The old hunter looked at him attentively. "Eh!" he said, at the expiration of a moment, "your idea is not a bad one; you can come if you desire it."
"That is capital, for it is a pretext ready made to explain my absence."
Don Stefano smiled, and after reminding Brighteye once again of their meeting for the following night, he left the thicket, and proceeded toward the camp. The two hunters and the half-breed were left alone.
[CHAPTER IV.]
INDIANS AND HUNTERS.
As we have already said, at the spot where the three hunters were standing, the Rio Colorado formed a wide sheet, whose silvery waters wound through a superb and picturesque country. At times, on either bank, the ground rose almost suddenly into bold mountains of grand appearance; at other places, the river ran through fresh and laughing prairies, covered with luxuriant vegetation, or graceful and undulating valleys, in which grew trees of every description.
It was in one of these valleys that Brighteye's canoe had been pulled in. Sheltered on all sides by lofty forests, which begirt them with a dense curtain of verdure, the hunters would have escaped, even during the day, from the investigations of curious or indiscreet persons, who might have attempted to surprise them at this advanced hour of the night, by the flickering rays of the moon which only reached them after being followed through the leafy dome that covered them: they could consider themselves as being perfectly secure.
Reassured by the strength of his position, Brighteye, so soon as Don Stefano had left him, formed his plan of action with that lucidity which can only be obtained from a lengthened knowledge of the desert.
"Comrade," he said to the half-breed, "do you know the desert?"