also the full particulars of the route
he intended to take. Cuchillo was nevertheless ignorant of this
revelation. But the knowledge which the outlaw carefully concealed, was
that he himself after having reached the Golden Valley guided by
Arellanos, murdered his companion, in hope of having all the treasure to
himself. It was true enough that the Indians appeared afterwards, and
it was with difficulty that the assassin could save his own scalp. We
shall now leave him to tell his own story as to how he made the
acquaintance of young Arellanos, and it will be seen that this story is
a mere deception practised upon Don Estevan.

"Nevertheless," resumed Cuchillo in breaking the silence, "I was
determined to free my mind from all doubt upon the subject. On my
return to Arispe I repaired to the dwelling of the widow of Arellanos to
inform her of the death of poor Marcos. But with the exception of the
great grief which the news caused her, I observed nothing particular--
nothing that could give me the least suspicion that I am not the sole
possessor of the secret of the Golden Valley."

"One easily believes what he wishes to believe," remarked Arechiza.

"Hear me, Senor Don Estevan! There are two things on which I pride
myself. One is, that I have a conscience easily alarmed; the other,
that I am gifted with a perspicuity not easily deluded."

The Spaniard made no further objections. He was satisfied, not with the
outlaw's conscience, but his perspicuity.

With regard to Tiburcio Arellanos, we need hardly state what the reader
has no doubt already divined--that this young man was in reality no
other than Fabian, the last descendant of the Counts of Mediana.
Cuchillo has already related how the English brig brought him to
Guaymas. Left without a guide to enable him to discover his family--
disinherited of his rich patrimonial estates--an orphan knowing nothing
of his parents, here he was in a strange land, the possessor of nothing
more than a horse and a hut of bamboos.

CHAPTER TEN.

THE AFTERNOON RIDE.

When Cuchillo, after the interview just described, came forth from the
hovel, the sun was no longer in the vertex of the heavens, but had
commenced his downward course to the western horizon. The earth, burned
up and dry as tinder, gave forth a thin vapoury mist, that here and
there hung over the surface in condensed masses, giving that appearance
known as the _mirage_. Limpid lakes presented themsel