On this June day, Tim had left home early in the afternoon for a twenty-mile trip into the hills. He was returning, and had just run down a steep and winding declivity which joined the highroad to San Juan, the provincial capital, when he caught sight of the gobernador, Señor José Fagasta, ambling ahead on his mule in the homeward direction. In half a minute he overtook the magistrate, and being always very sociably inclined, and having a certain liking for the large good-tempered gentleman, he stopped his machine, dismounted, and after a salutation in Spanish stepped on beside the rider, not finding it easy to keep pace with the mule's rapid march.
The gobernador was returning from the capital to his own little township, and it was not long before he confided to the boy the object and result of his visit.
"Brigands, my young friend," he said amiably.
"Are they caught, señor?" asked Tim.
"No, no; but they soon will be, the rascals!"
Tim pricked up his ears. Of late the so-called brigands had been very troublesome. They swept down from their unknown lairs in the mountains, falling unawares on some remote hacienda, and waylaying the trains of pack-mules on the roads. Tim, like many another honest boy, felt a sneaking admiration for these lawless adventurers, and was not wholly displeased that they had hitherto defied all attempts to track them and bring them to book. Besides, they were "against the government"; and there were many good Peruvians who had reason to abhor the officials under whose exactions they were then suffering.
"What is going to be done, señor?" he asked.
"What am I going to do, you should have said," replied the magistrate. "You will see, my boy. They sent for me to-day at San Juan, and I have had a long consultation with his excellency the Prefect. 'Señor Doctor,' said he, 'you are the man to catch these ruffians. I leave it to you.'"
There was an accent of pride in the gobernador's tone, and he looked at Tim with the air of a man demanding admiration.
"Why do they call you doctor, señor?" asked Tim. "You don't attend us."