the little post-hut of Ojos del Agua, in the State of Cordova, Quiroga,
with his secretary, Ortiz, halted one night on the homeward journey.
Shortly before reaching the place, a young man had mysteriously stopped
the carriage, and had warned its hurrying inmates that at a spot called
Barranca Yaco a _partida_, headed by one Santos Perez, was awaiting the
arrival of Quiroga. There the massacre was to take place. The youth, who
had formerly experienced kindness at the hands of Ortiz, begged him to
avoid the danger. The unhappy secretary was rendered almost insane with
terror, but his master sternly rebuked his fears.--"The man is not yet
born," he said, "who shall slay Facundo Quiroga! At a word from me these
fellows will put themselves at my command, and form my escort into
Cordova!"

The night at Ojos del Agua was passed sleeplessly enough by the unhappy
Ortiz, but Quiroga was not to be persuaded into ordinary precautions.
Confident in his mastery over the minds of men, he set out unguarded, on
the 18th of February, at break of day. The party consisted of the
chieftain and his trembling secretary, a negro servant on horseback, two
postilions,--one of them a mere lad,--and a couple of couriers who were
travelling in the same direction.

Who that has been on the Pampas but can picture to himself this party as
it left the little mud-hut on the plain? The cumbrous, oscillating
_galera_, with its shaggy, straggling four-in-hand,--the caracoling Gaucho
couriers,--the negro pricking on behind,--the tall grass rolling out on
every side,--the muddy pool that forms the watering-place for beasts and
men scattered over a hundred miles of brookless plain,--the great sun
streaming up from the herbage just in front, awakening the voices of a
million insects and the carols of unnumbered birds in the thickets here
and there! Look long, Quiroga, on that rising sun! listen to the well-
known melody that welcomes his approach! gaze once more upon the rolling
Pampa! look again upon those flying hills! Thou who hast said, "There is
no life but this life," who didst "believe in nothing," shalt know these
things no more! five minutes hence thy statecraft will be over, thy long
apprenticeship will have expired! thou shalt be standing--where thou mayst
learn the secret that the wisest man of all the bookworms thou despisest
will never know alive!

Barranca Yaco is reached. The warning was well founded. A crack is heard,
--there is a puff of sm