reon, I think, from
a high tower house he had built to overlook the valley so that Indians
could be seen if they attempted an attack. Well, he takes a notion that
he'd better get legal title to the land he was using, though in those
days he might have had half of New Mexico for his cattle and sheep as a
range. So he asks Facundo Megares, governor of the royal province, for a
grant of land. The governor, anxious to please him, orders the
constitutional alcalde, a person named Jose Garcia de la Mora, to
execute the act of possession to Valdes of a tract described as follows,
to wit----"

"I've heard the description," cut in the young man. "Well, did the Don
take possession?"

"We claim that he never did. He visited there, and his shepherds
undoubtedly ran sheep on the range covered by the grant. But Valdes and
his family never actually resided on the estate. Other points that
militate against the claim of his descendants may be noted. First, that
minor grants of land, taken from within the original Valdes grant, were
made by the governor without any protest on the part of the Don. Second,
that Don Bartolome himself, subsequently Governor and Captain-General of
the province of New Mexico, did, in his official capacity as President
of the Council, endorse at least two other small grants of land cut out
from the heart of the Valdes estate. This goes to show that he did not
himself consider that he owned the land, or perhaps he felt that he had
forfeited his claim."

"Or maybe it just showed that the old gentleman was no hog," suggested
Gordon.

"I guess the law will construe it as a waiver of his claim. It doesn't
make any allowances for altruism."

"I've noticed that," Gordon admitted dryly.

"A new crowd of politicians got in after Mexico became independent of
Spain. The plums had to be handed out to the friends of the party in
power. So Manuel Armijo, the last Mexican Governor of the province,
being a favorite of the President of that country because he had
defeated some Texas Rangers in a battle, and on that account endowed
with extraordinary powers, carved a fat half million acres out of the
Valdes grant and made a present of it to Jose Moreno for 'services to
the government of Mexico.' That's where you come in as heir to your
grandfather, who purchased for a song the claim of Moreno's son."

"My right has been lying dormant twenty-five years. Won't that affect
its legality?"

"No. If we knock out the Valdes'