The clucking of a bird of the gallinaceous order, called the hocco—Crax alector—interrupted our discussion, and my two companions carefully proceeded towards a dark-foliaged tree, a little outside the edge of the forest. The clucking suddenly ceased; we heard the report of a gun, and I saw three of them fly away into the forest. L'Encuerado was climbing a tree when I came up, for the bird he had shot had lodged among the branches.
"Do you see the long pods which hang on that tree?" cried Lucien.
"It is a locust-tree covered with fruit," said my friend; "it is a relation of the bean and the pea."
"Are the pods eatable?" asked the child, as one fell at his feet.
"You may taste the dark pulp which surrounds the seeds—it is slightly sweet; but don't eat too much, for it is used in Europe as a medicine."
L'Encuerado dropped at our feet the great bird which Sumichrast had killed. It was larger in size than a fowl, with a crest upon its head. Its cry—a sort of clucking of which its Spanish name gives an idea—tells the traveller its whereabout, although it is ready enough in making its escape.
L'Encuerado returned to the bivouac, and Sumichrast led us along the edge of a ravine, obstructed by bushes and shaded by large trees.
We had been quietly on the watch for a minute or two, when three young wolves, of the species called by the Indians coyotes, came running by, one after the other. They were soon followed by a fourth, and then the mother herself appeared. She glared at us with her fiery eyes, and then raised a dull, yelping noise, which brought her young ones to her.
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Sumichrast, "does this wretch intend to give us a present to her children?"
I stuck my machete into the ground, so as to have it at hand; and the brute lay down on the ground, as if ready to spring.