Indians as Alessandro
and his father. If there had been, it would have been better for their
people. "If they'd all been like Alessandro, I tell you," she said, "it
would have taken more than any San Diego sheriff to have put them out of
their homes here."

"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. There's nothing like an Indian to hide; and if he is hiding,
every other Indian knows it, and you just waste your breath asking any
questions of any of them. They will die before they will tell you one
thing. They are as secret as the grave. And they, every one of them,
worshipped Alessandro. You see they thought he would be over them, after
Pablo, and they were all proud of him because he could read and
write, and knew more than most of them. If I were in your place," she
continued, "I would not give it up yet. I should go to San Pasquale. Now
it might just be that she was along with him that night he stopped here,
hid somewhere, while he came in to get the money. I know I urged him to
stay all night, and he said he could not do it. I don't know, though,
where he could possibly have left her while he came here."

Never in all her life had Mrs. Hartsel been so puzzled and so astonished
as now. But her sympathy, and her confident belief that Alessandro might
yet be found, gave unspeakable cheer to Felipe.

"If I find them, I shall take them home with me, Mrs