My wife and I had become more attached to our horses, having had them longer and done more on them, and the idea of parting with them made us very sad. Only on the very last night did I part with Billy, and Buck went a day or so before. We found good homes for both of them, and I believe the happy life they had with us continues still, as friends bestride them.
Just before Christmas then we parted from Santa Fe, Ewart some days ahead of us for New Orleans and we for Mexico City. We expected to meet in the spring or summer in the States once more, and little imagined as we said good-by that we should be reunited at the end of the year and then separated, as it were, forever.
BOOK VI
MEXICO
CHAPTER XXII THE GOLD
Mexico is a country marked for conquest. It is no doubt the most romantic country of the New World but its history has been the most sordid. It is gilded with tales of fortune and wonder. Even its sunsets must seem of a more marvelous coloring than those of other shores. It has been, and is, a land of riches. And it has for that reason attracted the violence of mankind. Even before the Spaniards came Mexico lived in a state of war. Empire had succeeded Empire. The crushing of the Aztecs by Cortes was not a surprise to the Indians; they fully expected some new race to come out of the horizon and destroy them as they themselves had destroyed others. The difference between warfare with the Spaniard and warfare before the Spaniard came was that the former was more racial and less covetous. Certainly there never had been a people with such a craving for gold as the bearded men of Cortes. Their passion for it was cited by Aztecs as a reason for disbelieving in their supposed divine origin. They could do without women but they could not go without gold. Though they seemed able to command the lightning were they not slaves of the yellow metal?