The road from Guaymas to San José runs through a parched and sandy plain, on which only a few nopales and stunted cactuses grow, whose withered branches are covered with dust, and produce the effect of white phantoms at night.
The evening of the day on which our story commences, a horseman, folded to the eyes in a zarapé, was following this road, and proceeding in a gallop to the Rancho.
The sky, of a dark azure, was studded with glistening stars; the moon, which had traversed one-third of her course, illumined the silent plain, and indefinitely prolonged the tall shadows of the trees on the naked earth.
The horseman, doubtlessly anxious to reach the end of a journey which was not without peril at this advanced hour, incessantly urged on with spur and voice his horse, which did not, however, appear to need this constantly-renewed encouragement.
He had all but crossed the immense uncultivated plains, and was just entering the woods which surround the Rancho, when his horse suddenly leaped on one side, and pricked up its ears in alarm. A sharp sound announced that the horseman had cocked his pistols; and, when this precaution had been taken against all risk, he turned an inquiring glance around.
"Fear nothing, caballero," a frank and sympathetic voice exclaimed; "but have the kindness to go a little farther to the right, if it makes no difference to you."
The stranger looked, and saw a man kneeling under his steed's feet, and holding in his hands the head of a horse, which was lying nearly across the road.
"What on earth are you doing there?" he asked.
"You can see," the other replied sorrowfully, "I am bidding good-by to my poor companion. A man must have lived a long time in the desert to appreciate the value of such a friend as he was."
"That is true," the stranger remarked, and immediately dismounting, added, "Is he dead then?"