When the hacendero looked on the group behind his daughter, glancing affectionately at the padre who was so close and old an acquaintance, and curiously and not very kindly at the American whose position he recognised, and whose buckskin frock was stained with blood from the fresh lank scalp thrust into his belt until he should have time to cure it, and comb out the clotted hair into fringe for ornament, he finally rested his gaze as if spellbound on the fair complexioned European.
"Papa," said the Purest of Pearls, suddenly remembering that she stood in the place of a mistress of ceremonies, "I have the happiness to present to you the oldest of your friends, to whom I owe, as you have often told me, the bliss of being rich, with my mama. I now present him, too, as having reappeared in our world after many years—mine own lifetime, in faith, in order to save my life!"
"Don Jorge!" shouted the Mexican, rushing forward and, not to be repelled by an attempt only to clasp his hand, enfolding the bashful Briton in a powerful embrace.
"My dear old Benito!" and the Englishman could say not a word in surplus.
"Gentlemen," said the hacendero, turning to his countrymen, without caring to conceal the tears of delight upon his black moustache and beard, "I have the signal honour to introduce to you the noblest heart that ever beat in the breast of a man! My friend of friends, don Jorge Federico Gladsden."
Every head was politely bent.
"The honour falls on me," observed Gladsden. "As for the rescue of your child, it was a providential casualty that brought her across my path—the rest is all the work of this keen, resolute, prompt and fearless American whom I, too, call my friend in the same full sense in which don Benito uses it towards your humble servant."
So saying, he caught hold of the hand of the hunter and squeezed it so heartily that the latter quite forgot a little rising pain at having been rather unjustly omitted in the young lady's presentation.
"And now," said the master, "let me lead you to my wife, and my son and daughter, whom, unfortunately, we cannot relieve of grief at their loss as you have done of his parents, by the restoration of our treasured one."
"Your son! How time flies!" murmured Gladsden, "Though, for the matter of that, I have a couple of torments of my own. Only, less fortunate than you, my friend, I lost their mother long ago."