CHAPTER THREE.
THE COLONEL COMMANDANT.
Six weeks have elapsed since the day of the duel at Chihuahua.

Two men are standing on the _azotea_ of a large mansion-like house close to the town of Albuquerque, whose church spire is just visible through the foliage of trees that shade and surround the dwelling.

They are Colonel Miranda and the young Kentuckian, who has been for some time his guest; for the hospitality of the generous Mexican had not terminated with the journey from Chihuahua.

After three weeks of toilsome travel, including the traverse of the famed "Dead Man's Journey," he was continuing to extend it in his own house and his own district, of which last he was the military commandant, Albuquerque being at the time occupied by a body of troops, stationed there for defence against Indian incursions.
The house on whose roof the two men stood was that in which Colonel Miranda had been born--the patrimonial mansion of a large estate that extended along the Rio del Norte, and back towards the Sierra Blanca, into territories almost unknown.
Besides being an officer in the Mexican army, the colonel was one of the _ricos_ of the country.

The house, as already said, was a large, massive structure, having, like all Mexican dwellings of its class, a terraced roof, or _azotea_.