“I knew a trailer by the name of Calibar, who had practised his profession in one province during forty successive years. He is now nearly eighty years old, and though bowed with age, still retains a venerable and dignified appearance.
“When they speak to him of his fabulous reputation, he answers, ‘I am now useless; these are my children.’ It is said of him that during a trip that he made to Buenos Ayres a saddle was stolen from his house.
“His wife covered the robber’s track with a wooden bowl. Two months later Calibar returned home, and saw the almost obliterated footprint, that to other eyes was imperceptible, and nothing more was said of the occurrence. A year and a half afterwards Calibar was walking along a street in the suburbs of the town, with his head inclined towards the ground. He entered a house, and found a saddle, blackened, and almost worthless from use; he had found the trail of the robber after a lapse of two years.
“During the year 1830 a criminal had escaped from jail, and Calibar was charged to find him. The unhappy man, knowing that he would be tracked, had taken all the precautions which the fear of the scaffold could invent.
“Useless precautions! Perhaps they only served to insnare him, for Calibar felt that his reputation might be compromised, and self-pride caused him to acquit himself well.
“The runaway took every advantage of the unevenness of the ground so as to baffle his pursuer; but his efforts only proved the marvellous sight of the rastreador.
“He walked the whole length of streets on tiptoe, then climbed low walls, crossed a pasture, and returned in his own track.
“Calibar followed without losing the trail. If he momentarily missed it, it was soon recovered. At last he arrived at a canal of water in the suburbs, where the fugitive had followed the current, to foil the trailer. But in vain! Calibar followed along the shore without any uneasiness, and at last stopped to examine some grass, with the words, ‘At this place he came out; there is no track, but these drops of water in the pasture indicate it.’
“The fugitive had entered a vineyard. Calibar surveyed with his eye the walls that surrounded it, and said, ‘He is within.’ The party of soldiers that attended him sought in the vineyard without success. At length they became tired of hunting, and returned to report the uselessness of their search. ‘He has not come out,’ was the brief answer which the trailer gave, without moving himself, or proceeding to a new examination. He had not come out, indeed; another search discovered him, and on the following day he was executed.”