in the Queen's dragoons for the Siren
with the dishevelled hair!

About an hour after this incident we find the two adventurers upon the
summit of the _Cerro-de-la-mesa_. Thither they had just transported the
canoe of Costal, which, being a light craft, they had carried up on
their shoulders without much difficulty. They had placed it keel
upwards close to the wall of the bamboo hovel.

"Ouf!" grunted the negro as he sat down upon it. "I think we have
fairly earned a minute's rest. What's your opinion, Costal?"

"Didn't you travel through the province of Valladolid?" asked the Indian
without replying to Clara's idle question.

"Of course I did," answered the black. "Valladolid, Acapulco, and
several other of the south-western provinces. Ah, I know them well--
from the smallest path to the most frequented of the great roads--every
foot of them. How could I help knowing them? for, in my capacity of
_mozo de mulas_, did I not travel them over and over again with my
master, Don Vallerio Trujano, a worthy man, whose service I only quitted
to turn proprietor in this province of Oajaca?"

Clara pronounced the word _proprietor_ emphatically, and with an
important air. His proprietorship consisted in being the owner of a
small _jacal_, or bamboo hut, and the few feet of ground on which it was
built--of which, however, he was only a renter under Don Mariano de
Silva. To the haciendado he hired himself out a part of each year,
during the gathering of the cochineal crop. The rest of his time he
usually passed in a sort of idle independence.

"Why do you ask me these questions?" he added.

"I don't see," said Costal, speaking as much to himself as to his
companion, "how we can enrol ourselves in the army of Hidalgo. As a
descendant of the Caciques of Tehuantepec, I am not above hiring myself
out as a tiger-hunter; but I can never consent to wear a soldier's
uniform."

"And why not?" asked Clara. "For my part, I think it would be very fine
to have a splendid green coat with red facings, and bright yellow
trowsers, like one of these pretty parroquets. I think, however, we
need not quarrel on that score. It's not likely that the Senor Hidalgo,
though he is generalissimo of the American insurgent army, will have
many uniforms to spare; and unless we enrol ourselves as officers, which
is not likely, I fear--"

"Stay!" said Costal, interrupting him. "Why couldn't we act as guides
and scouts, since you know the co