brotherhood between these men of very different birth. For as men are
equal in the sight of God, so are those dimly like each other who live in
the open air and cast their lives upon the broad bosom of Nature.

Marcos handed his rod to the messenger, whose face, wrinkled like a
walnut by the sun of Aragon, lighted up suddenly with pleasure.

"There," he said, pointing to a swirling pool beneath some alders. "There
is a big one there, I have risen him once."

He waded slowly back to the bank where a second crop of hay was already
showing its new green, and sat down.

It seemed that Marcos de Sarrion was behind the times--these new and
wordy times into which Spain has floundered so disastrously since Charles
III was king--for he gave a deeper attention to the matter in hand than
most have time for. He turned from the hard task of catching a trout in
clear water beneath a sunny sky, and gave his attention to his father's
letter.

"After all," it read, "I want you, and await you in Saragossa."

And that was all. "Marcos will come," the Count had reflected, "without
persuasion. And explanations are dangerous."

In which he was right. For this river, known as the Wolf, in which Marcos
was peacefully fishing, was one of those Northern tributaries of the Ebro
which have run with blood any time this hundred years. The country,
moreover, that it drained was marked in the Government maps as a blank
country, or one that paid no taxes, and knew not the uniform of the