“Frightened them away!” exclaimed Baraja. “Carramba! I hope that may be true!”
“Will you allow me to put the fire out?” inquired the new-comer.
“Put out the fire—our only safeguard!” cried the astonished Senator.
“Your only safeguard!” repeated the trapper, equally astonished, as he pointed with his finger around him. “What! eight men wanting a fire for a safeguard against two poor tigers! You are surely making game of me!”
“Who are you, sir?” demanded Don Estevan, in a haughty tone.
“A hunter—as you see.”
“Hunter, of what?”
“My comrade and I trap the beaver, hunt the wolf, the tiger—or an Indian, if need be.”
“Heaven has sent you then to deliver us from these fierce animals,” said Cuchillo, showing himself in front.
“Not very likely,” replied the trapper, whose first impression of the outlaw was evidently an unfavourable one. “Heaven I fancy had nothing to do with it. My comrade and I at about two leagues from here chanced upon a panther and two jaguars, quarrelling over the body of a dead horse.”