Up in San Francisco there was a tendency to make light of those rights.
It was commonly accepted that the old land grants were outrageous, and
that the dons who prated of their rights were but land pirates who would
be justly compelled by the government to disgorge their holdings. Bill
had been in the habit of calling all Spaniards "greasers," just as the
average Spaniard spoke of all Americans as "gringos," or heathenish
foreigners.
But on the porch of Don Andres, his saddle-galled person reclining at
ease in a great armchair behind the passion vines, with the fragile stem
of a wine-glass twirling between his white, sensitive, gambler-fingers
while he listened to the don's courtly utterances as translated
faithfully by Dade (Jack being absent on some philandering mission of
his own), big Bill Wilson opened his eyes to the other side of the
question and frankly owned himself puzzled to choose.
"Seems like the men that came here when there wasn't anything but Injuns
and animals, and built up the country outa raw material, ought to have
some say now about who's going to reap the harvest," he admitted to
Dade. "Don't look so much like gobbling, when you get right down to
cases, does it? But at the same time, all these men that leave the east
and come out here to make homes--seems like they've got a right to
settle down and plow up a garden patch if they want to. They're going to
do it, anyway.
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