d never condemns His
creatures to constant sorrow. The brave fellows, the honest Scot and the
Gauchos, that we had laid side by side in one grave in the little
burying-place at the frontier fort, were gone beyond recall. No amount of
sorrowing could bring them back. We but hoped they were happier now than
even we were, and so we spoke of them no more; and in a week's time
everything about our caravan and camp resumed its wonted appearance, and
we no longer feared the Indians.

One Gaucho, however, had escaped, and there was still the probability he
might seek for revenge some other day.

We have left the bleak pampas land, although now and then we come to bare
prairie land but scantily furnished with even bushes, and destitute of
grass; houses and _estancias_ become more frequent, and _fondas_ too, but
nothing like that fearful _fonda_ in the prairie--the scene of the
massacre.

We have passed through San Lui--too wretched a place to say much about;
and even La Paz and Santa Rosa; and on taking her usual seat one forenoon
in front of the caravan, old Jenny's eyes grew bright and sparkling with
very delight.

'Saw anybody ever the like o' that?' she cried, as she raised both her
hands and eyes cloudwards. But it was not the clouds old Jenny was
marvelling at--for here we were in the Province of Mendoza, and a
measurable distance from the beautiful city itself; and instead of the
barren lands we had recently emerged from, beheld a scene of such natural
loveliness and fertility, that we seemed to have suddenly dropped into a
new world.

The sky was blue and almost cloudless; winter though it was, the fields
were clad in emerald green; the trees, the vineyards, the verandahed
houses, the comfortable dwellings, the cattle, the sheep, and flocks of
poultry--all testified to the fact that in summer this must indeed be a
paradise.

'What do you think of all this, mither?' said Moncrieff, with a happy
smile. He was riding close to the caravan _coupe_.

'Think o' it, laddie! Loshie me, laddie! it beats the braes o' Foudlan'!
It is surely the garden o' Eden we're coming to at last.'

It was shortly after this that Moncrieff went galloping on ahead. We could
see him miles and miles away, for the road was as straight as one of the
avenues in some English lord's domains. Suddenly he disappeared. Had the
earth swallowed him up? Not quite. He had merely struck into a side path,
and here we too turned with our whole cavalcade;