This Gaspar says as they part from the barometer-tree. Following out his intention he heads his horse towards the open plain, and forsakes the Indian trail, the others following his lead.
They now go in full gallop, fast as their horses can carry them; for they have no longer any doubts about the coming on of a tormenta. The forecast given them by the flowers of the üinay is gradually being made good by what they see—a dun yellowish cloud rising against the horizon ahead. The gaucho well understands the sign, soon as he sees this recognising it as the dreaded dust-storm.
It approaches them just as it had done the Indians. First the atmosphere becoming close and hot as the interior of an oven; then suddenly changing to cold, with gusts of wind, and the sky darkening as though the sun were eclipsed.
But, unlike the others, they are not exposed to the full fury of the blast; neither are they in danger of being blinded by the sulphureous dust, nor pelted with sticks and stones. Before the storm has thus developed itself they reach the crest of the cliff overhanging the arroyo; and urging their horses down a sloping path remembered by Gaspar, they get upon the edge of the stream itself. Then, turning up it, and pressing on for another hundred yards, they arrive at the cavern’s mouth, just as the first puff of the chilly wind sweeps down the deep rut-like valley through which the arroyo runs.
“In time!” exclaims the gaucho. “Thanks to the Virgin, we’re in time! with not a second to spare,” he adds, dismounting, and leading his horse into the arching entrance, the others doing the same.
Once inside, however, they do not give way to inaction; for Gaspar well knows they are not yet out of danger.
“Come, muchachos,” he cries to them, soon as they have disposed of their animals, “there’s something more to be done before we can call ourselves safe. A tormenta’s not a thing to be trifled with. There isn’t corner or cranny in this cave the dust wouldn’t reach to. It could find its way into a corked bottle, I believe. Carramba! there it comes!”
The last words are spoken as a whiff of icy wind, now blowing furiously down the ravine, turns into the cavern’s mouth, bringing with it both dust and dry leaves.
For a moment the gaucho stands in the entrance gazing out; the others doing likewise. Little can they see; for the darkness is now almost opaque, save at intervals, when the ravine is lit up by jets of forked and sheet lightning. But much do they hear; the loud bellowing of wind, the roaring of thunder, and the almost continuous crashing of trees, whose branches break off as though they were but brittle glass. And the stream which courses past close to the cave’s mouth, now a tiny mulct, will soon be a raging, foaming torrent, as Gaspar well knows.
They stay not to see that, nor aught else. They have other work before them—the something of which the gaucho spoke, and to which he now hastily turns, crying out—