My comrades, anxious to get through the Cuchilla, were already on horseback, shouting to me to mount. One more lingering glance over that wide prospect--wide, yet how small a portion of the Banda's twenty thousand miles of everlasting verdure, watered by innumerable beautiful streams? Again the thought of Dolores swept like a moaning wind over my heart. For this rich prize, her beautiful country, how weakly and with what feeble hands had we striven! Where now was her hero, the glorious deliverer Perseus? Lying, perhaps, stark and stained with blood on yon darkening moor. Not yet was the Colorado monster overcome. “Rest on thy rock, Andromeda!” I sadly murmured, then, leaping into the saddle, galloped away after my retreating comrades, already half a mile away down in the shadowy mountain pass. CHAPTER XIX Before it had been long dark, we had crossed the range and into the department of Minas. Nothing happened till towards midnight, when our horses began to be greatly distressed. My companions hoped to reach before morning an _estancia_, still many leagues distant, where they were known and would be allowed to lie in concealment for a few days till the storm blew over; for usually shortly after an outbreak has been put down an _indulto_, or proclamation of pardon, is issued, after which it is safe for all those who have taken arms against the constituted government to return to their homes. For the time we were, of course, outlaws, and liable to have our throats cut at any moment. Our poor horses at last became incapable even of a trot, and, dismounting, we walked on, leading them by the bridles. About midnight we approached a watercourse, the upper part of the Rio Barriga Negra--Black Belly River--and on coming near it the tinkling of a bell attracted our attention. It is the usual thing for every man in the Banda Orientál to have one mare, called _madrina_, in his _tropilla_, or herd of geldings; the _madrina_ always carries a bell attached to her neck, and at night her forefeet are usually hobbled to prevent her wandering far from home; for the horses are always very much attached to her and will not leave her. After listening for a few moments, we concluded that the sound came from the bell of a _madrina_, and that her forefeet were bound, for the tinkle came in violent jerks, as from an animal laboriously hopping along. Proceeding to the spot, we found a _tropilla_ of eleven or twelve dun-coloured horses feeding near the river. Driving them very gently towards the bank, where a sharp bend in the stream enabled us to corner them, we set to work catching fresh horses. Fortunately they were not very shy of strangers, and after we had caught and secured the _madrina_, they gathered whinnying round her, and we were not very long in selecting the five best-looking duns in the herd. “My friends, I call this stealing,” I said, though at that very moment I was engaged in hastily transferring my saddle to the animal I had secured.