“Well,” he says, “there’s but one plan I can think of as at all likely to be successful. It may be, if dexterously managed; and I dare say we can so manage it.”
He pauses, seeming to deliberate within himself; which the two youths perceiving, refrain to ask further questions, leaving him to continue at his own time.
Which at length he does, with the odd observation:—
“One of us must become an Indian.”
“Become an Indian!” exclaims Ludwig. “What mean you by that, Gaspar?”
“I mean counterfeit a redskin; get disguised as one, and so steal into their town.”
“Ah! now, I understand. But that will be a dangerous thing to do, Gaspar. If caught—”
“Of course it will be dangerous,” interrupts the gaucho. “If caught, whoever of us it be, would no doubt get his skull crushed in by a macana, or maybe his body burnt over a slow fire. But as you see everything’s dangerous for us now, one may as well risk that danger as any other. As to counterfeiting an Indian, I propose taking the part myself; and I should be able to play it pretty well, having, as you both know, had some experience in that line. It was by a trick of the same sort I got off from the Guaycurus when I was their prisoner up the Pilcomayo; and if I hadn’t done it neatly, you shouldn’t now see me here.”
“How did you manage it?” queries Ludwig mechanically, or rather, to know how he intended doing it now.
“Well, I borrowed the costume of an ugly savage, who was set to keep guard over me, having first taken a loan of his hardwood club. The club I returned to him, in a way he wouldn’t have wished had he been awake. But he was silly enough to go to sleep, and was sleeping when I took it—ah! and slept on after I returned it—ever after. His dress I kept, and wore for more than a week—in short, till I got back to Paraguay, for I was over a week on the road. It fitted me well; so well, that with some colouring stuff I found in the fellow’s pouch, I was able to paint Indian, pass among the tents of the Guaycurus, and through a crowd of the savages themselves, without one of them suspecting the trick. In that way I slipped out of their camp and off. So, by something of the same I may be able to get the dear little niña out of this town of the Tovas.”