s company. When the time for starting came, we had quite a
hunt for him; and we might not have found him at all had we not been
guided by the sound of music to the sequestered spot to which he had
retired in order to give vent to his pent-up feelings by playing on his
mouth-organ "Pop goes the weasel"--an air that Young had been whistling
that morning and that had mightily taken Pablo's fancy.

We made rather an imposing cavalcade as we filed forth from the great
gate of the hotel, and took our way along the Calle Nacional, the
principal street of the city, towards the Garita del Poniente. Fray
Antonio and I rode first; then came Rayburn and Young, followed by
Dennis Kearney; then the two pack-mules, beside which walked the two
Otomi Indians; and closing the procession came Pablo, wearing his
rain-coat, with his revolver strapped outside of it, and riding El Sabio
with a dignity that would have done honor to the Viceroy himself. Pablo
certainly was in the nature of an anti-climax; but I would not have told
him so for the world. Fray Antonio wore the habit of his Order, this
privilege having been specially granted to him by the Governor of the
State as a safeguard for all his expeditions among the Indians. It was
understood, indeed, that he now was going forth on one of his missionary
visits among the mountain tribes, and simply rode with us, so far as our
ways should lie together, for greater security. I had announced that I
was going among the Indians again in order to increase my knowledge of
their manners and customs; and Rayburn--to whom the rest of the party
was supposed to belong--had stated that he was taking the field in order
to make a new reconnaissance along the line of the projected railway. It
was in order to maintain these several fictions that we went out by the
western gate, and that we continued for two days our march westward
before turning to our true course.

Of our progress during the ensuing fortnight it is not necessary that I
should speak, for beyond the ordinary incidents of travel no adventures
befell us. During this period we went forward steadily and rapidly; and
at the end of it we had covered more than three hundred miles, and had
come close to where--supposing our rendering of the Aztec map to be
correct, and that we had rightly collated it with the dead monk's
letter--the mission of Santa Marta had stood three centuries and a half
before. There was no possibility that any trace of this mi