for her in the as yet bare
frame-house till she had seen the first spongy lump of silver yielded to
the hazards of the world by the dark depths of the Gould Concession;
she had laid her unmercenary hands, with an eagerness that made them
tremble, upon the first silver ingot turned out still warm from the
mould; and by her imaginative estimate of its power she endowed that
lump of metal with a justificative conception, as though it were not
a mere fact, but something far-reaching and impalpable, like the true
expression of an emotion or the emergence of a principle.

Don Pepe, extremely interested, too, looked over her shoulder with a
smile that, making longitudinal folds on his face, caused it to resemble
a leathern mask with a benignantly diabolic expression.

"Would not the muchachos of Hernandez like to get hold of this
insignificant object, that looks, por Dios, very much like a piece of
tin?" he remarked, jocularly.

Hernandez, the robber, had been an inoffensive, small ranchero,
kidnapped with circumstances of peculiar atrocity from his home during
one of the civil wars, and forced to serve in the army. There his
conduct as soldier was exemplary, till, watching his chance, he killed
his colonel, and managed to get clear away. With a band of deserters,
who chose him for their chief, he had taken refuge beyond the wild and
waterless Bolson de Tonoro. The haciendas paid him blackmail in cattle
and horses; extraordinary stories were told of his powers and of his
wonderful escapes from capture. He used to ride, single-handed, into the
villages and the little towns on the Campo, driving a pack mule before
him, with two revolvers in his belt, go straight to the shop or store,
select what he wanted, and ride away unopposed because of the terror his
exploits and his audacity inspired. Poor country people he usually left
alone; the upper class were often stopped on the roads and robbed; but
any unlucky official that fell into his hands was sure to get a severe
flogging. The army officers did not like his name to be mentioned in
their presence. His followers, mounted on stolen horses, laughed at the
pursuit of the regular cavalry sent to hunt them down, and whom they
took pleasure to ambush most scientifically in the broken ground of
their own fastness. Expeditions had been fitted out; a price had been
put upon his head; even attempts had been made, treacherously of course,
to open negotiations with him, without in the sl