“It was on the way back from the island, with the animals crowded into the barge we towed behind our launch, that I first learned of it. I was sitting next to the photographer of our weekly newspaper, and I mentioned that I had been surprised to find so many horses on Azul Island. He mentioned, very casually, that these horses were believed to be descended from the ones that the Spanish Conquistadores rode centuries ago! I tried to learn more, but that was all he knew. His editor had told him, he said. It was just an assignment to him. He wasn’t really interested. It shocked me, actually, because I’ve always been so very much interested in Spanish colonial history that I suppose I assumed everyone else would be. To think that here was a breed of horse the Conquistadores rode, and which had survived all these hundreds of years, and no one—not even Tom, who knew of my interest—had thought it important enough to tell me!

“I went to Tom immediately and asked him about it,” Pitch continued gravely. “I asked him if what I’d learned from the photographer was actually true. He laughed. I remember his laughing very well. Of course, it was obvious to him that I was tremendously interested and excited. Tom told me to sit down and relax because, he said, there wasn’t a bit of truth to the story. He’d heard it mentioned every so often for the past fifteen years, but believed none of it. It made a good human-interest story for newspaper readers, he said, and I remember he also intimated that the editor of the local paper, an old friend of his, was capable of making up such a story for the benefit of his readers.”

“Then it’s not true,” Steve interrupted, obviously disappointed, “none of it. But Pitch, how did the horses get there, then? And why does the government of Antago leave them on Azul Island when they could have much better pasture land here?”

“That’s what I wondered, too, Steve,” Pitch returned, “and that’s exactly what I asked Tom. His first answer was, ‘How do animals get anywhere? They were taken there, of course!’ To me, his answers were most confusing. I didn’t know what he was driving at until I asked him why the government of Antago allowed him, as agent in charge, to wrangle the horses only once every five years. And why did they limit the number of horses to be removed? Why did they insist that enough horses be left on Azul Island to maintain the progeny of this breed? Why, indeed! if the story wasn’t true?

“He just laughed at me for a long time. Then he said in his most cynical way, which can be so very aggravating, that he believed it wasn’t so much the Antago government which was interested in these horses as it was the Antago chamber of commerce! And then he repeated that it made a good story, a story that could be placed in many foreign newspapers to publicize Antago, which was what the chamber of commerce wanted! He even intimated that he wouldn’t be surprised to learn some day that the horses had been taken to Azul Island from Antago for the express purpose of creating such a story!

“But I didn’t believe a word Tom told me,” Pitch went on. “By that time I was very much interested in the subject and was determined to see it through. I decided to learn all I could about the colonial history of Antago, and anything at all that was available on Azul Island. I wasn’t able to learn much here, because the people seem so little interested in the past. It’s only the present and future that hold their attention. They talk all the time about how much more they should get for their sugar and rum, and why Antago should be provided with an air service instead of having to rely upon the few boats that stop here. Problems like these are all they care about.

“So I got hold of some books from the States and learned that at one time Antago was used as a supply base by the Spaniards!” Pitch’s eyes were bright as he went on excitedly, “From here, Steve, those infamous Conquistadores, men like Cortés, Pizarro and Balboa, may have selected their armies, their horses, guns and provisions, and set forth to plunder the Incas and the Aztecs of their gold!”

Pitch paused a moment, then continued in a calmer voice, “I also learned that in the year 1669, British and French pirates succeeded in sacking Antago and driving the Spaniards from the island.”

“And Azul Island?” Steve asked. “Did you learn anything about it?”

“No,” Pitch replied. “Nothing … absolutely nothing about its history. The report mentioned only that it was an uninhabited island twenty miles north of Antago.”

“Then in spite of what Tom said, you think that the horses now there could be descended from the horses of the Conquistadores?” Steve asked with keen interest.

“I do, Steve. I most certainly do,” Pitch said slowly.