at the turning of the first sod by the harbour shore. After all he was
their own creature--that Don Vincente. He was the embodied triumph of
the best elements in the State. These were facts, and, unless facts
meant nothing, Sir John argued to himself, such a man's influence must
be real, and his personal action would produce the conciliatory effect
he required. He had succeeded in arranging the trip with the help of a
very clever advocate, who was known in Sta. Marta as the agent of the
Gould silver mine, the biggest thing in Sulaco, and even in the whole
Republic. It was indeed a fabulously rich mine. Its so-called agent,
evidently a man of culture and ability, seemed, without official
position, to possess an extraordinary influence in the highest
Government spheres. He was able to assure Sir John that the
President-Dictator would make the journey. He regretted, however, in
the course of the same conversation, that General Montero insisted upon
going, too.

General Montero, whom the beginning of the struggle had found an obscure
army captain employed on the wild eastern frontier of the State, had
thrown in his lot with the Ribiera party at a moment when special
circumstances had given that small adhesion a fortuitous importance.
The fortunes of war served him marvellously, and the victory of Rio Seco
(after a day of desperate fighting) put a seal to his success. At the
end he emerged General, Minister of War, and the military head of the
Blanco party, although there was nothing aristocratic in his descent.
Indeed, it was said that he and his brother, orphans, had been brought
up by the munificence of a famous European traveller, in whose service
their father had lost his life. Another story was that their father
had been nothing but a charcoal burner in the woods, and their mother a
baptised Indian woman from the far interior.