"My mine, at the same time, was plundered and destroyed; many of the workmen were slaughtered before they could escape; and the work itself, with my fortune, became a ruin. "With some of the miners, who had fled, and others of Valverde, who, like me, had suffered, I organised a band, and followed the savage foe; but our pursuit was vain, and we turned back, many of us broken in health and heart. "Oh, monsieur, you cannot know what it is to have thus lost a favourite child! you cannot understand the agony of the bereaved father!" The speaker pressed his head between his hands, and remained for a moment silent. His countenance bore the indications of heartrending sorrow. "My story will soon be told--up to the present time. Who knows the end? "For years I hung upon the frontiers of the Indian country, hunting for my child. I was aided by a small band, most of them unfortunates like myself, who had lost wife or daughter in a similar manner. But our means became exhausted, and despair wore us out. The sympathies of my companions grew old and cold. One after another gave up. The Governor of New Mexico offered us no aid. On the contrary, it was suspected then--it is now known--that the Governor himself was in secret league with the Navajo chiefs. He had engaged to leave them unmolested; while they, on their side, promised to plunder only his enemies! "On learning this terrible secret, I saw the hand that had dealt me the blow. Stung by the disgrace I had put upon him, as well as by my wife's scorn, the villain was not slow to avenge himself. "Since then his life has been twice in my power, but the taking of it would, most probably, have forfeited my own, and I had objects for which to live. I may yet find a reckoning day for him. "I have said that my band melted away. Sick at heart, and conscious of danger in New Mexico, I left the province, and crossed the Jornada to El Paso. Here for a while I lived, grieving for my lost child. "I was not long inactive. The frequent forays made by the Apaches into Sonora and Chihuahua had rendered the government more energetic in the defence of the frontier. The presidios were repaired and garrisoned with more efficient troops, and a band of rangers organised, whose pay was proportioned to the number of scalps they might send back to the settlements. "I was offered the command of this strange guerilla; and in the hope that I might yet recover my child, I accepted it--I became a scalp-hunter. "It was a terrible commission; and had revenge alone been my object, it would long since have been gratified. Many a deed of blood have we enacted; many a scene of retaliatory vengeance have we passed through.