ut the squatter
had "friends in court." The old Spanish don hadn't. He saw titles that
had held good from 1540 slipping from his neighbor's hands; and he
either contested the case to lose out before he had begun, or sold and
sold at a song to save the wreckage of his fortunes. Of all the Spanish
land grants originally partitioning off what is now New Mexico, I know
of only one held by the family of the original grantee; and it is now in
process of partition. It is an untold page of Southwestern history, this
"stampeding" of Spanish titles. Some day, when we are a little farther
away from it, the story will be told. It will not make pleasant reading,
nor afford a bill of health to some family fortunes of the Southwest.
Perjuries, assassinations, purchase in open markets of judges drawing
such small pittances that they were in the auction mart for highest bid,
forged documents, incendiary fires to destroy true titles--these were
the least and most decent of the crimes of this era. "Ramona" tells what
happened to Indian titles in California. Paint Helen Hunt Jackson's
colors red instead of gray; multiply the crimes by ten instead of two;
and you have a faint picture of the land-jockey period of New Mexican
history. Something of this sort is going on at Taos to-day among the
pueblos for their land, and down at Sacaton among the Pimas for water.
Treaty guaranteed the Indian his rights, but at Taos the squatter cut
the pueblo fences and carried the case to court. At Sacaton, the big
squatter, the irrigation company, took the Pimas' water; so that the
Indian can no longer raise crops. If you want to know what the courts do
in these cases, ask the pueblo governor at Taos; or the Pima chief at
Sacaton.

* * * * *

It is late September. A parrot calls out in Spanish from the center of
the patio where our rooms look out on an arcade running round the court
in a perfect square. A mocking-bird trills saucily from his cage amid
the cosmos bloom. Donkeys and burros amble past the rear gate with loads
of wood strapped to their backs. Your back window looks out on the
courtyard. Your front window faces the street across from a plaza, or
city square. Stalwart, thick-set, muscular figures, hair banded back by
red and white scarfs, trousers of a loose, white pantaloon sort, tunic a
gray or white blanket, wrapped Arab fashion from shoulders to waist,
stalk with quick, nervous tread along the plaza; for it is