bad undertaking. The next day I was a Unitario; a month later I knew the party questions in their very essence, knew their personages and their views, for from that moment I entered upon the voluminous study of opposing principles.
"When the war broke out, I gave into the hands of my aunt, Doña Angela, the shop I had in charge, enlisted with the troops which had risen in insurrection against Facundo Quiroga in the Quijadas, made the campaign of Jachel, found myself in the encounter at Tafin, escaped being taken prisoner with the carts and horses which I had previously taken in the Posito, under the order of Don Javier Angulo, fled with my father to Mendoza, where the very troops which had conquered us in San Juan had risen against the Aldaos, and shortly after was nominated adjutant."
He was subsequently an approved instructor of recruits, then second director of the Military Academy, to which office he was assigned for his knowledge of cavalry maneuvers and tactics, due to his peculiar habits of study. The campaign of Mendoza, which ended in the horrible tragedy of Pilar, brought on by the bad faith of Aldao, was to him the poetry, the idealization, the realization of his readings. He was only eighteen, a beardless youth, unknown to the world, but he lived in an ecstasy of enthusiasm, ready at any moment to be a hero, to sacrifice himself, or to die, in order to obtain the smallest result in the cause for which he fought,—which was liberty to all as well as to himself. He describes himself as fighting with "demoniac" zeal, the first in pursuit of guerillas, regardless of danger; indeed, so beside himself, that at last his superior officer took away his rifle, as one takes a noisy
