[Footnote 3:  Since the above was written, we have heard of the adoption of an expedient identical with that of Quiroga, under similar circumstances, and with the same result.  The detector was, however, an English seaman, now captain of a well-known steam-vessel, who forming part of a crew one of whom had lost a sum of money, broke off ten twigs of equal length from a broom, and distributed them among his shipmates, with the same observation as was used by the Argentine chief.  Two hours later he examined them, and found that the negro steward had shortened his allotted twig.  The money was restored.—­The coincidence is instructive.]

Another time, one of his soldiers had been robbed of some trappings, and no trace of the thief could be discovered.  Quiroga ordered the detachment to file past him, one by one.  He stood, himself, with folded arms and terrible eyes, perusing each man as he passed.  At length he darted forward, pounced upon one of the soldiers, and shouted, “Where is the montura?” “In yonder thicket!” stammered out the self-convicted thief.  “Four musketeers this way!” and the commander was not out of sight before the wretched Gaucho was a corpse.  In these instinctive qualities, so awful to untutored minds, lay the secret of the power of Quiroga,—­and of how many others of the world’s most famous names!

Already in 1825 he was recognized as a lawful authority by the government of Buenos Ayres, and invited to take part in a Congress of Generals at that city.  At the same time, however, he received a military errand.  The Province of Tucuman having been seized by a young Buenos Ayrean officer, Colonel Madrid, Quiroga was requested to march against the successful upstart, and to restore the cause of law and order,—­an undertaking scarcely congruous with his own antecedents.  The chief of La Rioja, however, eagerly accepted the mission, marched with a small force into Tucuman, routed Madrid, (and this literally, for his army ran away, leaving the Colonel to charge Quiroga’s force alone, which he did, escaping by a miracle with his life,) and returned to La Rioja and San Juan.  Into the latter town he made a triumphal entry, through streets lined on both sides with the principal inhabitants, whom he passed by in disdainful silence, and who humbly followed the Gaucho tyrant to his quarters in a clover-field, where he allowed them to stand in anxious humiliation while he conversed at length with an old negress whom he seated by his side.  Not ten years had elapsed since these very men might have beheld him pounding tapias on this spot!