They are a taciturn people in Aragon and Navarre--so taciturn that in politely greeting the passer on the road they cut down the curt good-day.

"Buenas," they say, and that is all.
"Go with God," said the Count, and the messenger left the room noiselessly, for they wear no shoe-leather in this dry land.
There was a train in those days to Pampeluna and a daily post, but then, as now, a letter of any importance is better sent by hand, while the railway is still looked upon with suspicion by the authorities as a means of circulating malcontents and spreading crime.

Every train is still inspected at each stopping place by two of the civil guards.
The Count was early astir the next morning.

He knew that a man such as Marcos, possessing the instinct of the chase and that deep insight into the thoughts and actions of others, even into the thoughts and actions of animals, which makes a great hunter or a great captain, would never have let slip the feeble clue that he had of the incident in the Calle San Gregorio.

The Count had been a politician in his youth, and his position entailed a passive continuance of the policy he had actively advocated in earlier days.