It only depended on the hunter's will to be rich, since he knew an almost inexhaustible placer; and what the wood ranger would never have consented to for himself, for the sake of paltry gain, he did not hesitate to attempt in order to avenge his friend. Followed by Curumilla, Belhumeur, and Black Elk, and leading a recua of ten mules, he did what two hundred and fifty men could not have succeeded in doing. He went through Apacheria, crossed the fearful desert of sand in which the bones of the hapless companions of the Marquis de Lhorailles were bleaching, and, after enduring superhuman fatigue and braving terrible dangers, he at length reached the placer. But this time he did not come to take an insignificant sum; he wanted to collect a fortune at one stroke.
The hunter returned with his ten mules laden with gold. He knew that he was beginning a struggle with a man who was enormously rich, and wished to conquer him with his own weapons. In the new world, as in the old, money is the real sinew of war, and Valentine would not imperil the success of his vengeance.
On returning to Guaymas, he realized his fortune, and found himself, in a single day, not one of the richest, but the richest private person in Mexico, although it is a country in which fortunes attain to a considerable amount. Thus the gold of the placer, which, at an earlier period, had served to organize the count's expedition, and make him believe for a moment in the realization of his dreams, was about to serve in avenging him, after having indirectly caused his death.
Then began between the general and the hunter a secret and unceasing struggle, the more terrible through its hidden nature; and the general, struck without knowing whence the blows dealt his ambition came, struggled vainly, like a lion caught in a snare, while it was impossible for him to discover the obstinate enemy who hunted him down.
This man, who had hitherto succeeded in everything—who, during the course of his long and stormy political career, had surmounted the greatest obstacles and forced his very detractors to admire the luck that constantly accompanied his wildest and rashest conceptions— suddenly saw Fortune turn her back on him with such rapidity—we may even say brutality—that, scarce six weeks after the execution of the count, he was obliged to resign his office of Military Governor, and quit, almost like a fugitive, the province of Sonora, where he had so long reigned as a master, and on which his iron yoke had pressed so heavily.
This first blow, dealt the general in the midst of his ambitious aspirations, when he had only just begun to recover from the grief his daughter's death had caused him, was the more terrible because he did not know to whom he should attribute his downfall.
Still, he did not long remain in doubt. An hour before his departure from Hermosillo he received a letter in which he was informed, in the minutest details, of the oath of vengeance taken against him, and of the steps taken to obtain his recall. This letter was signed "Valentine Guillois." The hunter, despising darkness and mystery, tore down the veil that covered him, and openly challenged his foe by manfully telling him to be on his guard.
On receiving this threatening declaration of war, the general fell into an extraordinary passion, the more terrible because it was impotent, and then, when his mind became calm again, and he began reflecting, he felt frightened. In truth, the man who stood so boldly before him as an enemy, must be very powerful and certain of success thus to dare and defy him.
His departure from Sonora was a disgraceful flight, in which he tried, by craft and caution, to throw out his enemy; but the meeting at the Fort of the Chichimèques, a meeting long prepared by the hunter, proved to him that he was unmasked once again, and conquered by his enemy.
The contemptuous manner in which Valentine dismissed him after his stormy explanation with him, had internally filled the general with terror. What sinister projects could the man be meditating, what private vengeance was he arranging, that, when he held him quivering in his grasp, he allowed his foe to escape, and refused to kill him, when that would have been so easy? What torture more terrible than death did he intend to inflict on him?