No secrets existed between Don Miguel and the hunters: they read in his mind as in an ever open book. They were the disinterested confidants of his plans; for these rude wood rangers esteemed him, and only required for themselves one thing—the liberty of the desert. Still, despite the sympathy and friendship which so closely connected these different persons, and the confidence which formed the basis of that friendship, Don Miguel and his children had never been able to obtain from the hunters information as to the events that had passed prior to their arrival in this country.
Frequently Don Miguel, impelled, not by curiosity, but merely by the interest he felt in them, had tried, by words cleverly thrown into the conversation, to give them an opening for confidence; but Valentine had always repelled those hints, though cleverly enough for Don Miguel not to feel offended by this want of confidence. With Curumilla they had been even more simple. Wrapped in his Indian stoicism, intrenched in his habitual sullenness, he was wont to answer all questions by a shake of the head, but nothing further.
At length, weary of the attempt, the hacendero and his family had given up trying to read those secrets which their friends seemed obstinately determined to keep from them. Still the friendship subsisting between them had not grown cold in consequence, and it was always with equal pleasure that Don Miguel met the hunters again after a lengthened ramble in the prairies, which kept them away from his house for whole months at a time.
The hunter and the Mexican were seated by the fire, while Curumilla, armed with his scalping knife, was busy flaying the two jaguars so skillfully killed by Don Miguel, and which were magnificent brutes.
"Eh, compadre!" Don Miguel said with a laugh; "I was beginning to lose patience, and fancy you had forgotten the meeting you had yourself given me."
"I never forgot anything, as you know," Valentine answered seriously; "and if I did not arrive sooner, it was because the road is long from my jacal to this clearing."
"Heaven forbid that I should reproach you, my friend! Still I confess to you that the prospect of passing the night alone in this forest only slightly pleased me, and I should have been off had you not arrived before sunset."
"You would have done wrong, Don Miguel: what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance to you. Who knows what the result might have been had I not been able to warn you?"
"You alarm me, my friend."
"I will explain. In the first place let me tell you that you committed, a few days back, a grave imprudence, whose consequences threaten to be most serious for you."