Accordingly I took in good part the desertion of my guide, and prepared myself, half laughing, half railing against the ingratitude of the Guaranis, to commence my apprenticeship to the life of the desert.
My first care was to light a fire. I prepared a maté cimarron, that is to say, without sugar; and, refreshed by this warm drink, I mounted my horse, with the design of seeking my breakfast by killing a head or two of game, an easy thing in the locality in which I found myself; then I carelessly resumed my adventurous route.
Some days thus passed. One morning, at the moment when I was preparing to light, or rather to rekindle, my bivouac fire to cook my breakfast, I suddenly saw several venados rise from the midst of the high grass, and, after having sniffed the wind, scamper away with extreme rapidity, passing at a pistol shot from the thicket where I had established myself for the night; at the same instant a flight of vultures passed above my head, uttering discordant cries.
Novice as I still was in my new occupation, I instinctively understood that something extraordinary was passing not far from me.
I made my horse lie down, tied my girdle round his nostrils to prevent him neighing, and stretching myself on the ground, I waited with my finger on the trigger of my gun, my heart palpitating, and eye and ear on the watch. Carefully scanning the undulations of the high grass of the plain stretched out before me, I was ready for every event.
I was crouching in the middle of a nearly impenetrable thicket. On the outskirts of a wood which formed a kind of oasis in this desolate wilderness, I found myself in an excellent ambuscade, and perfectly sheltered from the danger I felt was approaching.
I did not deceive myself. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed since the venados and the urubus had given me the first hint, than the noise of a precipitate flight distinctly reached my ear. I soon perceived a horseman lying on the neck of his horse, flying with wild rapidity, and coming in a straight line towards the wood in which I was concealed.
The horseman, when he had come within twenty paces, suddenly pulled up his horse, leaped to the ground, and making a shelter of a rocky projection, shrouded by a cluster of trees, loaded his gun, and, leaning his body forward, appeared to listen to the sounds of the desert.
This man, as far as it was possible for me to assure myself of it by a hasty glance at him, appeared to belong to the white race; he was about thirty-five or forty years of age; his energetic features, animated by his rapid journey, and by emotion, were handsome, regular, stamped with a certain nobility, and uncommon boldness; his figure was rather below the middle height, but well made; his large shoulders denoted great vigour; he wore the costume of the gauchos of the Banda Oriental, a costume that I had myself adopted—a maroon jacket, a white waistcoat, a sky blue chirapa, white calzoncillos with fringe, under blue cloth trousers, a poncho thrown over the left shoulder, a knife sheathed in the girdle of the chirapa behind his back, a red Phrygian bonnet, slouched over the forehead, and allowing to escape ringlets of thick black hair, which fell in disorder on his shoulders.
Suddenly the man threw himself backward, put his knee to the ground, and shouldered his gun.