Chapter Forty.
On the Salitral.
Next morning the trackers are up at an early hour—the earlier because of their increased anxiety—and after break fasting on broiled ostrich leg, make ready to recommence their journey.
Nolens volens, they must embark upon that brown, limitless expanse, which looks unattractive in the light of the rising sun as it did under that of the setting.
In their saddles, and gazing over it before setting out, Gaspar says—
“Hijos mios; we can’t do better than head due westward. That will bring us out of the salitral, somewhere. Luckily there’s a sun in the sky to hold us to a straight course. If we hadn’t that for a guide, we might go zig-zagging all about, and be obliged to spend a night amidst the saltpetre; perhaps three or four of them. To do so would be to risk our lives; possibly lose them. The thirst of itself would kill us, for there’s never drinkable water in a salitral. However, with the sun behind our backs, and we’ll take care to keep it so, there won’t be much danger of our getting bewildered. We must make haste, though. Once it mounts above our heads, I defy Old Nick himself to tell east from west. So let’s put on the best speed we can take out of the legs of our animals.”
With this admonition, and a word to his horse, the gaucho goes off at a gallop; the others starting simultaneously at the same pace, and all three riding side by side. For on the smooth, open surface of the salitral there is no need for travelling single file. Over it a thousand horsemen—or ten thousand for that matter—might march abreast, with wide spaces between.
Proceeding onward, they leave behind them three distinct traces of a somewhat rare and original kind—the reverse of what would be made by travellers passing over ground thinly covered with snow, where the trail would be darker than the surrounding surface. Theirs, on the contrary, is lighter coloured—in point of fact, quite white, from the saltpetre tossed to the top by the hooves of their galloping horses.
The gaucho every now and then casts a glance over his shoulder, to assure himself of the sun’s disc being true behind their backs; and in this manner they press on, still keeping up the pace at which they had started.
They have made something more than ten miles from the point where they entered upon the salitral; and Gaspar begins to look inquiringly ahead, in the hope of sighting a tree, ridge, rock, or other land-mark to tell where the travesia terminates. His attention thus occupied, he for awhile forgets what has hitherto been engaging it—the position of the sun.
And when next he turns to observe the great luminary, it is only to see that it is no longer there—at least no longer visible. A mass of dark cloud has drifted across its disc, completely obscuring it. In fact, it was the sudden darkening of the sky, and, as a consequence, the shadow coming over the plain before his face, which prompted him to turn round—recalling the necessity of caution as to their course.
“Santos Dios!” he cries out, his own brow becoming shadowed as the sky; “our luck has left us, and—”
“And what?” asks Cypriano, seeing that the gaucho hesitates, as if reluctant to say why fortune has so suddenly forsaken them. “There’s a cloud come over the sun; has that anything to do with it?”
“Everything, señorito. If that cloud don’t pass off again, we’re as good as lost. And,” he adds, with eyes still turned to the east, his glance showing him to feel the gravest apprehension, “I am pretty sure it won’t pass off—for the rest of this day at all events. Mira! It’s moving along the horizon—still rising up and spreading out!”
The others also perceive this, they too, having halted, and faced to eastward.
“Santissima!” continues the gaucho in the same serious tone, “we’re lost as it is now!”
“But how lost?” inquires Ludwig, who, with his more limited experience of pampas life, is puzzled to understand what the gaucho means. “In what way?”
“Just because there’s no may. That’s the very thing we’ve lost, señorito. Look around! Now, can you tell east from west, or north from south? No, not a single point of the compass. If we only knew one, that would be enough. But we don’t, and, therefore, as I’ve said, we’re lost—dead, downright lost; and, for anything beyond this, we’ll have to go a groping. At a crawl, too, like three blind cats.”
“Nothing of the sort!” breaks in Cypriano, who, a little apart from the other two, has been for the last few seconds to all appearance holding communion with himself. “Nothing of the sort,” he repeats riding towards them with a cheerful expression. “We’ll neither need to go groping, Gaspar, nor yet at a crawl. Possibly, we may have to slacken the pace a bit; but that’s all.”
Both Ludwig and the gaucho, but especially the latter, sit regarding him with puzzled looks. For what can he mean? Certainly something which promises to release them from their dilemma, as can be told by his smiling countenance and confident bearing. In fine, he is asked to explain himself, and answering, says:—
“Look back along our trail. Don’t you see that it runs straight?”
“We do,” replies Gaspar, speaking for both. “In a dead right line, thank the sun for that; and I only wish we could have had it to direct us a little longer, instead of leaving us in the lurch as it has done. But go on, señorito! I oughtn’t to have interrupted you.”
“Well,” proceeds the young Paraguayan, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still travel in that same right line—since we can.”
“Ha!” ejaculates the gaucho, who has now caught the other’s meaning, “I see the whole thing. Bravo, Señor Cypriano! You’ve beaten me in the craft of the pampas. But I’m not jealous—no. Only proud to think my own pupil has shown himself worthy of his teacher. Gracias a Dios!”
During all this dialogue, Ludwig is silent, seated in his saddle, a very picture of astonishment, alike wondering at what his cousin can mean, and the burst of joyous enthusiasm it has elicited from the gaucho’s lips. His wonder is brought to an end, however, by Cypriano turning round to him, and giving the explanation in detail.
“Don’t you see, sobrino mio, that one of us can stay by the end of the trail we’ve already made, or two for that matter, while the third rides forward. The others can call after to keep him in a straight line and to the course. The three of us following one another, and the last giving the directions from our trail behind, we can’t possibly go astray. Thanks to that white stuff, our back-tracks can be seen without difficulty, and to a sufficient distance for our purpose.”
Long before Cypriano has reached the end of his explanatory discourse, Ludwig, of quick wit too, catches his meaning, and with an enthusiasm equalling that of the gaucho, cries out:—
“Viva, sobrino mio! You’re a genius!”
Not a moment more is lost or spent upon that spot; Ludwig being the one chosen to lead off, the gaucho following, with a long space between them, while the rear is brought up by Cypriano himself; who for this go, and not Gaspar, acts as guide and director.