always less and
less money, sinking into poverty and insignificance, until some of them
were no better off than the men who had once been their _peones_.

Diego Delcasar and Felipe Delcasar, brothers, were two who owned houses in
the Old Town and farms nearby, who stayed in the country and held their
own for a time and after a fashion. Diego Delcasar was far the more able
of the two, and a true scion of his family. He caught onto the gringo
methods to a certain extent. He divided some farm land on the edge of town
into lots and sold them for a good price. With the money he bought a great
area of mountain land in the northern part of the state, where he raised
sheep and ruled with an iron hand, much as his forbears had ruled in the
valley. He also went into politics, learned to make a good stump speech
and got himself elected to the highly congenial position of sheriff. In
this place he made a great reputation for fearlessness and for the
ruthless and skilful use of a gun. He once kicked down the locked door of
a saloon and arrested ten armed gamblers, who had threatened to kill him.
He was known and feared all over the territory and was a tyrant in his own
section of it. When a gringo prospector ventured to dispute with him the
ownership of a certain mine, the gringo was found dead in the bottom of
the shaft. It was reported that he had fallen in and broken his neck and
no one dared to look at the bullet hole in his back.

Don Diego's wife died without leaving him any children, but he had
numerous children none-the-less. It was said that one could follow his
wanderings about the territory by the sporadic occurrence of the
unmistakable Delcasar nose among the younger inhabitants. All of his sons
and daughters by the left hand he treated with notable generosity. He was
a sort of hero to the native people--a great fighter, a great lover--and
songs about his adventures were composed and sung around the fires in
sheep camps and by gangs of trackworkers.

Don Diego, in a word, was a true Delcasar and a great man. Had he used his
opportunities wisely he might have been a millionaire. But at the age of
sixty he owned little besides his house and his wild mountain lands. He
drank a good deal and played poker almost every night. Once he had been a
famous winner, but in these later years he generally lost. He also formed
a partnership with a real estate broker named MacDougall, for the
development of his wild lands, and it was pr