"I have been gone a long time."
"More than an hour."
"It was not my fault. Just fancy, down there it is as dark as in an oven. I had great difficulty in finding our friend's body; but, thanks to heaven, it is now in the ground, and protected from the teeth of the coyotes and the other vermin of the prairie."
Don Miguel took his hand and pressed it tenderly, while tears of gratitude ran down his cheeks.
"Valentine," he said, with great emotion. "You are better than all of us; you think of everything; no circumstance, however grave it may be, can make you forget what you regard in the light of a duty. Thanks, my friend, thanks, for having placed in the ground the poor general's body; you have made me very happy."
"That will do," Valentine said, as he turned his head away, not to let the emotion he felt in spite of himself, be noticed; "suppose we feed? I am fearfully hungry; the sun is rising, and we have not yet quitted that frightful labyrinth in which we so nearly left our bones."
The hunters set down round the fire, and began sharply attacking the meal that awaited them. When they had finished eating, which did not take long, thanks to Valentine, who continually urged them to take double mouthfuls, they rose and prepared to start again.
"Let us pay great attention, caballeros," the hunter said to them, "and carefully look around us, for I am greatly mistaken if we do not find a trail within an hour."
"What makes you suppose so?"
"Nothing, I have found no sign," Valentine answered, with a smile; "but I feel a foreboding that we shall soon find the man we have been seeking so long."