"Good, good! I will call to mind my old hunter's profession."
"Remember, above all, the prairie proverb, 'The trees have eyes and the leaves ears.' Fortunately for us, the villains who are watching for you do not disturb me in any way. I reckon principally on that ignorance to foil their plots."
"But if we do not go to Hermosillo, where are we going?"
"Tomorrow, when it is daylight," the hunter answered, sententiously, "when the bright sunbeams permit me to convince myself that no one can hear us, I will tell you. For the present, sleep, rest yourself, so that you may be able to support the fatigue that awaits you."
And, as if to avoid fresh questioning, the hunter wrapped himself in his zarapé, leant his back against the larch tree, stretched out his legs to the fire, and closed his eyes. The majordomo, in spite of his lively desire to continue the conversation, imitated him; and a few minutes later, overcome by the fatigue of every description he had endured for some days, he was fast asleep.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE REAL DE MINAS.
For some years past—that is to say, since the day when Captain Sutter, while digging a well at his plantation in San Francisco, accidentally found a lump of virgin gold—the discovery of the rich mines of the New World has so aroused interest and excited admiration, by giving a fresh impulse to avarice and covetousness, that we consider it necessary to say a few words here about the mines. Of course we shall allude to those situated in the country where our scene is laid—that is, in Sonora.