My party should make approach in the night; go into covert under the pine-forest that shrouded the slopes above the place of rendezvous; and leave Sam himself to come on in the morning--carrying the ransom-money along with him. That night he could go with us to a certain distance-- as a guide all the way--returning, to return again, at the hour of daybreak. The plan seemed excellent. There was but one drawback. Our ambuscade could only affect the envoy of the robbers, not the robbers themselves-- whose den might be at a distance, among the passes of the mountains. "Don Samuel" did not see it in this light. With the bandit emissary in our power, and the dollars of Don Eusebio at our disposal, he did not apprehend any difficulty. If there were a _salteador_ in all Mexico proof against gold, Sam Brown did not believe it. I was satisfied with his reasoning; and consented to act under his guidance. But little time was required for preparation. The commander-in-chief-- not so ungenerous after all, and always liberal in the cause of humanity--had given me _carte, blanche_. I only drew a score of my own men--Mounted Rifles--with a small supplementary force of the dare-devils already alluded to. CHAPTER THIRTY. A YANKEE JEHU. Along the lone causeway, three hundred years ago traversed by Cortez-- and now, instead of open water, with a _zanca_ on each side of it--we journeyed in solemn silence. I had waited for that hour of the night when wayfarers, who might turn informers, were not likely to be encountered on the road. We passed the isolated hill of El Penon without meeting any one; and commenced skirting the saline shores of Tezcoco. The ride, though long, was far from appearing tedious. How could it be in the company of a stage-coach driver--especially one from the "States?" Who does not know him? Who that has journeyed upon the "corduroy roads" of Kentucky, Mississippi, or Tennessee--who thus dreadfully jolted--does not remember the compensation he has had, in the cheerful conversation of the man who conducted him over these accursed causeways? In Mexico he is met, just as in the States; mounted on the box of a "Troy" coach; dressed in jacket, or tailed-coat with short skirts; the universal white hat upon his head; and perchance a cigar sticking slantwise between his teeth. Thus he may be seen--and never seen without being liked--almost beloved--by those whose luck it is to have a seat upon the box beside him. Light, tight, intelligent, and cheery--civil to the humblest outsider-- daring to a degree of recklessness--he is as different from the unwieldy six-caped carcase of English stage-coach celebrity, as a butterfly to a buffalo. Who ever sate on the box beside him, without longing to sit there again?