Zorro (novel) blossoms into a romance, and Diego is forced to remain at home to recover after suffering a few broken ribs during the attack. Diego and Bernardo then undergo a test to prove their maturity and to find their spirit guide, a totemic animal which would guide the boys' future. Bernardo's spirit guide is a horse, in the form of Tornado, a motherless colt which Bernardo encounters and cares for. Diego's is a fox ("zorro" in his native Spanish) who saves his life. After the events in the forest, Alejandro, oblivious to the Indian training Diego has been receiving, receives a
Zorro while also pretending to be a coward and a fop. Zorro made his debut in the 1919 novel "The Curse of Capistrano", originally meant as a stand-alone story. However, the success of the 1920 film adaptation "The Mark of Zorro" starring Douglas Fairbanks convinced McCulley to write more Zorro stories for about four decades: the character was featured in a total of five serialized stories and 57 short stories, the last one appearing in print posthumously in 1959, the year after his death. "The Curse of Capistrano" eventually sold more than 50 million copies, becoming one of the most sold