"Do not feel alarmed, my friend. After what. Valentine told me today, we have, perchance, a way of foiling the tricks of the infamous spy who has denounced us."
"May Heaven grant it! But nothing will remove my impression that Wood has something to do with what has happened to us. I always doubted that American, who is cold as an iceberg, sour as a glass of lemonade, and methodical as a Quaker. What good is to be expected from these men, who covet the possession of our territory, and who, unable to take it from us at one lump, tear it away in parcels?"
"Who knows, my friend? Perhaps you are right. Unfortunately, what is done cannot be helped, and our retrospective recriminations will do us no good."
"That is true; but, as you know, man is the same everywhere. When he has committed a folly he is happy to find a scapegoat on which he can lay the iniquities with which he reproaches himself. That is slightly my case at this moment."
"Do not take more blame on yourself, my friend, than you deserve; I guarantee your integrity and the loyalty of your sentiments. Whatever may happen, be persuaded that I will always do you justice, and, if needed, defend you against all."
"Thanks, Don Miguel. What you say causes me pleasure and reconciles me with myself. I needed the assurance you give me in order to regain some slight courage, and not let myself be completely crushed by the unforeseen blow which threatens to overthrow our hopes at the very moment when we expected to find them realised."
"Come, come, gentlemen," Valentine said, "the time is slipping away, and we have none to waste. Let us seek to find the means by which to repair the check we have suffered. If you permit me I will submit to your approval a plan which, I believe, combines all the desirable chances of success, and will turn in our favour the very treachery to which we have fallen victims."
"Speak, speak, my friend!" the two men exclaimed, as they prepared to listen.
Valentine took the word.
[1] Literally, "men of reason"—a graceful expression the whites employ to distinguish themselves from the Indians, whom they affect to consider brute beasts, and to whom they do not even grant a soul.