I am ready to act." The instructions were given, and within two hours' time Captain Gil Uraga, of the Zacatecas Lancers, was in receipt of a challenge from the Kentuckian--Colonel Miranda being its bearer.
With such a voucher the lancer officer could not do otherwise than accept, which he did with cooler confidence for the very reason Miranda had made known.

A _Tejano_, was his reflection--what should he know of the sword?
And swords were the weapons chosen.
Had the captain of Zacatecas Lancers been told that his intended adversary had spent a portion of his life among the Creoles of New Orleans, he would have been less reliant on the chances likely to turn up in his favour.
We need not describe the duel, which, if different from other encounters of the kind, was by being on both sides bitter, and of deadly intent.
Suffice it to say, that the young Kentuckian displayed a skill in swordsmanship sufficient to disarrange several of Gil Uraga's front teeth, and make an ugly gash in his cheek.

He had barely left to him sufficient command of his mouth to cry "Basta!" and so the affair ended.
"Senor Hamersley," said the man who had so effectively befriended him, after they had returned from the encounter, and were drinking a bottle of Paso wine in the posada, "may I ask where you intend going when you leave Chihuahua ?" "To Santa Fe, in New Mexico; thence to the United States, along with one of the return caravans." "When do you propose starting ?" "As to that, I am not tied to time.

The train with which I am to cross the plains will not be going for six months to come.

I can get to Santa Fe by a month's travel, I suppose ?" "Less than that.