The hunter pressed the hand his countryman offered him.
"As this is the case," he said, "I will not let you go alone, for these mountains are infested by bandits of every description, whom you may not escape, but with my protection you can pass anywhere."
"I heartily accept the offer; but why do you not come with us to Mexico?"
"That is impossible for the present," the hunter answered pensively; "but be at your ease. I shall not fail to demand the fulfilment of your promise."
"You will be welcome, friend, for we have been acquainted for a long time, and we know that you have ever honourably represented France in America."
Two hours later the Fort of the Chichimèques had returned to its usual solitude; white men and Indians had abandoned it for ever.
We will now leap over about two months and, leaving the Rocky Mountains, invite the reader to accompany us to the heart of Mexico.
The Spanish Conquistadors selected with admirable tact the sites on which they founded the cities destined to insure their power, and become at a later date the centres of their immense trade, and the entrepôts of their incalculable wealth.
Even at the present day, although owing to the negligence of the Creoles and their continual fratricidal Wars, combined with the sudden earthquakes, these cities are half ruined, and the life which the powerful Spanish organization caused to circulate in them has died out, these cities are still a subject of surprise to the traveller accustomed to the morbid crowding of old European cities. He regards with awe these vast squares, surrounded by cloister-like arcades; these broad and regular streets through which refreshing waters continually flow; these shady gardens in which thousands of gaily-plumaged birds twitter; these bold bridges; these majestically simple buildings, whose interiors contain incalculable wealth. And yet, we repeat, the majority of these cities are only the shadow of themselves. They seem dead, and are only aroused by the furious yells of an insurrection, to lead for a few days a feverish existence under the excitement of political passions. But so soon as the corpses are removed, and water has washed away the blood stains, the streets revert to their solitude, the inhabitants hide themselves in their carefully-closed houses, and all becomes again gloomy, mournful, and silent, only to be galvanized afresh by the hoarse murmurs of an approaching revolt.