William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[84] a band was gathered about him and reduced to order. Vasquez took the chief command, with Leiva as his first lieutenant. Chavez was his second lieutenant, Castro and Morena were his principal scouts. Leiva had a young and pretty wife, Rosalia, who rode with them into the woods, and shared the pleasures and privations of their camp.

Senora Rosalia was a niece by marriage of Sefiora Cantua, and a gossip of the whole Vasquez family at Los Felix. Love led her into sin and crime. Fidelity to wedded vows is not a virtue of her race, and Vasquez was a hero in all female eyes. A fearless rider, an untiring dancer, a deadly shot, and a successful brigand, her cousin had nearly all the qualities most admired by Mexicans, whether male or female. Everybody talked of him, everybody feared him. Living by plunder, he had always men, and nearly always money, at his command. What Half-breed female could resist a man so gifted and so great?

“Capitan Vasquez never sighed in vain,” he says, “to either sefiora or seiorita.” A story, current since his capture, implies that he was