"The little that you earn goes straight back into the pockets of your
masters! Do you not see it? Do you not see if they own the land and the
supplies they own you too? They _call_ you free men--but are you free?
What are you free to do? Free to starve if you will not work on their
terms, or if you will not strike a blow for freedom. Are not my words
true? Speak up and answer me! Are you satisfied? Are you free?"

III

The Tall Man stopped and waited for an answer. The fire flickered over
the dark faces of angry men, and Pedro stirred uneasily as if he would
like to say something.

"Speak out, Pedro. Tell us your story," said the Tall Man.

Pedro stood up and shook his fist at the fire. "Every word you speak is
true," he said. "Who should know better than I? I had a small farm some
miles from here, left me by my father. It was my own, and I tilled my
land and was content. My father could not read, neither could I. No one
told me of the laws.

"At last one day a rural[20] rode to my house, and said, 'Pedro, why
have you not obeyed the law? The law says that if you did not have your
property recorded before a magistrate by the first of last month it
should be taken from you and given to the State.'

[Illustration]

"'But I have never heard of such a law,' I said to him. He answered,
'Ignorance excuses no man. Your farm belongs to the state.' And I and my
family were turned out of the house in which I and my father before me
had been born. All our neighbors were treated in the same way. In
despair we went away to the hacienda of Senor Fernandez, and there we
work for a pittance as you say. And our homes! That whole region was
turned over by the President, not long after, to a rich friend of his,
who now owns it as a great estate!

"Many of my old neighbors are now his peons--working for him on land
that was once their own and that was taken from them by a trick--by a
trick, I say,"--his voice grew thick, and he sat down heavily in his
place.

Another man, a stranger to Tonio, sprang to his feet. "Ah, if that were
all!" he said; "but even in peonage we are not left undisturbed! It was
only a year ago that I was riding into town on my donkey with some
chickens to sell, when an officer stopped me and brought me before the
Jefe Politico.[21]

"'Why have you not obeyed the law?' said the magistrate. 'I know of no
law that I have not obeyed,' I said. 'You may tell me that,' said the
scoundrel, 'but to make me