lad and nephew of one of the company which lay in wait for them; two couriers who accidentally joined the party, and the negro who went on horseback. They soon reached the fatal spot, two discharges were fired into the carriages from each side of the road, but without wounding any one; then the soldiers rushing up sword in hand, disabled the horses in a moment, and cut to pieces the driver and couriers. Quiroga meanwhile put his head out of the window and said to the commander of the company, "What is all this?" His only answer was a ball through his head. Santos Perez then passed his sword several times through the body, and when the butchery was completed, had the carriage filled with dead bodies, and dragged into the woods, with the murdered postilion still on his seat. The young lad alone was alive, and Perez seeing him, asked who he was. His sergeant replied, that the boy was a nephew of his, and that he would answer for him with his life. Without a word, Perez walked up to the sergeant, shot him through the heart, and then seizing the boy by the arm, threw him on the ground and cut his throat in spite of his childish cries for mercy. Yet in after life the death cries of this lad became a pursuing torment to him, and sounded in his ears, sleeping or waking, wherever he might be. Facundo had said of all the deeds he had committed, but one remorse troubled him, which was for the death of the twenty-six officers shot at Mendoza.
This Santos Perez was a gaucho-outlaw, celebrated in all the Sierra and city of Cordova for the many murders he had committed, for his bold audacity and extraordinary adventures. While General Paz was
