It is plainly impossible for them to cross over there; and, without waiting to reflect further, the gaucho so pronounces it; saying to the others, who have remained silently watching him:—
“Well, we’ve got over a good many streams in our morning’s ride, but this one beats us. We can’t set foot on the other side—not here, at all events.”
“Why?” demands Cypriano.
“Because, as you can see, señorito, that water’s too deep for wading.”
“But what of that? We can swim it, can’t we?”
“True, we could; all that and more, so far as the swimming goes. But once in there, how are we to get out again? Look at yonder bank. Straight up as a wall, and so smooth a cat couldn’t climb it, much less our horses; and no more ourselves. If ’twere a matter of wading we might; but, as I can see, all along yonder edge it’s just as deep as in mid-stream; and failing to get out, we’d have to keep on plunging about, possibly in the end to go under. Carramba! we mustn’t attempt to make a crossing here.”
“Where then?” demands Cypriano, in torture at this fresh delay, which may last he knows not how long.
“Well,” rejoins the gaucho, reflectingly, “I think I know of a place where we may manage it. There’s a ford which can’t be very far from this; but whether it’s above or below, for the life of me I can’t tell, everything’s so changed by that detestable tormenta, and the ugly coat of plaster it has laid over the plain! Let me see,” he adds, alternately turning his eyes up stream and down, “I fancy it must be above; and now I recollect there was a tall tree, a quebracha, not far from the ford. Ha!” he exclaims, suddenly catching sight of it, “there’s the bit of timber itself! I can tell it by that broken branch on the left side. You see that, don’t you, hijos mios?”
They do see the top of a solitary tree with one branch broken off, rising above the plain at about two miles’ distance; and they can tell it to be the well-known species called quebracha—an abbreviation of quebrahacha, or “axe-breaker,” so named from the hardness of its wood.
“Whether it be by wading or swimming,” Gaspar remarks in continuance, “we’ll get over the riacho up yonder, not far from that tree. So, let’s on to it, señoritos!”