stopped to give the horses breath. I clutched the cable anew as if it were slipping from me, and shut my eyes to avoid looking downward.
"This halt is especially for you," said my guide. "I had forgotten that I was to tell you a story, and this affords me time."
Without waiting for my reply, the miner commenced a recital whose incidents and minute details could not, in a dangerous ascent like this, fail to be deeply engraven on my memory. The attention I gave to the narrator kept my mind from dwelling upon the dangerous position in which I was at the moment, and this cessation of thought I would have welcomed at almost any price.
CHAPTER III.
Story of the Passer of the Rio Atotonilco, Osorio.—Felipe.—The young Miner.—A Duel in the Mine.
"You are perhaps aware," said the miner, "that in passing from San Miguel el Grande[1] to Dolores, the traveler is obliged to cross the Rio Atotonilco. In the rainy season the passage of this river can not be made by any but those who know the principal fords. The stream is about sixty yards wide at the place where the road to San Miguel meets it. The impetuosity of its waters, and the heavy, imposing noise of its yellow waves, produce an involuntary terror in any
- ↑ A small town near Guanajuato, celebrated for its manufactures of zarapes, which almost rival those of Saltillo. Dolores is a market-town, still more celebrated for having been the cradle of Mexican independence.
