e not a hundred white men in the whole of Arriba
County, and no railroad touched it.

In this region a few Mexicans who were shrewder or stronger than the
others, who owned stores or land, dominated the rest of the people much as
the _patrones_ had dominated them in the days before the Mexican War. Here
still flourished the hatred for the gringo which culminated in that war.
Here that strange sect, the _penitentes hermanos_, half savage and half
mediaeval, still was strong and still recruited its strength every year
with young men, who elsewhere were refusing to undergo its brutal
tortures.

For all of these reasons, this was an advantageous field for the fight
Ramon proposed to make. In the valley MacDougall's money and influence
would surely have beaten him. But here he could play upon the ancient
hatred for the gringo; here he could use to the best advantage the
prestige of his family; here, above all, if he could win over the
_penitentes_, he could do almost anything he pleased.

His plan of joining that ancient order to gain influence was not an
original one. Mexican politicians and perhaps one or two gringos had done
it, and the fact was a matter of common gossip. Some of these _penitentes_
for a purpose had been men of great influence, and their initiations had
been tempered to suit their sensitive skins. Others had been Mexicans of
the poorer sort, capable of sharing the half-fanatic, half sadistic spirit
of the thing.

Ramon came to the order as a young and almost unknown man seeking its aid.
He could not hope for much mercy. And though he was primitive in many
ways, there was nothing in him that responded to the spirit of this
ordeal. The thought of Christ crucified did not inspire him to endure
suffering. But the thought of a girl with yellow hair did.

CHAPTER XXII

Ramon went first to the ranch at the foot of the mountains which his uncle
had used as a headquarters, and which had belonged to the family for about
half a century. It consisted merely of an _adobe_ ranch house and barn and
a log corral for rounding up horses.

Here Ramon left his machine. Here also he exchanged his business suit for
corduroys, a wide hat and high-heeled riding boots. He greatly fancied
himself in this costume and he embellished it with a silk bandana of
bright scarlet and with a large pair of silver spurs which had belonged to
his uncle, and which he found in the saddle room of th