Don Quixote, having considered awhile, said: 'Methinks, Sancho, that some traveller having lost his way must have passed over the mountains, and being met by thieves, they slew him and buried him in this secret place.'
'It cannot be so,' answered Sancho, 'for if they had been thieves they would not have left the money behind them.'
'Thou sayest true,' said Don Quixote, 'and therefore I cannot guess what can have happened. But stay, we will look at the pocket-book, and see whether there is anything written in it by which we may discover what we want to know.'
He opened it, and the first thing he found in it was a poem, which was all about the author's love for some fair Chloe who would not care for him. Don Quixote read this aloud to Sancho.
'Nothing can be learned from these verses,' said the Squire, 'unless by that clue which is there we may get some help.'
'What clue is there here?' said Don Quixote.
'I thought your Lordship mentioned a clue there.'
'I did not say clue, but Chloe,' replied Don Quixote, 'which no doubt is the name of the lady of whom the author of this poem complains.'
After looking through the book again, Don Quixote found a despairing love-letter, and several other verses and letters full of laments and misery, from which he came to the conclusion that the owner of the book was some sad rejected lover.
The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was very desirous to know who was the owner of the portmanteau, believing from what he had seen that he must be a man of some position, whom the disdain and cruelty of a fair lady had driven to desperate courses. But as there was no one in this remote and solitary place to satisfy his curiosity, he rode on, taking any road that Rozinante chose, in the firm belief that he would find some strange adventure among the mountains.