The captain reflected a moment. "Oh! it is some detachment of hunters," he said. "Very likely," Frank replied. The two men mounted. "Frank and you, Kennedy," said the captain, at the expiration of a minute, "will go to the passage of the Buffalo, and encamp in the grotto which is there; carefully watching the movements of the Mexicans, but in such a manner as not to be discovered." "Be satisfied of that, captain." "Oh; I know you are very adroit and devoted comrades, therefore I perfectly rely upon you. Watch the Babbler, likewise; that half-breed only inspires me with moderate confidence." "That shall be done!" "Farewell, then, till we meet again. You shall soon hear of me." Notwithstanding the darkness, the three men set off at a gallop, and were soon far in the desert, in two different directions. CHAPTER XII. PSYCHOLOGICAL. The general had kept the causes which made him undertake a journey into the prairies from the west of the United States so profound a secret, that the persons who accompanied him had not even a suspicion of them. Several times already, at his command, and without any apparent reason, the caravan had encamped in regions completely desert, where he had passed a week, and sometimes a fortnight, without any apparent motive for such a halt. In these various encampments the general would set out every morning, attended by one of the guides, and not return till evening. What was he doing during the long hours of his absence? For what object were these explorations made, at the end of which a greater degree of sadness darkened his countenance? No one knew. During these excursions, Doña Luz led a sufficiently monotonous life, isolated among the rude people who surrounded her. She passed whole days seated sadly in front of her tent, or, mounted on horseback and escorted by Captain Aguilar or the fat doctor, she took rides near the camp, without object and without interest. It happened this time again, exactly as it had happened at the preceding stations of the caravan. The young girl, abandoned by her uncle, and even by the doctor, who was pursuing, with increasing ardour, the great research for his imaginary plant, and set out resolutely every morning herbalizing, was reduced to the company of Captain Aguilar. But Captain Aguilar was, we are forced to admit, although young, elegant and endowed with a certain relative intelligence, not a very amusing companion for Doña Luz. A brave soldier, with the courage of a lion, entirely devoted to the general, to whom he owed everything, the captain entertained for the niece of his chief great attachment and respect; he watched with the utmost care over her safety, but he was completely unacquainted with the means of rendering the time shorter by those attentions and that pleasant chat which are so agreeable to girls.