“Out of the way! what do you mean?”
“That the cibolero will shortly start for the Plains—to be gone, perhaps, for several months, cutting up buffalo-beef, tricking the Indians, and such-like employments.”
“Ho! that’s not so bad.”
“So you see, querido camarado, there’s no need for violence in the matter. Have patience—time enough for everything. Before my bold buffalo-hunter gets back, both our little affairs will be settled, I trust. You shall be the owner of rich mines, and I—”
A slight knock at the door, and the voice of Sergeant Gomez was heard, asking to see the Comandante.
“Come in, sergeant!” shouted the colonel. The brutal-looking trooper walked into the room, and, from his appearance, it was plain he had just dismounted from a ride.
“Well, sergeant?” said Vizcarra, as the man drew near; “speak out! Captain Roblado may know what you have to say.”
“The party, colonel, lives in the very last house down the valley,—full ten miles from here. There are but the three, mother, sister, and brother—the same you saw at the fiesta. There are three or four Tagno servants, who help the man in his business. He owns a few mules, oxen, and carts, that’s all. These he makes use of in his expeditions, upon one of which he is about to start in three or four days at the furthest. It is to be a long one, I heard, as he is to take a new route over the Llano Estacado.”
“Over the Llano Estacado?”
“Such, I was told, was his intention.”