“Well, I have often told you,” said the latter, “that when one is on the trace of an enemy, whether it be an Indian or a white, one is pretty sure of coming on his tracks somewhere.”
“Yes,” rejoined the Canadian; “but you forgot that we shall just have time to reach Arispe, to receive the pay for our two years’ campaign; besides, by our not going to the hacienda, we lose the bounty upon these three skins, and miss selling them besides.”
“I never forget my interests,” replied the other; “no more than I do the vows which I make: and the best proof of it is, that twenty years ago I made one which I believe I shall now be able to accomplish. We can always force them to pay us what is due at Arispe, and we shall find many an opportunity of getting rid of the skins: but the chance which has turned up in the middle of these deserts, of bringing me in contact with the man against whom I have sworn vengeance may not offer again during my whole lifetime.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the Canadian, “vengeance is like many other kinds of fruit, sweet till you have tasted it, and afterwards bitter as gall.”
“For all that, Señor Bois-Rose, you do not appear to practise your own doctrine with the Apaches, Sioux, Crows, and other Indians with whom you are at enmity! Your rifle has cracked many a skull—to say nothing of the warriors you have ripped open with your knife!”
“Oh! that is different, Pepé. Some of these would have robbed me of my peltries—others would have taken my scalp, and came very near doing so, as you see—besides, it is blessed bread to clear the prairies of these red vermin; but I have never sought to revenge myself against one of my own race and colour. I never hated one of my own kind sufficiently to kill him.”
“Ah! Bois-Rose; it is just those of one’s own race we hate most—that is when they have given us the reason for doing so—and this man has furnished me with such motives to hate him as can never be forgotten. Twenty years have not blunted my desire for vengeance; though, on account of the great distance that separated us, I supposed I should never find an opportunity of fulfilling my vow. Strange it is that two men, with relations like ours, should turn up together in the middle of these desert plains. Well! strange though it be, I do not intend to let the chance escape me.”
Pepé appeared to have fixed his resolution upon this matter, and so firmly that his companion saw the folly of attempting to dissuade him by any further advice. The Canadian, moreover, was of an easy disposition, and readily yielded to the arguments of a friend.
“After all,” said he, “perhaps, if I fully understood your motives, I might entirely approve of the resolution you have made.”
“I can give them in two words,” rejoined he whom the Canadian was addressing as Pepé. “It is just twenty years, as I have already told you, since I was a carabinier in the service of her Catholic majesty. I should have been content with my position and the amount of pay, had it only been paid which unfortunately it was not. We were obliged to do the duty of coast-guard as well, and this would have done well enough had there been any smuggling, with the capture of which we might have indemnified ourselves; but there was none. What a fool a smuggler would have been to have ventured on a coast, guarded by two hundred fellows at their wits’ end with hunger! Well, then I reasoned that if any smuggler was to land it could only be with the concurrence of our captain, and I suspected that the captain would make no objection to such an arrangement—for he himself was, like the rest of us, a creditor of the government. In such case he would cast around among us for the man in whom he could most confide, and that would be he who was noted as being most careless upon his post. I resolved, therefore, to become the captain’s confidential sentry.