The Rebel Chief by Gustave Aimard

Four days had passed since the events recorded in our last chapter. Count Ludovic de la Saulay and Oliver were still riding side by side, but the place of the scene had completely changed.

All around them extended an immense plain covered with a luxuriant vegetation, intersected by a few water courses, on the banks of which were huddled the humble cabins of several unimportant pueblos; numerous flocks browsed here and there, watched by mounted _vaqueros_, bearing the reata on the saddle, a machete at their side, and a long lance in its rest. Along a road, whose windings formed a yellow track on the green carpet of the plain, appeared like black dots, teams of mules hurrying toward the snowy mountains, which closed in the horizon in the distance; gigantic clumps of trees diversified the landscape, and a little to the right, on the top of a rather high hill, proudly rose the massive walls of an important hacienda.