Manos Duras went on smoking in silence. Finally he spat.
“They don’t want me to sell meat to the camp up here at the dam.”
“Well, they told the governor of the territory that it was you who killed those two peddlers a few months back.”
The terrible gaucho shrugged and said coldly, as if bored by this dialogue,
“Why don’t they prove what they say?”
And the dance in the “Galician’s Resort” went on until ten o’clock, this being, in a land where everyone gets up with the dawn, the equivalent of those early morning hours at which the night revels of city dwellers come to an end.
But the chief citizens of the settlement were not asleep. Nearly all of them could be found late in the evening, sitting at a desk or table somewhere, pen in hand, while scenes very different from those actually around them floated before their eyes.
Canterac, his head leaning on his arm, was looking at a little house near the Champ de Mars. In it was a woman, of rather sad expression, whose hair was turning grey, although her cheeks still had the freshness of girlhood. Two little girls sat near her at the table, and a boy, his boy, fourteen years old now, sat in his father’s place.... They were talking of him, and Canterac, sitting at his rough oak table in Patagonia, put out a hand to speak to them.... The stiff pen fell out of his hand. Smiling to himself he went on with his writing.
“And I shall see you soon. Within a few days I shall make the last payment on those debts of honor that drove me away from you.... And that I have at last cancelled them is due to you, my brave comrade, and to your wise management of the savings I have sent you. How good it will be to see you and the children....”
For the moment he had lost his expression of stern authority. This was another de Canterac, one never seen in that Patagonian settlement.