For my part, I firmly believe it was in fact so intended by General Wilkinson, who had been known to boast that he could take all New Mexico in a single campaign. But whether or not he had intended to use our discoveries to further the treasonable projects of Burr, I will leave to the verdict of History. At the time, it was enough for me that he had not joined forces with Burr, but, on the contrary, it would seem had averted the possibility of the dashing Colonel's capture of New Orleans. CHAPTER XXII GLIMPSES OF FATE The day before our arrival at Chihuahua, when Lieutenant Malgares despatched ahead a courier with letters to his wife's father and General Salcedo, I was suddenly struck with the fact that this First of April, like that other Day of All Fools out of Philadelphia, was bringing me to the senorita high in hopes yet none the less uncertain. Then I had chilled with the dread that my journey's end would find her dear presence vanished beyond my reach; now I suffered the far more poignant fear that I might find her heart lost to another. With such a thought lying like a torpid snake upon my breast, it is not strange that I slept ill that night. But I was astir in the morning no earlier than Malgares, who betrayed the liveliest apprehension over his coming interview with the Commandant-General. It was the first time that he had been permitted to come south to the seat of government since leaving it for his daring expedition into our territories, nearly a year past. Pike and I were astonished to find that he was not beaming with expectation of the rewards his gallant exploit deserved. Instead he rode along between us in silence, his fine Castilian face creased with lines of anxiety, almost of dread. We were now passing over the last few miles of the vast mountain-encircled plain which surrounds the city of Chihuahua and upon which, as well as similar vast ranges in this Province of Nuevo Viscaya, _los haciendados_ pasture herds of thousands and tens of thousands of cattle. Only in the most favored spots was the dreary landscape broken by trees, most of them the acacia-like mesquite, which here grows to a height of thirty or forty feet. There was little cultivation of the soil in this region, whose inhabitants depend upon cattle and the rich silver mines for their subsistence. A far from pleasant proof of this fact was to be seen in the great number of smoking ore furnaces and the enormous extent of the cinder heaps all about the city.