that empties into the Pacific Ocean near the
eastern boundary of Oaxaca. So his title was Marquis del Valle, and his
descendants hold a great deal of that land to this day. I am one of
them,--one of the Marquisanas, as they call us. I am a direct descendant
of Hernando Cortes, and that isn't all. One of my ancestors married an
Aztec princess, and so I am also descended from the Montezumas, who were
emperors of Mexico before the Spaniards came. I'm an Indian on one side,
and I've more than one good reason for hating a Spaniard and a tyrant."

Ned Crawford had read the story of the conquest of Mexico, like a great
many other American boys. That is, he had read it as if it had been a
tip-top novel rather than a reality. He had admired Hernando Cortes, as
a hero of fiction, but here he was, now, actually talking with one of
the hero's great-great-grandchildren, who was also, after a fashion,
one of the Montezumas. It was like a short chapter out of some other
novel, with the night race of the _Goshhawk_ thrown in by way of
variation. He was thinking about it, however, rather than asking
questions, and the senor went on:

"It's a rich, beautiful country, all that eastern part of Oaxaca. There
are splendid mountains and great forests of mahogany, rosewood, and
pine. Through it runs the Coatzacoalcos River, northerly, to the gulf.
Along the rivers and through the mountain passes, there is an old road
that Cortes himself made to lead his little army across to the Pacific."

"I'd like to go over on it!" exclaimed Ned. "I guess I will, some day. I
want to know all about Mexico."

He made up his mind, from what his companion went on to tell him, that
there would be a great deal worth seeing, but at that time nobody was
dreaming how many Americans, older and younger, were soon to travel over
the old Cortes road. California was to be annexed, as well as Texas, and
before Ned Crawford would be old enough to cast his first vote, there
was to be a great tide of eager gold hunters pouring along what was
called the Tehuantepec route to the placers and diggings.

The days of California gold mining had not yet come, and while Ned and
the senor talked on about the terrible history of Mexico, with its
factions, its bloody revenges, its pronunciamentos, and its fruitless
revolutions, the _Goshhawk_ sailed swiftly along toward Vera Cruz and the
powder-needing garrison of the castle of San Juan de Ulua.

Whether or not the war had actuall