"No!" I exclaimed, surprised by the apparently unconnected question; but Dick replied, "Yes, I have. Mexican bandits, or something of the sort, weren't they?"
"Yes," said our friend. "They were a pair of Mexicans who, in the year '65, terrorized certain parts of Colorado by committing many murders of white people. This man, Galvez, who then lived in Taos, hated the Americans with a very thorough and absorbing hatred, and the exploits of the Espinosas being just suited to his taste, he decided to join them. But he was a little too late; the two brigands were killed, and he himself, with a bullet through his shoulder, would assuredly have been captured had he not had the good fortune to fall in with Pedro Sanchez.
"Pedro had been a soldier, too, and coming thus upon a comrade in distress he packed him on his burro, and by trails known only to himself brought him down to Hermanos, entering the village secretly by night.
"The occupant of the Casa at that time was another Pedro Sanchez, a forty-second cousin or thereabouts of our Pedro. He was a very old man, the last of his immediate family, a good, honest, simple-minded old fellow, who for thirty years or more had been factor for us. With him Pedro sought asylum for his comrade—a favor the old man readily granted to his namesake and relative.
"It was pretty sure that there would be a hue and cry after Galvez, so, to avoid suspicion as much as possible, they arranged to give out that it was Pedro who lay sick at the Casa, while Pedro himself went off again that same night up into the mountain to hide till Galvez thought it safe to move. He had done everything he could think of for his friend, and how do you suppose his friend requited him? It will show you the sort of man this Galvez is.
"For six weeks the latter lay hidden, when in some roundabout way he got word that his description was placarded on the walls of Taos and a reward offered for his capture. This cut him off from returning home and he was in a quandary what to do, when one day his host, who, as I said, was a very old man, had a fall from his horse and two days later died.
"Then did Galvez resolve upon a bold stroke. He came out of his hiding-place, and without offering reasons or explanations calmly announced that he had become proprietor of the Hermanos Grant, and that in future the villagers were to look to him for orders! The very impudence of the move carried the day. The ignorant peons, accustomed for generations to obey, accepted the situation without question; and thus did Galvez install himself as padron of Hermanos, and padron he has remained for twelve years, there being nobody within five thousand miles to enter protest or dispute his title."
"Well!" exclaimed Dick. "That was about the most bare-faced piece of rascality I ever did hear of. And your father, of course, over there in Cadiz or London or wherever you were then, was helpless to find out what was going on in this remote corner."
"That's it exactly; and at that time, too, this corner was far more remote even than it is now—there were no railroads anywhere near then, you see."
"That's true. Well, go on. What about his treatment of Pedro?"