ONE MONTH LATER.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The rays of the sun, falling more and more obliquely, were gradually lengthening the shadows of the trees; the birds were flying to their roosts, and nestling as they could under the foliage, with deafening cries and pipings. A few bands of prairie wolves were showing themselves here and there, snuffing the breeze, and preparing for their nocturnal chase among the tall grasses. At intervals, the lofty antlers of elks and antelopes were suddenly rising from amidst the herbage, the animals quickly throwing back their heads, and commencing a giddy flight into the distance. The sun, close on the verge of the horizon, looked like a globe of red fire behind the trunks of the stately trees. Everything announced the rapid approach of night.
In the virgin forest, about two hundred miles from the presidio of San Lucar, where the last terrible episodes of our story occurred, and in the centre of a vast clearing, two men, habited like the Mexican gambucinos, were sitting on buffalo skulls, beside a clear fire which gave forth no smoke. They were Don Estevan Diaz the mayor domo, and Luciano Pedralva the capataz. They held their rifles across their knees, ready for an emergency, and smoked their maize pajillos in silence. Several peones and arrieros were lying about a few paces off, and baggage mules were greedily munching the rations of Indian corn laid on mats before them. Eight or ten horses were tethered, to prevent their straying, close to a jacal (hut) of branches, the entrance to which was closed with a zarapé. A peon, standing motionless with cocked rifle on the borders of a little brook which meandered round the extremity of the clearing, watched over the common safety.
It was easy to perceive, from the fragments of all sorts which littered the ground, whence every vestige of grass had disappeared, and from the quarters of venison suspended from the boughs of a mahogany tree, that the encampment we have described was not one of those temporary resting places which the backwoodsmen choose for a night and quit at sunrise, but one of those more substantial camps which the hunters often establish as places of rendezvous for the trapping season.
The zarapé at the entrance to the jacal was lifted, and Don Pedro made his appearance on the scene. His features were pale, his expression was sad and pensive. He looked carefully around, went up to the two men seated by the fire, and spoke: "No news as yet?"
"None whatever," replied Don Estevan.
"This absence is incomprehensible; Don Fernando has never before stayed away from us so long."
"True," said the capataz; "it is more than thirty hours since he left us. Pray God, no misfortune may have happened."
"No," answered Don Estevan; "Don Fernando is too well acquainted with the desert to incur much danger."