“‘But I have never heard of such a law,’ I said to him. He answered, ‘Ignorance excuses no man. Your farm belongs to the state.’ And I and my family were turned [p 143] out of the house in which I and my father before me had been born. All our neighbors were treated in the same way. In despair we went away to the hacienda of Señor Fernandez, and there we work for a pittance as you say. And our homes! That whole region was turned over by the President, not long after, to a rich friend of his, who now owns it as a great estate!
“Many of my old neighbors are now his peons—working for him on land that was once their own and that was taken from them by a trick—by a trick, I say,”—his voice grew thick, and he sat down heavily in his place.
Another man, a stranger to Tonio, sprang to his feet. “Ah, if that were all!” he said; “but even in peonage we are not left undisturbed! It was only a year ago that I was riding into town on my donkey with some chickens to sell, when an officer stopped me and brought me before the Jefe Politico.[21]
[p 144]
“‘Why have you not obeyed the law?’ said the magistrate. ‘I know of no law that I have not obeyed,’ I said. ‘You may tell me that,’ said the scoundrel, ‘but to make me believe it is another matter. You must know very well that a law was passed not long ago that every peon must wear dark trousers if he wishes to enter a town.’
“‘I have no dark trousers,’ said I, ‘and I have no money to buy them. I have worn such white trousers as these since I was a boy, as have all the men in this region.’ ‘That makes no difference to me,’ he said; ‘law is law.’ I was put in prison and made to work every day on a bridge that the Government was building! I never saw my donkey or the chickens again. My wife did not know where I was for two weeks.
“While I was working on the bridge five other men whom I knew were seized and treated in the same way. It is my belief that there is no such law. They wanted workmen for that bridge and that was the cheapest way to get them!”
[p 145]
“Where are those other five men who were imprisoned, too? Have they no spirit?” It was the Tall Man who spoke.
“They have spirit,” the man answered, “but they also have large families. They fear to leave them lest they starve. They are helpless.”
“Say rather they are fools,” said the Tall Man when the stranger sat down. “Why had they not the spirit like you to take things in their own hands—to revenge their wrongs? As for myself,” he went on, “every one knows my story.
“The blood of my Indian ancestors was too hot in my veins for such slavery—by whatever name you call it. I broke away, and my name is now a terror in the region that I call mine.