[Illustration: Cover] When the Owl Cries by PAUL BARTLETT New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1960 © PAUL BARTLETT 1960 First Printing The Macmillan Company, New York Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Galt, Ontario Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress catalog card number: 60-9265 Project Gutenberg edition 2012 _When the Owl Cries_ was originally published by Macmillan in 1960. This work has been out-of-print for many years, with reprint rights that reverted to the author and are now held by his Estate. The author’s literary executor, rather than seek to publish a new commercial edition of the book, decided to make the novel available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder’s written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/legalcode [Illustration: CreativeCommonsLogo] _Para mi esposa, aficionada de México, con todo mi cariño_ When the owl cries, an Indian dies. _Cuando el tecolote llora, se muere el Indio._ --Old Mexican saying Author's Note This novel commemorates the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. I have written the book because I am fond of Mexico, where I have lived for many years. My story of an hacienda family, though not historical, represents the end of hacienda life, the passing of the landed aristocracy and the beginning of a democratic way. Only through volcanic eruption and earthquake could I symbolize the great social changes that began to take place about 1910. [Illustration: small cover] _When the Owl Cries _ by Paul Alexander Bartlett INTRODUCTION by Steven James Bartlett The book's title, _When the Owl Cries_, comes from the ancient Mexican-Indian superstition, "_Cuando el tecolote llora, se muere el indio_"--"When the owl cries, an Indian dies." ABOUT THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR