And now the Tovas youths, their naked skins well washed by the shower, and glistening like bronze fresh from the furnace—some of them, however, bleeding from the scratches they have received—spring upon their feet, re-adjust the jergas on the backs of their horses, and once more remount.
Then their young chief, by the side of the captive girl, having returned to his place at their head, they forsake that spot of painful experience, and continue their journey so unexpectedly interrupted.
Chapter Twenty Five.
A Rush for Shelter.
It is scarce necessary to say, that the storm that over took the Indian party was the same of which the barometer-tree had given warning to Gaspar and his young companions. But although many a long league separated the Indians from those following upon their trail, and it would take the latter at least another day to reach the spot where the former had met the tormenta, both were beset by it within less than half-an-hour of the same time. The Indians first, of course, since it came from the quarter towards which all were travelling, and therefore in the teeth of pursuers as pursued.
But the trackers were not called upon to sustain its shock, as those they were tracking up. Instead of its coming upon them in an exposed situation, before its first puffs became felt they were safe out of harm’s way, having found shelter within the interior of a cavern. It was this Gaspar alluded to when saying, he knew of a place that would give them an asylum. For the gaucho had been twice over this ground before—once on a hunting excursion in the company of his late master; and once at an earlier period of his life on an expedition of less pleasant remembrance, when, as a captive himself, he was carried up the Pilcomayo by a party of Guaycuru Indians, from whom he was fortunate in making escape.
His knowledge of the cave’s locality, however, was not obtained during his former and forced visit to the district they are now traversing; but in that made along with the hunter-naturalist; who, partly out of curiosity, but more for geological investigation, had entered and explored it.
“It’s by the bank of a little arroyo that runs into the Pilcomayo, some three or four miles above the big river. And, as I take it, not much further from where we are now. But we must make a cross-cut to reach it in the quickest time.”