“Oh! I am satisfied if you are,” growled Cuchillo, like a dog whose master had hindered him from biting some one, “quite satisfied,” he continued, “but perhaps hereafter—”
“I shall see this young man,” said the Spaniard, interrupting him, and advancing in the direction where Tiburcio stood, while Cuchillo followed, talking to himself:
“What the devil possessed him to ask how long I had owned my horse? Let me see! the animal stumbled, I remember, and it was just then he dismounted and threatened me. I can’t understand it, but I suspect what I do not understand.”
When Arechiza and Cuchillo reached the camp, an excitement was observed among the horses, that gathered around the capitansa, at a short distance from the fire, and to all appearance in a state of extreme terror, were uttering a wild and continuous neighing. Some danger yet afar, but which the animals’ instincts enabled them to perceive, was the cause of this sudden stampede.
“It is some jaguar they have scented,” suggested one of the domestics.
“Bah!” replied another, “the jaguars attack only young foals—they wouldn’t dare to assault a strong vigorous horse.”
“Do you think so?” demanded the first speaker. “Ask Benito here, who, himself, lost a valuable animal taken by the jaguars.”
Benito, hearing this reference to himself, advanced towards the two speakers.
“One day,” he began, “or rather, one night just like this, I chanced to be at a distance from the Hacienda del Venado, where I was a vaquero at the time. I was in search of a strayed horse, and not finding him, had made up my mind to pass the night at the spring of Ojo da Agua. I tied my horse at a good distance off—where there was better grass—and I was sleeping, as a man sleeps after riding twenty leagues, when I was suddenly awakened by all the howlings and growlings of the devils. The moon shone so clear you might have fancied it daylight. All at once my horse came galloping toward me with the lazo hanging round his neck, which he had broken at the risk of hanging himself.
“‘Here then,’ said I, ‘I shall now have two horses to go in search of instead of one.’