He would not stir a step for
anybody but me; so I led him all the way; and then after he got
there he was so ill I never left him a minute. He did not know me
any more, nor know anything that had happened. I built a little hut
of tule, and he lay on the ground till he died. When I put him in his
grave, I was glad."
"In Temecula?" asked Ramona.
"In Temecula." exclaimed Alessandro, fiercely. "You don't seem to
understand, Senorita. We have no right in Temecula, not even to
our graveyard full of the dead. Mr. Rothsaker warned us all not to
be hanging about there; for he said the men who were coming in
were a rough set, and they would shoot any Indian at sight, if they
saw him trespassing on their property."
"Their property!" ejaculated Ramona.
"Yes; it is theirs," said Alessandro, doggedly. "That is the law.
They've got all the papers to show it. That is what my father
always said,-- if the Senor Valdez had only given him a paper! But
they never did in those days. Nobody had papers. The American
law is different."
"It's a law of thieves!" cried Ramona.
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