The others also perceive this, they too, having halted, and faced to eastward.
“Santissima!” continues the gaucho in the same serious tone, “we’re lost as it is now!”
“But how lost?” inquires Ludwig, who, with his more limited experience of pampas life, is puzzled to understand what the gaucho means. “In what way?”
“Just because there’s no may. That’s the very thing we’ve lost, señorito. Look around! Now, can you tell east from west, or north from south? No, not a single point of the compass. If we only knew one, that would be enough. But we don’t, and, therefore, as I’ve said, we’re lost—dead, downright lost; and, for anything beyond this, we’ll have to go a groping. At a crawl, too, like three blind cats.”
“Nothing of the sort!” breaks in Cypriano, who, a little apart from the other two, has been for the last few seconds to all appearance holding communion with himself. “Nothing of the sort,” he repeats riding towards them with a cheerful expression. “We’ll neither need to go groping, Gaspar, nor yet at a crawl. Possibly, we may have to slacken the pace a bit; but that’s all.”
Both Ludwig and the gaucho, but especially the latter, sit regarding him with puzzled looks. For what can he mean? Certainly something which promises to release them from their dilemma, as can be told by his smiling countenance and confident bearing. In fine, he is asked to explain himself, and answering, says:—
“Look back along our trail. Don’t you see that it runs straight?”
“We do,” replies Gaspar, speaking for both. “In a dead right line, thank the sun for that; and I only wish we could have had it to direct us a little longer, instead of leaving us in the lurch as it has done. But go on, señorito! I oughtn’t to have interrupted you.”
“Well,” proceeds the young Paraguayan, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t still travel in that same right line—since we can.”
“Ha!” ejaculates the gaucho, who has now caught the other’s meaning, “I see the whole thing. Bravo, Señor Cypriano! You’ve beaten me in the craft of the pampas. But I’m not jealous—no. Only proud to think my own pupil has shown himself worthy of his teacher. Gracias a Dios!”