Capt. Curtin had been detailed to work on the New York end of the case, to look for clues. It seemed a hopeless task. He is a warm friend of mine now, after twenty years, and has long forgiven me for the bullet I lodged in him in 1873. A few years after arresting me in the West Indies he went to San Francisco and started a private inquiry office of his own at 328 Montgomery street. When, after twenty years' incarceration, I arrived there one lovely May in 1892, he was waiting for me at the ferry, and gave me warm greetings, and as hearty congratulations, too, as any man could give another; then introduced me to his friends everywhere, and, in fact, from the hour of my arrival until my departure, three months afterward, was never tired of doing me a service and forwarding my business, so that by his kind offices I made a great success out of what, by reason of the great financial depression, might otherwise have proved a failure. But as Capt. Curtin, after effecting my arrest, having recovered from his wound, was one of the four who took me to England, I will wait until a later chapter to tell how it was he discovered my name and located me in Cuba. On Saturday morning our party of four, accompanied by a following of black fellows and half a dozen dogs, set out by train. Before reaching San Felipe our bones had a shaking. The roadbed was execrable, the trucks of the cars were without springs, and to me it seemed as if we must leave the rails at any moment. In Havana we regarded Don Andrez as a good fellow, but upon our arrival at San Felipe he had grown into a man of importance. When we came to Cajio he had grown into a person of distinction, and at the island he had swollen into a local Caesar. At San Felipe, a mere hamlet, horses were waiting for us and mules for the baggage, but before setting out we went to a nearby hacienda and sat down to what was simply the best lunch of which I ever partook. The town was chiefly remarkable for the number of its fighting cocks. At the hacienda there were dozens, each in its separate compartment--regarded the same as horses and game dogs are in England and America--and half the black boys we met were carrying game birds. At last, starting for Cajio, the road soon degenerated into a mere track, which led through some barren hills with scanty growths of a species of oak without underbrush, and here and there a sprinkling of cacti, and in the lower reaches between the hills grew dense green walls of Spanish bayonet.