This page needs to be proofread.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD 69 ties, written at the time, night after night upon the battlefields. Soon after this Garcia returned to Imperial, without opposition, through the country of the Huilliches, east of the territories of the Cunches. About this time, too, the city of Osqirno was established. For sometime the brutal Alonzo Reynoso had sought to obtain information of the whereabouts of Caupolican ; he had of^red rewards and subjected the natives to torture in his efforts to force them to dis- close their chief's hiding-place, but all to no purpose. At last a .mercenary spy was found who consented to conduct a company of horsemen in search of the chief- tain. Caupolican was surrounded, together with a few of his followers, and made prisoner. His wife exhorted him to die rather than surrender, which exhortation not being heeded, she threw his infant son at him and upbraided him for being a coward. Brought before Reynoso, the veteran chief was ordered to be impaled and shot to death with arrows. Caupolican met his cruel fate like a hero, warning the blood-thirsty Reynoso, who was detested both by Indians and Spaniards, that from his death would arise many and more fortunate Caupolicans. Another Caupolican indeed, like a phoenix, soon arose from the old chief's ashes. Acting under the advice of their wizard, Colocolo, the Araucanians ele- vated young Caupolican, eldest son of their late chief, to the position held by his father; Tucapel was at the same time elected vice toqui. This young chief, whom chroniclers call Caupolican the Second, raised an army, crossed the Biobio and marched toward Con- cepcion, which was now indifferently garrisoned. Reynoso proceeded against him with five hundred troops and overtook him at Talcahuano, where a sharp