"All right, Stronghand, I will remember," the bandit said, with a covert threat.
And at once gliding into the bushes, he disappeared, without taking further leave of the persons who had given him his life.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE BIVOUAC.
For some moments the bandit's hurried footsteps were audible, and then all became silent once again.
"You wished it," Stronghand then said, looking at Don Ruiz from under his bent brows. "Now, be certain that you have at least one implacable enemy on the prairie; for you are not so simple, I assume, as to believe in the gratitude of such a man?"
"I pity him, if he hates me for the good I have done him in return for the harm he wished to do me, but honour ordered me to let him escape."
"Yours will be a short life, Señor, if you are obstinate in carrying out such philanthropic precepts in our unhappy country."