"Do not tell anyone—not even the French hunter, not even your son—of our meeting. Let this secret be buried in your breast. When you reach the far west, if you see before you, at one of your bivouacs, a piece of mahogany bearing the impress of a horse's shoe, rise at midnight, and leave the camp, not letting anyone see you. When you have gone one hundred paces in the tall grass, whistle thrice; a similar whistle will answer you, and then you will learn many things important for you to know, but which I cannot tell you today."
"Good. Thanks. I will do what you tell me."
"You promised it?"
"I swear it on my word as a gentleman," Don Miguel said, as he took off his hat.
"I accept your oath. Farewell."
"Farewell."
The stranger dug his spurs into his horse's sides and the animal started off as if impelled by a tornado.
The two gentlemen looked after him for a long time, admiring the grace and ease of his movements; at length, when horse and rider had disappeared in the distance, Don Miguel went on again pensively, while saying to the general—
"Who can that man be?"
"I know no more than you do. Viva Cristo!" his friend answered, "but I assure you I will know, even if to do so I have to search all the thickets and caverns in the desert."