Hartsel," he
said as he rode away; "and we will come by this road and stop to
see you." And the very speaking of the words cheered him all the
way to San Pasquale,
But before he had been in San Pasquale an hour, he was plunged
into a perplexity and disappointment deeper than he had yet felt.
He found the village in disorder, the fields neglected, many houses
deserted, the remainder of the people preparing to move away. In
the house of Ysidro, Alessandro's kinsman, was living a white
family,-- the family of a man who had pre-empted the greater part
of the land on which the village stood. Ysidro, profiting by
Alessandro's example, when he found that there was no help, that
the American had his papers from the land-office, in all due form,
certifying that the land was his, had given the man his option of
paying for the house or having it burned down. The man had
bought the house; and it was only the week before Felipe arrived,
that Ysidro had set off, with all his goods and chattels, for Mesa
Grande. He might possibly have told the Senor more, the people
said, than any one now in the village could; but even Ysidro did
not know where Alessandro intended to settle.
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