"Then mend it up," said I.
"Sir, it is mended already."
Not a week had passed before the same man brought me the same report. So I determined to "parar rodeo" (round up the cattle) immediately, and count them. Twenty heifers short in one square league, and in less than a month! This thing had to stop. I told the Capataz to take the boundary rider off that beat, without telling him why, and then the Capataz and I patrolled the fence night after night for a week, during which it was never cut.
We put a new boundary rider on, and three mornings later he came to see me bright and early, saying that not only had the fence been cut, but that there were distinct traces of cattle having passed out recently.
After assuring myself that there was no doubt about the matter, for I found the hoof marks of what I calculated to be not less than twenty animals, I went post haste to my friend the Chief of Police, never doubting that after all the favours shown him he would prove a friend in need. I was young then.
"You don't say so, Don Ernesto!" said his podgy, putty-faced little Highness. "Where was it? When was——— By heavens, somebody shall suffer for this! Just let me or any of my soldiers catch the thieves, and not one of them shall reach Santa Fé alive. Now, I'll tell you what. Just leave it to me, and don't you worry nor think any more about the matter, much less mention it to a soul. In less than two days I'll have the thief or thieves here in the stocks."
I told him plainly that that was not my programme, and that, whatever he did, I was not going to leave that fence unpatrolled until I could move the stock out of the paddock.
"Then this is what we'll do, Don Ernesto. You shall be one of us. You come and dine with me at six o'clock this evening, and afterwards we'll go out with the sergeant and five or six men and catch 'em."
It was about the equinox, if I remember rightly—the springtime, when everything is lovely and lovable: the camp flowers all in bloom, the aroma of the trees burdening the air with delicious perfume, the fresh verdure and plenty of grass, the powerful, stout-hearted bounding of the horse (no longer "poor") beneath one, and, above all, the great issue expected of the business in hand, the most important business to me in the world at the time—all these combined spelled but one word, "Hope!"
Carbine in hand, Colt in holster, I arrived at his residence. There he was, sitting at the door of his corner house, whence he could look down three streets at once. How like a spider, I thought.