ount, struggled down to the Campo on foot, and if he
had not thrown himself on the mercy of a ranchero would have perished a
long way from Sulaco. That man, who, as a matter of fact, recognized
him at once, let him have a fresh mule, which the fugitive, heavy and
unskilful, had ridden to death. And it was true he had been pursued by
a party commanded by no less a person than Pedro Montero, the brother of
the general. The cold wind of the Paramo luckily caught the pursuers on
the top of the pass. Some few men, and all the animals, perished in the
icy blast. The stragglers died, but the main body kept on. They
found poor Bonifacio lying half-dead at the foot of a snow slope, and
bayoneted him promptly in the true Civil War style. They would have had
Ribiera, too, if they had not, for some reason or other, turned off the
track of the old Camino Real, only to lose their way in the forests
at the foot of the lower slopes. And there they were at last, having
stumbled in unexpectedly upon the construction camp. The engineer at
the railhead told his chief by wire that he had Pedro Montero absolutely
there, in the very office, listening to the clicks. He was going to
take possession of Sulaco in the name of the Democracy. He was very
overbearing. His men slaughtered some of the Railway Company's cattle
without asking leave, and went to work broiling the meat on the embers.
Pedrito made many pointed inquiries as to the silver mine, and what
had become of the product of the last six months' working. He had said
peremptorily, 'Ask your chief up there by wire, he ought to know; tell
him that Don Pedro Montero, Chief of the Campo and Minister of the
Interior of the new Government, desires to be correctly informed.'

"He had his feet wrapped up in blood-stained rags, a lean, haggard face,
ragged beard and hair, and had walked in limping, with a crooked branch
of a tree for a staff. His followers were perhaps in a worse plight, but
apparently they had not thrown away their arms, and, at any rate, not
all their ammunition. Their lean faces filled the door and the windows
of the telegraph hut. As it was at the same time the bedroom of the
engineer-in-charge there, Montero had thrown himself on his clean
blankets and lay there shivering and dictating requisitions to be
transmitted by wire to Sulaco. He demanded a train of cars to be sent
down at once to transport his men up.

"'To this I answered from my end,' the engineer-in-chief relate