--not from one part of a country to another,
but from opposite sides of the globe; and, as if led by some invisible
hand, all would have to obey the terrible summons.

Fabian de Mediana and the Canadian sailor lay side by side--just as they
had done twenty years ago, at three thousand leagues distance from
Sonora. And yet they had no suspicion of ever having met before, though
a single chance word might at that moment have brought either to the
memory of the other.

It was just about this time that Don Estevan and his party rode off from
the hacienda.

The Canadian, according to the counsel of his comrade Pepe, slept with
one eye open. At short intervals he contrived to awake himself, and
raising his head slightly, cast around him a scrutinising glance. But
on each of these occasions, the light of the fire showed him Tiburcio
still tranquilly asleep; and this appearing to satisfy him, he would
again compose himself as before.

About an hour had passed, when the sound of heavy footsteps awakened him
once more, and listening a moment, he distinguished them as the
hoof-strokes of a horse.

A few moments after, Pepe made his appearance within the circle of the
blaze, leading a horse at the end of his lazo--a magnificent animal,
that snorted and started back at sight of the fire. Pepe, however, had
already given him more than one lesson, and his obedience was nearly
complete; so that, after a short conflict, the trapper succeeded in
bringing him nearer and attaching him to the trunk of a tree.

"Well," said Pepe, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an old
ragged handkerchief, "I've had a tough struggle with him; but he's worth
it, I fancy. What think you, Bois-Rose? Isn't he the most splendid
quadruped that ever galloped through these woods?"

In truth it was a beautiful creature, rendered more beautiful by the
terror which he was exhibiting at the moment, as he stood with his fine
limbs stretched, his head thrown high in the air, his mane tossed over
his wild savage eyes, and his nostrils spread and frothy. Strange
enough that fear, which renders vile and degraded the lord of the
creation, should have an opposite effect on most of the lower animals--
especially on the horse. This beautiful creature under its impulse only
appears more beautiful!

Little as Bois-Rose delighted in horse-flesh, he could not withhold his
approval of the capture which his comrade had made.

"He looks well enough," wa