The Adventurers by Gustave Aimard

In order to make the facts which follow intelligible, we are obliged here to relate an adventure which happened more than twenty years before the period at which our history commences.

Towards the end of the month of December, 1816, on a cold, rainy night, a traveller, mounted on an excellent horse, and carefully wrapped in the folds of an ample cloak, was following at a round trot the road, or rather the blind path, on the mountains which leads from Cruces to San-Jose. This man was a rich landowner, who was making a journey into Araucania, for the purpose of treating with the Indians for a large number of cattle and sheep. Having left Cruces about two o'clock in the afternoon, he had been delayed on his way by settling some business with various _guasos_, and he was hastening to gain a hacienda he possessed at some leagues from the spot where he then was, and where he reckoned upon passing the night.