No one equals the Hispano-Americans in the art of flaying animals; in a minute, the two lions, above which the urubús and vultures of the Andes were already hovering, were stripped of their skins.
Order was restored in the caravan, which started again, and within an hour arrived at the Estancia of San Julian, where it was received by Patito and all the farm peons.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE ESTANCIA OF SAN JULIAN.
The bomberos, accompanied by Mercedes, buried themselves in the desert. Their journey lasted four hours, and brought them to the banks of the Rio Negro, to one of the charming oases created by the river mud, and covered with clumps of willows, nopals, palms, chirimoyas, lemon trees, and flowering jessamines, in whose branches thousands of birds of the most varying colour and note gaily warbled.
Pedrito seized Mercedes in his robust arms, lifted her from the front of his saddle and laid her gently on the turf. The horses began quietly nibbling the young tree shoots.
"Tell us, how did you find our sister?" Juan said.
The elder brother, as if he had not heard, made no reply, and with his eyes fixed on the girl, he listened to a voice that spoke within him; he fancied he saw again the living portrait of his mother, and said to himself, "The same look, at once gentle and tender! The smile full of kindness! Poor mother, poor sister! Mercedes," he added in a louder voice, "do you remember your grown-up brothers, who loved you so dearly?"
"Come, come," Pepe exclaimed, stamping his foot angrily, "that is not fair, brother! You keep our bills in the water like a lot of ducks, and confiscate the girl's kind looks. If she is really our deeply-regretted Mercedes, speak; ¡caray! we have as much right to embrace her as you have, and are all longing to do so."