desirous of comforting his
companion; "likely enough--nothing more natural. In the first place,
from where we stand to the top of La Nina is a good five thousand varas
as the crow flies; and for you, at that distance, to distinguish Carlos
the cibolero from any other horseman is a plain impossibility. In the
second place, Carlos the cibolero is at this moment full five hundred
miles from the tip of my cigar, risking his precious carcase for a
cartload of stinking hides and a few bultos of dried buffalo-beef. Let
us hope that some of his copper-coloured friends will raise his
hay-coloured hair, which some of our poblanas so much admire. And now,
my dear Comandante, as to your dream, that is as natural as may be. It
could hardly be otherwise than that you should have such a dream. The
remembrance of the cibolero's feat of horsemanship on that very cliff,
and the later affair with the sister, together with the suspicion you
may naturally entertain that Senor Carlos wouldn't be too kind to you if
he knew all and had you in his power--all these things, being in your
thoughts at one time, must come together incongruously in a dream. The
old woman, too--if she wasn't in your thoughts, she has been in mine
ever since I gave her that knock in the doorway. Who could forget such
a picture as she then presented? Ha! ha! ha!"

The brutal villain laughed--not so much from any ludicrous recollection,
as to make the whole thing appear light and trivial in the eyes of his
companion.

"What does it all amount to?" he continued. "A dream! a simple,
everyday dream! Come, my dear friend, don't let it remain on your mind
for another instant!"

"I cannot help it, Roblado. It clings to me like my shadow. It feels
like a presentiment. I wish I had left this paisana in her mud hut. By
Heaven! I wish she were back there. I shall not be myself till I have
got rid of her. I seem to loathe as much as I loved the jabbering
idiot."

"Tut, tut, man! you'll soon change your way of thinking--you'll soon
take a fresh liking--"

"No, Roblado, no! I'm disgusted--I can't tell why but I _am_. Would to
God she were off my hands!"

"Oh! that's easy enough, and without hurting anybody. She can go the
way she came. It will only be another scene in the masquerade, and no
one will be the wiser. If you are really in earnest--"

"Roblado!" cried the Comandante, grasping his captain by the arm, "I
never was more in earnest in my life.