At this moment the sun set in floods of purple and gold far away in the horizon behind the snow-clad peaks of the lofty mountains of the Sierra Madre, and night soon stretched her black cerecloth over the earth.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
A NIGHT JOURNEY.
Events have so multiplied during the course of this night, that to keep headway with the incidents, we are compelled to pass incessantly from one person to another.
Don Martial was rich—very rich—eager for excitement, and endowed with warlike instincts. He had only embraced the profession of Tigrero in order to have a plausible excuse for his constant travels in the desert, which he had passed his whole life in travelling in every direction.
The Tigreros are generally wood rangers or old hunters, who, for a certain salary and a premium on each hide, engage with a hacendero to kill the wild beasts that decimate his herds. What others did for money, he performed simply for pleasure; hence he was greatly liked on the frontiers, and especially welcomed by all the hacenderos, who found in him not only the clever and daring hunter, but also the boon companion and the caballero.
Don Martial saw Doña Anita for the first time when the chances of his adventurous life had led him to a hacienda belonging to Don Sylva, where, within the space of a month, he killed some dozen wild beasts. As the Tigrero constantly watched the young girl, whom he could not see without falling madly in love with, it happened that one day, when Anita's horse ran away, he was near enough to save her at the peril of his own life. It was through this event that the girl first noticed and spoke to him. We know the rest.
Cucharés was not at all pleased with the sudden departure from the island. He inwardly cursed the folly which made him attach himself to a man like him he now followed, who might expose him at any moment to the chances of getting an arrow through his body, without any profit or available excuse. Still Cucharés was not the man to feel long angry with the Tigrero. He knew that grave reasons alone could have induced him to leave a shelter at that hour of the night, resign the aid of the hunters, and go wandering about the desert without any apparent object. He burned to know the reasons; but he knew that Don Martial was no great talker, and had a great objection to having his secrets spied out; and as, in spite of all his bounce, he entertained a great respect for the Tigrero, mingled with a decent amount of fear, he deferred to a more favourable moment the numerous questions he longed to ask him.
The two men, then, marched on side by side silently, allowing the reins to hang on their horses' heads, and each indulging in his own reflections. Still Cucharés remarked that Don Martial, instead of seeking the cover of the forest, obstinately followed the river bank, and kept his horse as close to it as possible.