In the present state of fermentation from which people were suffering in Texas, the olden confidence had entirely disappeared to make way for the greatest distrust. The times were past when the doors of houses remained open day and night, in order to enable strangers to reach the fireside with greater facility. Hospitality, which was traditional in these parts, had, temporarily at any rate, changed into a suspicious reserve, and it would have been an act of unjustifiable imprudence to ride up to a strange house, without first discovering whether it was that of a friend. The Colonel especially, being dressed in a Mexican uniform, was bound to act with extreme reserve. This rancho was rather large; it had not that appearance of poverty and neglect which are found only too often in the houses of Spanish American Campesinos. It was a square house, with a roof in the Italian fashion, having in front an azotea-covered portillo. The white-washed walls were an agreeable contrast to the virgin vines, and other plants which ran over it. This rancho was not enclosed with walls: a thick hedge, broken through at several places, alone defended the approaches. The dependencies of the house were vast, and well kept up. All proved that the owner of this mansion carried on a large trade on his account. The Colonel, as we have said, had softly approached one of the windows. The shutters were carefully closed, but not so carefully as not to let it be seen that someone was up inside. In vain did the Colonel, though, place his eye at the slit, for he could see nothing. If he could not see, however, he could hear, and the first words that reached his ear probably appeared to him very serious, for he redoubled his attention, in order to lose no portion of the conversation. Employing once again our privilege as romancers, we will enter the rancho, and allow the reader to witness the singular scene going on there, the most interesting part of which escaped the Colonel, greatly to his annoyance. In a rather small room, dimly lighted by a smoky candle, four men, with gloomy faces and ferocious glances, dressed in the garb of Campesinos, were assembled. Three of them, seated on butacas and equipals, were listening, with their guns between their legs, to the fourth, who, with his arms behind his back, was walking rapidly up and down, while talking.