e the cloak worn by some of our cavalry
soldiers.

Some time during the month of April Sorillo's messenger returned,
bringing me two letters--one from my mother, the other from the chief.

I need not say how eagerly I opened the first. It was very long,
consisting of several closely-written pages, but it did not contain a
word too much. I read it over and over again, until I could almost say
it by heart. No word had reached Lima of the wreck of the _Aguila_;
but the British merchants, though bidding my mother be of good cheer,
had put the schooner down for lost. My message had shown their fears
to be well grounded, but at the same time it had carried joy and
thankfulness to my mother's breast.

"I grieve for poor Jose," she wrote, "but I thank God every hour for
your safety."

The letter from Sorillo was brief. After saying how glad he was to get
my message, he went on,--

"For the present, stay in the Hidden Valley; there is no safer place in
Peru. The fruit ripens slowly, and even yet is not ready for plucking.
San Martin has not left Valparaiso, and little beyond skirmishing will
be done this year."

Apparently, however, he had sent definite orders to the tribe, as from
this date I noticed a great difference in our hitherto peaceful abode.
Every man went armed day and night, scouts were posted on the
mountains, and swift riders scoured the desert for miles.

Once, too, a band of horsemen, twenty strong, led by Quilca, left the
valley at night. I could not learn their business, because Quilca said
they were acting under the secret orders of the great chief. They were
absent three days, and when, in the gray dawn of the fourth morning,
they rode back up the valley, three were missing. The leader had a
bloodstained bandage round his head, and several men bore signs of a
fierce conflict.

"You are hurt?" said I, as Quilca dismounted.

"It is nothing," replied he carelessly.

"And three of your followers have not returned!"

"It cost six lives to kill them," he answered, with fierce
satisfaction, passing into the hut.

This expedition was followed by others, and from the talk in the valley
I gathered that Sorillo had started the Indians on the war-trail.
Already the Spaniards were safe only in large numbers, for on every
weak and isolated detachment the fierce mountaineers swept down like
hawks on their prey.

Now and again they were beaten off; but this did not happen often,
because they knew t