ition to
carrying out their general design, they gratified the mean revenge which
they held against the young ranchero.

Their slaughtering his cattle in the ravine had a double object. First,
the loss it would be to him gave them satisfaction; but their principal
motive was that the animals might not stray back to the settlement. Had
they done so, after having been captured by Indians, it would have
looked suspicious. As it was, they hoped that, long before any one
should discover the _battue_, the wolves and buzzard would do their
work; and the bones would only supply food for conjecture. This was the
more probable, as it was not likely, while the Indian alarm lasted, that
any one would be bold enough to venture that way. There was no
settlement or road, except Indian trails, leading in that direction.

Even when the final step was taken, and the victim carried off, she was
not brought _directly_ to the Presidio; for even _she_ was to be
hoodwinked. On the contrary, she was tied upon a mule, led by one of
the ruffians, and permitted to see the way they were going, until they
had reached the point where their trail turned back. She was then
blinded by a leathern "tapado," and in that state carried to the
Presidio, and within its walls--utterly ignorant of the distance she had
travelled, and the place where she was finally permitted to rest.

Every act in the diabolical drama was conceived with astuteness, and
enacted with a precision which must do credit to the head of Captain
Roblado, if not to his heart. He was the principal actor in the whole
affair.

Vizcarra had, at first, some scruples about the affair--not on the score
of conscience, but of impracticability and fear of detection. This
would indeed have done him a serious injury. The discovery of such a
villainous scheme would have spread like wildfire over the whole
country. It would have been ruin to him.

Roblado's eloquence, combined with his own vile desires, overruled the
slight opposition of his superior; and, once entered on the affair, the
latter found himself highly amused in carrying it out. The burlesque
proclamations, the exaggerated stories of Indians, the terror of the
citizens, their encomiums on his own energetic and valorous conduct--all
these were a pleasant relief to the _ennui_ of a barrack life and,
during the several days' visit of "los barbaros," the Comandante and his
captain were never without a theme for mirth and laugh