"Yes; I am British vice-consul for this district. Question for question--is this a friend of yours?" "No; merely a paid guide; but----" "Then you don't know that he is the cleverest thief and prison-breaker in Uruguay, if what these fellows say is true. I only met them by accident a little higher up; but I know it's a fact that an Indian prisoner broke loose from San José gaol the other day." "There's no mistaking _him_," said the man who was binding the prisoner. "But let the tracker decide." (A "tracker" is an Indian who hires himself out as a sort of blood-hound, to catch horse-thieves, stray cattle, etc.) "He knows him well enough." No mistake had been made; the simple--but teachable--Indian was the man who was wanted; and a most respectable barrister of the Inner Temple had spent a whole day chatting affably with a notorious criminal, who would assuredly have robbed him of his gun and money had the opportunity arisen. CHAPTER XXVI THE EXPLORATION OF THE SALADO VALLEY When poor Charles Mansfield made his journey up to the unknown Chaco, he passed, on his way, a district equally unknown at that time: the valley of the Salado River, which remained unexplored till 1863, when Hutchinson, the African traveller, traced the river to its source. Thomas Hutchinson, F.R.S., had been appointed British Consul at Rosario in 1862, and, before leaving England, had been instructed by the Foreign Secretary (Earl Russell) to take the first opportunity of exploring the Salado and its basin, and to test the truth of the report that the Indian territory there abounded in wild cotton. It was not till the following year that he could spare time for a task which might occupy an indefinite period; and then he ascended the Parana by steamer as far as Parana City, rode across to Santa Fé, which is on the Salado River, and there began to make inquiries. Generally, a man on such an errand finds plenty of people ready to pour cold water on his schemes and to draw his attention to innumerable obstacles; but this time the reverse was the case. Though he could find none of the inhabitants who had ever been more than a few miles higher up than Santa Fé, when he returned to his hotel that evening, the landlord informed him that a gentleman who was now in the smoking-room had just arrived by private steamer from Buenos Ayres, and had been asking the same question as himself: did anyone know anything of the upper part of the Salado? The stranger was one, Don Ruberta, a young Argentino engineer who had studied in London; he had been making a survey of the Colorado and Rio Negro, and aspired to do the same on the Salado. He proposed starting on the following morning, and at once begged the Consul to accept the hospitality of his little launch; and so it came about that outlying Guaranis, Quiteños, and Chiquitos were enabled to behold a steam vessel--and probably an Englishman--for the first time.