Peace palled on Pulgar and he died not long afterward. As was his right he had the largest funeral ever seen in Venezuela. Without exception he was the bravest man I have ever known. He had all of Frank Norton’s daring and added to it what seemed to be a foolhardy recklessness that times without number carried him right up against old Graybeard’s scythe, yet he always knew the chances he was taking and coolly calculated them. When he was stripped he looked as though he had been run through a threshing machine. From head to foot he was covered with scars left by knives, swords, and bullets of all sizes. In an assault on the fortress at Porto Cabello, years before I knew him, he climbed into an embrasure and over the mouth of a cannon just as it was fired. Had he been a second later he would have been blown to pieces. The explosion burned nearly all the flesh off his legs and reduced them to pipe-stems. He was a tall, handsome man of pure Castilian blood; a revolutionist by birth, breeding, education, and occupation, and his one ambition was to be President of Venezuela. I doubt if that country will ever produce another just like him. It was known that Guzman favored the introduction of foreign capital to develop the wonderful resources of Venezuela, the full extent of which is not even yet understood, and Caracas was soon over-run with concession hunters. Many of them sought my support and offered me all sorts of inducements, but I told all of them that I had no influence with Guzman and would not use it if I had, in such ways as they desired. I always advised Guzman fully as to whom the concession hunters were and what they wanted. One of those on whom I thus reported was Cyrenius Fitzgerald, an American civil engineer, who sought a concession covering the delta of the Orinoco and a considerable distance up the river, which section then was an unknown land. Guzman wanted a report on it and asked me to visit it, which I did, in company with Fitzgerald and an English engineer named Tucker, who was there making a survey for the railroad which subsequently was built between Caracas and La Guaira. We made the trip on the old government boat “Bolivar,” being away two months and going up the Orinoco as far as Ciudad Bolivar. We went over much of the territory included in the proposed concession and explored many uncharted passages in the delta of the river which had long been safe havens for revolutionists and smugglers. I became enchanted with the country, which was rich in minerals and valuable woods. In reporting to Guzman and talking with him about the project, I found that he was to receive a large block of stock in the enterprise. This concession finally was granted by Guzman in 1883, without any solicitation from me, and thirteen years later it was decreed by fate that I should become manager of the property for the Orinoco Company, Limited, which is now known as the Orinoco Corporation. CHAPTER V THE MAROONING OF A TRAITOR