Eight hours after his entrance into the rural departments of San Juan, El Chacho had been routed and was in flight towards the desert, trusting to that and to the speed of his horses for his safety; but this time he failed to find in it the security which had enabled him to laugh at the pursuit of regular troops for thirty years. The author of "Civilization and Barbarism," who has given us so lively a description of the warfare of the pampas, had, in this instance, departed from his ordinary course, and pursued the brigand with such energy as to surprise him in his last fastness, where he was seized and executed.
The want of space forbids the insertion of the story of his capture, which did credit to the skill and military tactics of the commander.
While governor of San Juan, upon the invasion of the province, he twice placed it in a state of siege under a proclamation of martial law. This course was unjustly and imprudently disapproved by the national government, and singular to relate, the two persons suspected of dealings with the insurgents, who were released from imprisonment by the national authorities, met the melancholy fate of obscure deaths in inglorious combats such as too often occur in those unhappy countries,—domestic broils involving whole hecatombs of lives.
Upon the capture, arms in hand, of Clavero, one of the ringleaders of the insurrection of Mendoza, a place subjected by the President himself to the control of Governor Sarmiento, commander-in-chief, he was tried before a council of war and condemned to death. The sentence, according to rule, was referred to the
