believe it is another matter. You must know
very well that a law was passed not long ago that every peon must wear
dark trousers if he wishes to enter a town.'

"'I have no dark trousers,' said I, 'and I have no money to buy them. I
have worn such white trousers as these since I was a boy, as have all
the men in this region.' 'That makes no difference to me,' he said; 'law
is law.' I was put in prison and made to work every day on a bridge that
the Government was building! I never saw my donkey or the chickens
again. My wife did not know where I was for two weeks.

"While I was working on the bridge five other men whom I knew were
seized and treated in the same way. It is my belief that there is no
such law. They wanted workmen for that bridge and that was the cheapest
way to get them!"

"Where are those other five men who were imprisoned, too? Have they no
spirit?" It was the Tall Man who spoke.

"They have spirit," the man answered, "but they also have large
families. They fear to leave them lest they starve. They are helpless."

"Say rather they are fools," said the Tall Man when the stranger sat
down. "Why had they not the spirit like you to take things in their own
hands--to revenge their wrongs? As for myself," he went on, "every one
knows my story.

"The blood of my Indian ancestors was too hot in my veins for such
slavery--by whatever name you call it. I broke away, and my name is now
a terror in the region that I call mine.

"It is no worse to take by violence than by fraud. My land was taken
from me by fraud. Very well, I take back what I can by violence. The
rich call us bandits, but there is already an army of one thousand men
waiting for you to join them, and we call ourselves Soldiers of the
Revolution. We have risen up to get for ourselves some portion of what
we have lost.

"Will you not join us? Our general is a peon like yourselves. He feels
our wrongs because he has suffered them, and he fights like a demon to
avenge them. Ride away to-night with me! You shall see something besides
driving other people's cattle--and being driven like cattle yourselves!"

The Tall Man stopped talking and waited for an answer. No one spoke. The
men gazed silently into the fire as if they were trying to think out
something that was very puzzling.

The Tall Man spoke again. "Sons of brave ancestors, do you know where
you are?" he said. "Do you know what this great pyramid is?" He pointed
directly up toward the