeing you again." But what hurt him more than the loss of his strength, was the loss of companionship. "My recreations are not recreations any more." IT was a severe trial for one who had always been the center of attraction.

On a note of hope, however, he wrote to Buenos Aires, "In spite of everything, I have not lost too much study. We were already finishing the year's program in nearly all the subjects. So I can say the year was not completely lost." He admitted that he had little or no appetite and did not eat a single roll of bread a day. "But," he continued bravely, "now that I am about to experience a change of climate we shall see what comes of it." In one particular letter he seemed to imply that he was beginning to doubt his ability to overcome is old enemy. "It is enough, after all," he concluded, "for me to save my soul. For the rest, let the will of God be done!"

It was everybody's prayer that once winter had gone he would recuperate. But it was obvious that his recovery would be neither rapid nor easy. His cough instead of lessening grew worse. There were times when it kept him awake for the entire night.

Although he never allowed the slightest complaint to pass his lips it was obvious that he was suffering. He confessed to his friends in Viedma: "I am sending some news which can hardly be pleasing to you. While I was in Viedma you often repeated to me, `Better a live ass than a dead doctor!' You are perfectly right. At the moment, I am more dead than alive."

Yet even in this state, he still thought less of his own suffering than of the trouble and anxiety he was causing others, particularly his friend Cagliero. "The archbishop comes from Rome to help me, and arranges everything for my comfort. He feels all this very much, since he has already made such great sacrifices for me!"

It was a gloomy day for the school at Villa Sora when it March Zepherin left to enter the hospital on the Isola Tiberina in the southern section of Rome under the care of the Brothers of St. John of God. By this time they understood that they were losing a rather special person. Would it just be for a time? Perhaps the only one who believed that he would see the school again was Zepherin. His farewell was a brave little smile from two serene brown eyes which now shone with a strange glow. He did not ask for his books, only some holy cards to distribute among his friends, whenever he begged the help of their prayers.

Cagliero was not then in Rome but when he returned he rushed to the bedside of his young friend. So anxious was he to see that Zepherin received the best possible care, he even persuaded the personal physician of the Holy Father, Dr. Joseph Lapponi, to visit him frequently. There were many other visitors, besides, and among them one who was familiar with the reactions of the Indian to sickness. "Anyone who has the least idea," he wrote, "of the attitude of these particular Indians when confronted with even the thought of pain or death, cannot fail to admire the sublime resignation of this son of the pampas!"

Zepherin now wrote a letter which did much to raise hopes of the cacique for his son's recovery. Fearing that his father might not have received it, a few days later he sent another to the Mission. He wanted to make doubly sure that the cacique knew of his condition and -- something which he was aware would be of supreme importance to Manuel -- that the padres were planning his return to San Ignacio.