"
"But what could they do to help themselves, Mrs. Hartsel?" asked
Felipe. "The law was against them. We can't any of us go against
that. I myself have lost half my estate in the same way."
"Well, at any rate they wouldn't have gone without fighting!" she
said. "'If Alessandro had been here!' they all said."
Felipe asked to see the violin. "But that is not Alessandro's," he
exclaimed. "I have seen his."
"No!" she said. "Did I say it was his? It was his father's. One of the
Indians brought it in here to hide it with us at the time they were
driven out. It is very old, they say, and worth a great deal of
money, if you could find the right man to buy it. But he has not
come along yet. He will, though. I am not a bit afraid but that we'll
get our money back on it. If Alessandro was alive, he'd have been
here long before this."
Finding Mrs. Hartsel thus friendly, Felipe suddenly decided to tell
her the whole story. Surprise and incredulity almost overpowered
her at first. She sat buried in thought for some minutes; then she
sprang to her feet, and cried: "If he's got that girl with him, he's
hiding somewhere.
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