Some more enthusiastic member of the crowd would complete the exclamation in due form, hurling it out in all its classical purity, in the fashion of the rotos when they are celebrating a national holiday, or leading a bayonet charge.
“Viva Chile—”
But on the days of the horse races, the presence of strangers, especially those haughty desert riders, who were so proud of the horses they bestrode, of their saddles ornamented with silver work, and of their weapons, and the jingling metal ornaments of their attire, seemed to spread an aggressive uneasiness through the crowd, a mixture of hatred and envy, especially among those chilenos who were unmounted.
Suddenly the purring of the guitars would stop, and a noise of quarreling arise in the silence. Then came women’s shrieks, and above this sound, the animal yelp of a man mortally wounded. Silence—depths of silence. Then the crowd would scatter, leaving a man with frantic eyes and a blood soaked hand alone in the centre of the open space.
“Make way, comrades! Luck was against me....”
Silently they would stand out of his way. No one attempted to stop him, not even the comisario who was trying to get as far away from the scene of action as possible.
The crime might have been an attack against the laws established by older, and wiser generations. The brother of the stricken man or of the dead, thought of nothing for the time being than of getting the victim under ground. This was not the moment to attack the aggressor. There was time enough to go in search of the “unlucky” man, and find him, wherever he might be; then he, the avenger, would take his turn of “bad luck” and kill his man. Murder called for vengeance in due form.
When one of these incidents occurred, don Roque, in a state of great indignation, completely forgot the tavern-keeper’s generosity.
“Didn’t I tell you that all this would come to a bad end? Now we’ll hear from Buenos Aires ... and before you know it I’ll lose my job!”
But Buenos Aires spoke no word, and don Roque continued in the service. As he was the only representative of authority and as he and his colleague at Fuerte Sarmiento were in perfect agreement about certain points of policy, the dead man was properly buried, when there was a dead man; if he was no more than wounded, his gashes were allowed to heal; and of course he always swore that he had never seen the man who attacked him, and that he couldn’t recognize him if he were to meet him face to face.