"Do not be anxious on that score, brother; I will answer for my accuracy."
Everything having been thus arranged and decided on by our three personages, they separated and retired to rest, for it was already late, and the two men were to mount at daybreak to take the road to the presidio of San Lucar.
[CHAPTER II.]
THE VIRGIN FOREST.
Don Torribio Quiroga, with whom we have now to do, was a young man of twenty-eight, with a refined and intellectual countenance, an elegant figure, and possessing in the highest degree the manners of the best society.
He belonged to one of the richest and most considerable families in the province of Chihuahua: the death of his parents had put him in possession of an income of more than five hundred thousand piastres, or about ninety thousand pounds sterling; for money is plentiful in that country.
A man in this position, and gifted with all the mental and physical advantages enjoyed by Don Torribio, had a right to very high pretensions; for, a certain amount of fortune once reached, obstacles no longer exist, or, at least, are only an excitement instead of an impediment.
Don Torribio had succeeded in all his undertakings, with one exception: his struggle against Don Fernando,—a struggle in which the latter had always come off victorious.