"Good," Valentine remarked, "that is excellent reasoning. Are we far from the place?"
"No, twenty to twenty-five miles at the most; we shall be there by sunset."
"We will start then," Valentine added.
The gentlemen leaped into their saddles, and started at a gallop in the direction of the mountains. A few minutes later, the spot had returned to its usual calmness and silence. Nothing was left to prove that man had passed that way, save a few mutilated corpses over which the vultures were already beginning to circle with hoarse croaking before they settled upon them.
[CHAPTER IV.]
RED CEDAR AT BAY.
The six men rode one after the other, following one of those inextricable tracks made by the wild beasts, which cross the desert in every direction. Bloodson served as guide to the little party, followed immediately by Curumilla. The Indian chief, with the genius peculiar to his race, advanced silently as usual, but casting right and left peering glances, which nothing escaped, and which render the redskins peculiar beings.
All at once Curumilla dismounted, and bent over the ground, uttering an exclamation of surprise. This was so extraordinary a fact, and so contrary to the habits of the Ulmen of the Araucanos, that Valentine hurried up to enquire what had happened.
"What's the matter with you, chief?" he asked, as soon as he came up with him.