My design in accompanying the gaucho was not to have an agreeable ride, but to take advantage of our being together alone, to lead the conversation to my companion, whom he appeared to know very well, so as to obtain certain information which would enable me to form an opinion on that singular man.
But all my efforts were vain, all my finesse absolutely lost; the gaucho knew nothing, or, which is more probable, did not wish to tell me anything. The man who was so communicative, and so inclined to relate, often in a too prolix fashion, his own affairs, preserved a discretion proof against everything, and a reticence which made me despair when I turned the conversation to don Zeno Cabral.
He answered me only by monosyllables, or by the exclamation, "¿Quién sabe?" (Who knows?).
Wearied with my efforts, I gave up pressing him any more, and resigned myself to speaking only of his flocks.
Towards three o'clock in the afternoon don Torribio informed me that our journey was at an end, and that we were about to return to the rancho, from which we were then distant four or five leagues.
A ride of five leagues, after a day passed in an adventurous gallop, is but a trifle for gauchos mounted on the untiring horses of the pampa.
Our horses brought us in less than two hours in sight of the rancho, without a hair being moistened.
A horseman advanced at full speed to meet us.
This horseman—I recognised him immediately with feelings of joy—was don Zeno Cabral.
"There you are, then," said he, riding up by the side of us, "I have been waiting for you for an hour." Then, addressing me, he added, "I bring you a surprise, which I think will be agreeable to you."