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156 thirty miles, was hardly able to stand upright; and, for my own part, I needed to husband my strength, that I might resume on the following day that pursuit which seemed to be getting interminable.

Next morning, at an early hour, we were in the saddle and on the road to Celaya, where we expected to meet Don Tomas. It was a two days' journey, and these two days were marked with as many odd occurrences as had signalized the first part of this singular excursion. In all the inns at which we stopped Don Tomas had preceded us only by a few hours. At last I arrived at Celaya, and alighted at the Meson de Guadalupe at the very moment that Cecilio was mentally registering the seventy leagues we had traveled since we left Mexico, with this consoling reflection, however, that, according to the intelligence we had received, we were now approaching the end of our journey. Unhappily, I was once more balked. At Celaya, as at Arroyo Zarco, I missed Don Tomas by half an hour. Don Tomas, on leaving Celaya, had taken the road to Irapuato. We set out for that place. In the solitary inn of this small market-town no one had seen him. They knew him, however, for the host told me that Don Tomas owned and inhabited a solitary house at the foot of the Cerro del Gigante (Giant peak).

"Where is the Cerro del Gigante?" I asked, not without an apprehension that it might be a hundred leagues away.

"It is the highest peak of the range of mountains," replied my host, "which overhangs Guanajuato. If you got out from here at dawn of day, you will be there in the evening."

Irapuato is ninety-two leagues from Mexico. To