The capture of “El Mocho” checked the spirit of revolt, but not for long. Andrade had nothing to commend him but his honesty, which quality was so little understood in Venezuela that it counted for nothing, and he became more and more unpopular. He was surrounded by plotters, even within his official family, and only their inability to agree on his successor prevented his speedy overthrow. Some few months after Crespo’s death, Castro, who had made himself Governor of the State of Los Andes, visited Caracas and called on Andrade with the demand that he be appointed to an important position in the new administration as the price of peace. Andrade, to his credit be it said, not only refused to appoint him to any office but flouted him, and Castro left the Yellow House in a rage. He sought the councils of Andrade’s enemies and, after many conferences, it was arranged that there should be a general insurrection early in the following Summer. The question of filling the presidency was left open, with the understanding that it should go to the leader who developed the greatest strength during the campaign. Castro went back to his mountain home, to discover that his cattle had been seized and a warrant issued for his arrest, at the instance of Andrade’s friends, for cattle stealing. He resorted to his old trick of dodging across the border, but a similar warrant was secured from the Colombian Government, which had no more love for the Indian upstart than had the one at Caracas. In fact, Castro at one time seriously had considered starting a revolt in Colombia in the hope of gaining the presidency. With officers of both countries searching for him he went into hiding and remained under cover until May 23, 1899, when he invaded Venezuela with a force of sixty _peinilleros_, so called from the fact that they were armed with the _peinilla_, a sword shaped like a scimitar. They were of the lowest type of Indian, but brave and hard fighters. His old cattle-rustling neighbors hailed him with joy, for until then they never had dreamed that any man from the mountains could become a really important factor in Venezuelan affairs, and more than a thousand of them flocked to his standard.