Again a tiny fire is kindled; the kettle hung over it; and the matés, with the bombillas, called into requisition.
The breakfast is just as was their supper—cold mutton, corn bread, and yerba tea.
By the time they have despatched it, which they do in all haste, it is clear enough to permit of their taking up the trail they have been following. So, saddling their horses, they return to, and proceed along it.
As hitherto, it continues up the bank of the Pilcomayo, and at intervals they observe the tracks of Francesca’s pony, where they have not been trampled out by the other horses behind. And, as on the preceding day, they see the hoof-marks of the shod animal, both going and returning—the return track evidently the more recently made. They notice them, however, only up to a certain point—about twenty miles beyond the crossing-place of that tributary stream, now so full of sad interest to them. Here, in a grove of algarobias, they come upon the spot where those they are in pursuit of must have made their night bivouac; this told by some fragments of food lying scattered around, and the grass burnt in two places—large circular discs where their camp-fires had been kindled. The fires are out, and the ashes cold now; for that must have been two nights before.
Dismounting, they too make halt by the algarobia grove—partly to breathe their horses, which have been all the morning kept at top speed, through their anxiety to overtake the Indians—but more for the sake of giving examination to the abandoned camp, in the hope that something left there may lead to further elucidation of the crime and its causes; possibly enable them to determine, beyond doubt, who have been its perpetrators.
At first nothing is found to give them the slightest clue; only the ashes and half-burned faggots of the fires, with some bits of sipos—which have been cut from creeping plants entwining the trees overhead—the corresponding pieces, in all likelihood, having been used as rope tackle for some purpose the gaucho cannot guess. These, and the fragments of food already referred to, with some bones of birds clean picked, and the shells of a half-score ostrich eggs, are all the débris they can discover.
But none of these items give any indication as to who made bivouac there; beyond the fact, already understood and unquestioned, that they were Indians, with the further certainty of their having stayed on the spot over-night; this shown by the grass pressed down where their bodies had lain astretch; as also the circular patches browsed bare by their horses, around the picket pins which had held them.
Indians certainly; but of what tribe there is nothing on that spot to tell—neither sign nor token.
So concluding, Cypriano and Ludwig have climbed back into their saddles—the former terribly impatient to proceed—but Gaspar still stays afoot, holding his horse by the bridle at long reach, and leading the animal about from place to place, as if not yet satisfied with the search they have made. For there are spots where the grass is long, and the ground rough, overgrown also with weeds and bushes. Possibly among these he may yet discover something.
And something he does discover—a globe-shaped object lying half-hid among the weeds, about the size and colour of a cricket ball. This to you, young reader; for Gaspar knows nothing of your national game. But he knows everything about balls of another kind—the bolas—that weapon, without which a South American gaucho would feel as a crusader of the olden time lacking half his armour.