'You have done a foolish thing, but it is done; now bear the consequences with courage.' The affair was followed up. I was asked if I had heard the government complained of. I answered, 'Yes, by many.' When asked for names, I said, 'Those who had spoken in my presence had not authorized me to communicate their opinions to the authorities.' They insisted; I persisted; they threatened me; I held my tongue; they abandoned the cause, and I was set at liberty.
"I was initiated thus by the authorities themselves into the party questions of the city; into questions which divided the Republic, and it was not in Rome or in Greece that I was to seek for liberty and country, but there, in San Juan, in the horizon where the events opened that were preparing in the last days of Rivadavia's presidency. . . .
"At the fiesta of Pueblo Viejo, I fired a sky-rocket at the hoofs of a group of horses, and Colonel Quiroga, then ex-governor, came out from among the horsemen to maltreat me, attributing to malice prepense what was only a piece of folly. We had a wordy dispute, he on horseback, I on foot. He had a train of fifty horsemen, and I fixed my eyes upon him and his spirited horse to avoid being trampled upon, when I felt something touch me behind in a disagreeable and significant manner. I put my hand behind me, and touched—the barrel of a pistol, which was left in my hand. I was also at that instant the Lead of a phalanx, which had gathered in my defense. The Federal party, headed by Quiroga Carril, was on the point of a hand-to-hand encounter with the Unitario party, whom I served unconsciously at that moment. The ex-governor rode off, confounded by the mocking laughter he heard, and perhaps astonished at being a second time worsted in the presence of a boy who did not arrogantly give him provocation, nor timidly yield when once embarked in a
