"Well, finding myself lost, I remembered the proverb of my country, and taking the cards from my alforjas, though I was alone, I began playing, feeling certain that an adversary would soon arrive, not to take a hand, but to get me out of my trouble."
White Gazelle suddenly reassumed her seriousness, and drew herself up in her saddle.
"You have won the game," she said; "for, as you see, Don Andrés Garote, I have come."
On hearing his name pronounced, the ranchero, for it was really our old acquaintance, suddenly raised his head, and looked the speaker in the face.
"Who are you, then," he said, "who know me so well, and yet I do not remember ever having met you?"
"Come, come," the girl said with a laugh, "your memory is short, master: what, do you not remember White Gazelle?"
At this name the ranchero started back.
"Oh, I am a fool: it is true; but I was so far from supposing—pardon me, señorita."
"How is it," White Gazelle interrupted him, "that you have thus deserted Red Cedar?"
"Caramba!" the ranchero exclaimed; "say that Red Cedar has deserted me; but it is not that which troubles me; I have an old grudge against another of my comrades."