Strawbridge stood staring at the little fellow, wondering if such a fantastic situation could really exist.
"Did you ever know of such a case?" he asked slowly.
"Sin embargo. A friend of mine had a ranch near the President's. It was a good ranch, with water so well placed that it stayed green each summer, much longer than the President's own. So suddenly, one day of a very dry summer, soldiers came to my friend's estancia and carried him away, and all his peons. It lay vacant a week or two. No one dared go on it. Then the President ran his fences around it and claimed it as waste land."
"That really happened?"
"Sí, señor."
"What became of the poor devil of a rancher and his peons?"
"Oh, the peons were put into the army and the man...." The clerk shrugged, and nodded his head in a certain direction. Strawbridge did not know to what he referred.
The American replaced the goods he had chosen for display, and stood in the wareroom rather stunned. A sort of horripilation ran over him as he pondered the clerk's story. Under such a government, all business was in jeopardy.
"Why, that's awful!" he said aloud. "That'll ruin business! If a fellow's investments are not protected, then—" he made a hopeless gesture—"then what in God's name do they hold sacred here?"
The clerk gave a Latin shrug of despondency.