Zorro (novel) with Isabella and her chaperone, to find his father in prison and his lands confiscated by his arch-enemy Moncada. It is time for Zorro to ride again. Diego proposes to Bernardo that there should be two masked men, to get more done and to confuse the enemy, creating a fox mystique. Diego frees his father from prison, an older and frailer Don De La Vega, and gives him into the care of White Owl and his wife Regina at the Indian village to convalesce. Diego is captured and arrested, and freed by not one but two Zorro figures. Zorro confronts
Zorro Zorro's identity. In McCulley's later stories, Diego's surname became de la Vega. In fact, the writer was wildly inconsistent. The first magazine serial ended with the villain dead and Diego publicly exposed as Zorro. But in the sequel, the villain was alive and the next entry had the double identity still secret. Several Zorro productions have expanded on the character's exploits. Many of the continuations feature a younger character taking up the mantle of Zorro. McCulley's stories are set during the during the era of Spanish California (1769–1821) and, although exact years are often vague, the presence of the Pueblo