Brighteye bowed in affirmation.
"Oh!" the adventurer said, "wretched man, what have you done?"
"I would not be a fratricide," Don Mariano nobly answered.
This word burst like a bombshell amid these lion-hearted men. They let their heads sink instinctively, and quivered involuntarily.
"Do not reproach this honest hunter," Don Mariano continued, "with having saved that wretch. Has he not been sufficiently punished? The lesson has been too rude for him not to profit by it. Forced to allow his defeat, bowed beneath shame and remorse, he is now wandering alone and without help beneath the omnipotent eye of God, who, when his hour arrives, will inflict on him the chastisement for his crimes. Now, Don Estevan is no longer an object of alarm to us; we shall never meet him again on our path."
"Stop!" Brighteye shouted, vehemently; "were it as you state, I should not reproach myself so greatly for having consented to obey you. No, no, Don Mariano, I ought to have refused. When the serpent is dead, the venom is dead also! Do you know what this man did? So soon as he was free, thanks to me, immediately forgetting that I was his saviour, he treacherously tried to deprive me of the life I had just restored him. Look at the gaping wound on my skull," he added, suddenly raising the bandage that surrounded his head, "here is the proof of his gratitude he left me on separating from me."
All present uttered an exclamation of horror.
Brighteye then narrated, in their fullest detail, the events which had occurred. The hunters listened attentively. When his story was ended, there was a moment of silence.
"What is to be done?" Don Miguel muttered, sorrowfully. "All must be begun afresh. There is no lack of villains on the prairie with whom this man can come to an understanding."
Don Mariano, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, remained gloomy and silent, taking no part in the discussion, recognizing in his heart the fault he had committed, but not feeling the courage to avow it, and thus assume the immense responsibility of the sentence passed by the wood rangers.