“Miss them! Por Dios! how?” cried the second trapper. “Caspita! If I had not been afraid to frighten off one of the beasts, I could have killed the other long ago. Several times I had him at the muzzle of my carbine, when the signal of my comrade hindered me from firing. Miss them indeed!”
“Never mind!” interrupted the great trapper; “we shall end the matter, I have no doubt, by convincing this gentleman.”
“You already knew, then, that we were here?” said Baraja.
“Of course. We have been two hours involuntarily playing the spy upon you. Ah! I know a part of the country where travellers that take no more precautions than you would soon find their heads stripped of the skin. But come, Dormilon! to our work!”
“What if the jaguars come our way?” suggested the Senator, apprehensively.
“No fear of that,” replied the trapper. “Their first care will be to satisfy their thirst, which your fire has hindered them from doing. You will hear them howling with joy, as soon as they perceive that the fire is gone out. It was the light shining upon the water that frightened them more than the presence of men. All they want now is to get a drink.”
“But how do you intend to act?” inquired Don Estevan.
“How do we intend to act?” repeated the second trapper. “That is simple enough. We shall place ourselves in the cistern—the jaguars will come forward to its brink; and then, if we are only favoured by a blink of the moon, I’ll answer for it that in the twinkling of an eye the brutes will neither feel hunger nor thirst.”
“Ah, this appears very simple!” cried Cuchillo, who was in reality astonished at the simplicity of the plan.
“Simple as bidding ‘good-bye’ to you,” humorously responded one of the trappers. “Listen there!—what did I tell you?”