ralyze him when
he gets his orders t' quit, signed 'Seth Young, President,' an' finds
out it's th' same old Seth Young who used t' run Thirty-two on th' Fall
River division?"

"Hadn't you better let him down easy by telegraphing him right now to
begin to look out for a new place?" Rayburn asked. "We'll wait for you
here, while you step over to the Western Union office"--which cool
comment upon Young's enthusiastic discounting of a bright future brought
the gloomy present so clearly before his mind that his castle-building
ended suddenly, and he lapsed into silence.

But great though our wonder was at the prodigious quantity of precious
metal that this mine yielded in each year, and amazed though we were by
thought of the vast store of treasure that the valley now must hold, I,
for my part, felt a far deeper interest in what Tizoc went on to tell
us concerning the men by whose toil the treasure had been accumulated.
And, truly, so bitter and so dreary was the life of the Tlahuicos who
were forced to labor here unceasingly, and through so long a period had
they been thus cruelly dealt with, that it seemed to me there must rest
upon all the Valley of Aztlan a heavy curse that only some signal act of
expiation could remove. And the coincidence struck me as most curious
that here among the Aztecs, wrought by themselves upon the men of their
own race, should be found identically the same cruelties which the
Spaniards practised upon the Indians whom they enslaved as miners in New
Mexico: whereof came that fierce outburst of revolt two hundred years
ago, when the Pueblos ravaged with sword and flame the whole valley of
the Rio Grande from Taos to the Pass of the North.

There was small ground for wonder that the Tlahuicos, thus crushed by
over-heavy labor, and dealt with as though they were not men, but fierce
and dangerous brutes, should cherish at all times in their breasts a
sullen fire of mutiny; nor that on every occasion at all favorable to
their purposes there should spring forth from the glowing embers of
their hatred a vivid and consuming flame. Only by the strength and the
vigilance of the guard that constantly was maintained over them was
their tendency to rebellion held in check; and even the guards could not
prevent frequent outbreaks--which ended only in the cruel slaughter of
all concerned in them--so passionately eager was the longing of these
desperate creatures for revenge.

Only once, a vastly long while