While negotiating, however, word reached him of a royalist corps that was being raised at no great distance from Oajaca, by a Spanish officer, Don Juan Antonio Caldelas. Don Rafael, urged on by a thirst for vengeance, hastened to join the band of Caldelas, who on his part at once agreed to place his handful of men at the disposal of the dragoon captain for the pursuit of Valdez. Of course Caldelas had himself no personal animosity against the insurgent leader; but believing that the destruction of his band would crush the insurrection in the province, he was the more ready to co-operate with Don Rafael. Both together marched against Valdez, and encountered him and his followers at the _cerro_ of Chacahua, where the ex-vaquero had entrenched himself. An action was fought, which resulted in Valdez being driven from his entrenchments, but without Don Rafael being able to possess himself of his person, a thing he desired even more than a victory over his band. A fortnight was spent in vain searches, and still the guerilla chief continued to escape the vengeance of his unrelenting pursuer. At the end of that period, however, the insurgents were once more tempted to try a battle with the followers of Don Rafael and Caldelas. It proved a sanguinary action, in which the royalists were victorious. The scattered followers of Valdez, when reunited at the rendezvous agreed upon in the event of their being defeated, perceived that their leader was missing from among them. Alive they never saw him again. His dead body was found some distance from the field of battle, and around it the traces of a struggle which had ended in his death. The body was headless, but the head was afterwards discovered, nailed to the gate of the hacienda Del Valle, with the features so disfigured that his most devoted adherents would not have recognised them but for an inscription underneath. It was the name of the insurgent, with that of the man who had beheaded him, Don Rafael Tres-Villas. Valdez had fled from the field after the defeat of his followers. Before proceeding far, he heard behind him the hoarse snorting of a steed. It was the bay-brown of Don Rafael. In a few bounds the insurgent was overtaken. A short struggle took place between the two horsemen; but the ex-vaquero, notwithstanding his equestrian skill, was seized in the powerful grasp of the dragoon officer, lifted clear out of his saddle, and dashed with violence to the earth. Before he could recover himself, the lasso of Don Rafael-- equally skilled in the use of this singular weapon--was coiled around him; and his body, after being dragged for some distance at the tail of the officer's horse, lay lifeless and mutilated along the ground. Such was the end of Antonio Valdez. CHAPTER FORTY. FATAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS.