n the nature of Pizarro. He never exhibited vanity or pride. He
was of the same broad, modest, noble gauge as gallant Crook, the
greatest and best of our Indian conquerors, who was never so content as
when he could move about among his troops without a mark in dress or
manner to show that he was a major-general of the United States army
rather than some poor scout or hunter. No; it was the man in him that
took Pizarro back to Truxillo,--or perhaps a touch of the boy that is
always left in such great hearts. Of course the people were glad to
honor the hero of such a fairy tale as his sober story makes; but I am
sure that the brilliant general was glad to escape sometimes from the
visitors, and get out among the hillsides where he had driven his pigs
so many years before, and see the same old trees and brooklets, and
even, no doubt, the same ragged, ignorant boy still herding the noisy
porkers. He might well have pinched himself to see if he were really
awake; whether that were not the real Francisco Pizarro over yonder,
still in his rags tending the same old swine, and this gray, famous,
travelled, honored knight only a dream like the years between them. And
he was the very man who, finding himself awake, would have gone over to
the ragged herder and sat down beside him upon the sward with a gentle
_Como lo va, amigo?_--"How goes it, friend?" And when the wondering and
frightened lad stammered or tried to run away from the first great
personage that had ever spoken to him, Pizarro would talk so kindly and
of such wonderful things that the poor herder would look upon him with
that hero-worship which is one of the purest and most helpful impulses
in all our nature, and wonder if he too might not sometime be somewhat
like this splendid, quiet man who said, "Yes, my boy, I used to herd
pigs right here." The more I think of it, from what we know of Pizarro,
the surer I am that he really did look up the old pastures and the swine
and their ignorant keepers, and talked with them simply and gently, and
left in them the resolve to try for better things.

[Illustration: Autograph of Hernando Pizarro.]

[Illustration: Autograph of Juan Pizarro.]

But the interest which everywhere centred upon Pizarro did not bring in
recruits to his banner as fast as could be desired. Most people would
much rather admire the hero than become heroes at the cost of similar
suffering. Among those who joined him were his brothers, Hernando,
Gonzalo,