“Oh! bother your christening and candles,” puts in the Englishman, with a show of impatience; “we’ve something more serious to think about. You’re quite sure, Señor Vicente, that yonder eminence is the Cerro Perdido?”
“I’ve said,” laconically and somewhat gruffly answers the guide, showing slightly nettled at the doubt cast on his affirmation, and by one he supposes a stranger to the country and its ways—in short, a “gringo.”
“Then,” pursues Tresillian, “the sooner we get to it the better. It’s ten miles off, I take it.”
“Twice ten, caballero, and a trifle over.”
“What! Twenty miles? I can’t believe that.”
“If your worship had been roaming about these llanos as long as I have, you could and would,” rejoins the guide, in quiet confidence.
“Oh! if you say so, it must be. You seem to know, Señor Vicente; and should, from all I’ve heard of your skill as a path-finder. That you’re good at finding gold we have the proofs.”
“Mil gracias, Don Roberto,” returns the gambusino, with a bow, his amour propre appeased by the complimentary speech; “I’ve no doubt about the distance, for I’m not trusting to guesswork. I’ve been over this ground before, and remember that big palmilla.” He points to a tree at some distance, with stout stem, and a bunch of bayonet-like leaves on its summit—a species of yucca, of which there are several straggled over the plain, but this one taller than any. Then adds, “If your worship doubts my word, ride up to it, and you’ll see a P and V carved in the bark, the initials of your humble servant. It was done to commemorate the occasion of my first setting eyes on the Cerro Perdido.”
“But I don’t doubt your word,” says Tresillian, smiling at the odd memento in such an out-of-the-way place; “certainly not.”
“Then, señor, let me assure you that from it to the mountain is all of twenty miles, and we’ll do well if we get there before sun-down.”