"But what is it? I saw nothing."
"Stay: look there!" he said quickly, and stretched out his arm.
The girl looked attentively, and saw what the Tigrero had noticed a few moments previously—a reddish dot sparkling in the gloom, and describing interlaced lines.
"'Tis evidently a signal," the Tigrero went on. "Somebody is concealed there."
"Do you expect anyone?" she asked him.
"No; and yet, I know not why, but I fancy that signal can only be intended for me."
"Still recollect that we are in the prairie, and probably, without suspecting it, surrounded by bands of Indian hunters. They may be corresponding with each other by means of that light which we have seen twice gleaming before our eyes."
"No, Doña Anita, you are mistaken. We are not, at any rate for the present, surrounded by any Indians: we are quite alone."
"How can you know that, my friend, since you have not left us for a moment to go and look for trails?"
"Doña Anita, my well beloved!" he said in a stern voice, "the prairie is a book on which Heaven's secrets are written in ineffaceable letters, which the man accustomed to desert life can read currently. The wind passing through the branches, the bird flying through the air, the deer or buffalo grazing on the tufted grass, the alligator slothfully wallowing in the mud, are to me certain signs in which I cannot be mistaken. For the last two days we have seen no Indian sign; the buffaloes and other animals we have passed growled calmly and without distrust; the flight of the birds was regular; the alligators almost disappeared in the mud which covered them. All these animals scent the approach of man, and especially of the Indian, for a considerable distance, and so soon as they have done so, disappear at headlong speed, so great is the terror with which the Lord of creation inspires them. I repeat to you, we are alone here, quite alone here, and therefore that signal is intended for me. See, there it is again!"