Sancho, afraid that the police force of the Holy Brotherhood would search for the man who freed the king's prisoners, suggests they go through the Sierra Morena to discourage pursuit. The ringleader of the prisoners, Gines de Passamonte, is also hiding out in these mountains. When he sees his chance, he steals Sancho's beloved ass Dapple, leaving the squire brokenhearted. Sancho is cheered, however, when his master finds a portmanteau lying on the path that contains 200 gold crowns; he gives it all to his squire, taking sole interest in the poem enclosed in the briefcase. Further along, they see a discarded saddle and then the corpse of a mule. Some goatherds tell them the story that clears up the mystery. A well-born youth has come to do penance for a number of sins. He wanders around in the wilderness, alternating moods of lucidity with fits of insanity, gaining nourishment from the woods or from the kindness of the goatherds. Don Quixote vows to find the young man and assist him in his distress. Cardenio himself appears, and the knight greets him with an earnest embrace, as if the stranger were long familiar to him.
The young man, or the Knight of the Wood, as Cervantes calls him, tells Don Quixote of his misfortunes. The son of an Andalusian gentleman, he was about to become betrothed to his beloved Lucinda, a beautiful, discreet maiden of similar background to himself. His father, however, sent Cardenio to live at the Duke's house and become a companion to Ferdinand, the grandee's amorous son. Ferdinand had just had a brief affair with the daughter of a rich farmer, a rank too far below his own to warrant marriage, and to cool his passion, agreed to visit Cardenio's family. During his stay, Ferdinand made the acquaintance of Lucinda and, much to Cardenio's discomfiture, was very impressed with her charms. At this point in the narrative, the narrator mentions the chivalric book, "Amadis of Gaul," and Don Quixote cannot resist interrupting. Then the youth and the knight begin a heated argument about the virtue of one of the novel's heroines, and Cardenio flings a huge stone at the Don. During the general fight that follows, he disappears into the woods.
