squads of grenadiers who had preceded him in flight, and his diligence and reputation enabled him to join the army again with seventy comrades in arms, who cleared their laurels at Maipú of the momentary stain which had rested on them.
This Sergeant Araya and a man named Lorca, also known in Chili by his bravery, commanded the force placed by Aldao under Facundo's orders. The prisoners at La Rioja who were under sentence of death, among them Dr. Don Gabriel Ocampo, a former minister of government, entreated Lorca to protect them by his intercession. Facundo, feeling yet insecure in his momentary elevation, consented to grant their lives; but this limit set to his power made him aware that he must have full control of this veteran force, in order to avoid future opposition.
Returning to the Llanos, he came to an understanding with Araya, and in pursuance of their agreement, they fell upon the rest of Aldao's force by surprise, and Facundo then found himself at the head of four hundred regulars, from whose ranks were afterwards drawn the officers of his first armies.
Remembering that Don Nicholas Dávila was in exile at Tucuman, he summoned him to take charge of the annoying details of the government of La Rioja, himself retaining the real supremacy, which followed him to the Llanos. The breach between him and men like the Ocampos and Dávilas was too wide, and the change from their government to his, too sudden, to be effected at a blow; the spirit of the city was still too powerful for that of the country to control openly; a Doctor of Laws was still thought to make a better government official than any laborer. But all this was afterwards changed.
