all for honour and
tradition and sentiment; but by circumstance they were barbarian lords,
and their lives were full of lust and blood.

Circumstance somewhat modified the vaunted purity of their Spanish blood,
too. The Indian slave girls who lived in their houses bore the children of
their sons, and some of these half-bred and quarter-bred children were
eventually accepted by the _gente de razon_, as the aristocrats called
themselves. In this way a strain of Navajo blood got into the Delcasar
family, and doubtless did much good, as all of the Spanish stock was
weakened by much marrying of cousins.

Dona Ameliana Delcasar, a sister of Don Solomon, was responsible for
another alien infusion which ultimately percolated all through the family,
and has been thought by some to be responsible for the unusual mental
ability of certain Delcasars. Dona Ameliana, a beautiful but somewhat
unruly girl, went into a convent in Durango, Mexico, at the age of
fifteen. At the age of eighteen she eloped with a French priest named
Raubien, who was a man of unusual intellect and a poet. The errant couple
came to New Mexico and took up lands. They were excommunicated, of course,
and both of them were buried in unconsecrated ground; but despite their
spiritual handicaps they raised a family of eleven comely daughters, all
of whom married well, several of them into the Delcasar family. Thus some
of the Delcasars who boasted of their pure Castilian blood were really of
a mongrel breed, comprising along with the many strains that have mingled
in Spain, those of Navajo and French.

Don Solomon Delcasar played a brilliant part in the military activities
which marked the winning of Mexican Independence from Spain in the
eighteen-twenties, and also in the incessant Indian wars. He was a fighter
by necessity, but also by choice. They shed blood with grace and
nonchalance in those days, and the Delcasars were always known as
dangerous men.

The most curious thing about this ri?1/2gime of the old-time Dons was the
way in which it persisted. It received its first serious blow in 1845 when
the military forces of the United States took possession of New Mexico.
Don Jesus Christo Delcasar, who was then the richest and most powerful of
the family, was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy which brought
about the Taos massacre--the last organized resistance made to the gringo
domination. At this time some of the Delcasars went to Old Mexico to li