Read "The Smuggler Chief" by Gustave Aimard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Long ago, very long ago," Diego, the Vaquero, began, "all the lands bordering the bay of Valparaiso belonged to the Indians, whose vast hunting grounds extended on one side from the lofty peaks of the Cordilleras down to the sea, and on the other covered the Pampas of Buenos Aires, of Paraguay -- in a word, all the splendid countries from which they have eternally disappeared, and it is impossible to find a trace of the moccasins which trod them during centuries."
"The Indians were at that day free, happy, powerful, and more numerous than the grains of sand in the bed of the sea. But one day strange news spread among them: it was said that white men, who had come no one knew whence, and mounted on immense winged horses, had suddenly appeared in Peru."