“What creatures?” demanded Tiburcio.
“Human creatures!” answered the ex-herdsman. “American hunters from the north.”
“Trappers do you mean?”
“Precisely. There are no people in these parts likely to be so fearless of the jaguar, and I am pretty sure that what appears to be the call of the prairie wolf is nothing else than a signal uttered by a brace of trappers. They are in pursuit of the jaguars; they have separated, and by these signals they acquaint one another of their whereabouts.”
Meanwhile the trappers, if such they were, appeared to advance with considerable precaution; for although the party by the fire listened attentively, not the slightest noise could be heard—neither the cracking of a branch, nor the rustling of a leaf.
“Hilloa! you by the fire there!” all at once broke out from the midst of the darkness a loud rough voice, “we are approaching you. Don’t be afraid; and don’t fire your guns!”
The voice had a foreign accent, which partly confirmed the truth of the vaquero’s conjecture, and the appearance of the speaker himself proved it to a certainty.
We shall not stay to describe the singular aspect of the new arrival—further than to say that he was a man of herculean stature, and accoutred in the most bizarre fashion. He appeared a sort of giant armed with a rifle—proportioned to his size—that is, having a barrel of thick heavy metal nearly six feet in length.
As he approached the group his sharp eye soon took in the different individuals that composed it, and rested with a satisfied look on the form of Tiburcio.
“The devil take that fire of yours!” he said abruptly, but in a tone of good-humour. “It has frightened away from us two of the most beautiful jaguars that ever roamed about these deserts.”