Aguara’s brow blackens, and his dark Indian eyes seem to emit sparks of fire.
“Cypriano shall never have her!” he exclaims in a tone of angry determination.
“How can you help it, amigo?” interrogates his tempter. “That is, supposing the two are inclined for one another. As you know, her father is not only a paleface, but a gringo, with prejudices of blood far beyond us Paraguayans, who are half-Indian ourselves. Ah! and proud of it too. Being such, he would never consent to give his daughter in marriage to a red man—make a squaw of her, as he would scornfully call it. No, not even though it were the grandest cacique in the Chaco. He would see her dead first.”
“Indeed!” exclaims the Indian, with a disdainful toss of the head.
“Indeed, yes,” asseverates Valdez. “And whether they remain under your protection, or be taken back to Paraguay, ’twill be all the same as regards the señorita. There’s but one way I know of to hinder her from becoming the wife of her cousin Cypriano, and that is—”
“What?” impatiently asks Aguara.
“To separate them. Let father, mother, son, and nephew be taken back to where they belong; the niña to stay behind.”
“But how can that be done?”
“You mean without your showing your hand in it?” asks Valdez, in a confidential whisper.
“I do. For know, Señor Rufino, that, though I’m now chief of our tribe, and those we have with us here will do as I bid them—obey me in anything—still the elders have control, and might make trouble if I did aught to injure the friend of my late father. I am not free, and dare not act as you propose.”