“Now what?” shouted the astonished Englishman. As he turned to look back, the sound of approaching horses caught his ear, and he saw an Indian and three Gauchos riding at full speed, followed closely by a man who rode like a European. They wheeled for the 326 valley at once, and reached it long before the fleeing Indian, who turned back shrieking towards Hinchcliff.
“Shoot, Señor; for the love of all the Saints; shoot them dead; they are bad men,” he gasped in an agonised voice.
This was rather a large call on a man who came from a country where to shoot people is a capital crime; but the piteous appeal for help in the fugitive’s face was irresistible. If an Englishman is averse to taking pot-shots at strangers, he is generally quite as loth to see the weaker side go to the wall. While he was asking himself what was the best thing to do, the foremost Gaucho made a sudden motion with his arm, the noose of a lasso dropped over the Indian’s head, and he was jerked over on to his back. At sight of the bulging eyes of the half-strangled victim, Hinchcliff pulled out his knife and was about to slash the thong through, when the second Gaucho, springing to the ground, flung himself in the way and presented a pistol.
“We are acting under orders,” he said. “Be careful what you do.—All right; loose him and tie his hands, Juan.”
“You are sure that’s your man?” asked the European stranger, hurrying up. He had spoken in such execrable Spanish, that Hinchcliff said unceremoniously:
“Englishman, aren’t you?”
“Yes; I am British vice-consul for this district. Question for question—is this a friend of yours?”
“No; merely a paid guide; but——”
“Then you don’t know that he is the cleverest 327 thief and prison-breaker in Uruguay, if what these fellows say is true. I only met them by accident a little higher up; but I know it’s a fact that an Indian prisoner broke loose from San José gaol the other day.”
“There’s no mistaking him,” said the man who was binding the prisoner. “But let the tracker decide.” (A “tracker” is an Indian who hires himself out as a sort of blood-hound, to catch horse-thieves, stray cattle, etc.) “He knows him well enough.”