“How gallant the man is, in his way! You can’t deny that such offers as these are pleasant to hear....”
But the engineer for some reason seemed more and more irritated by the familiarity of this conversation between Elena and the cattle-rustler. Repeatedly he tried to nose his horse between the mounts of the other two, so as to put an end to the dialogue, but each time, with a gesture of impatience, Elena checked him.
Seeing that she was bent on continuing her conversation with Manos Duras he turned to Moreno; he had to express his anger to someone.
“This fellow is too presumptuous! We’ll have to give him a lesson!”
The government employee accepted without reservation the allusion to the gaucho’s presumption, but he merely shrugged at the suggestion of teaching him better. What could they do to this terrible bandit, if even the comisario had to show him a certain respect?
“You ought at least to stop them from buying his meat at the settlement. Boycott him, that’s part of the answer!”
Moreno nodded with alacrity. The suggestion was easy enough to carry out, if that was all that he would be asked to do....
Finally Elena moved on, bidding farewell to the gaucho with a coquetry excited by his emotion and the wolfish desire she saw in his eyes....
“Poor fellow! How interesting to meet him like this.”
And while the three riders went on, Manos Duras still remained motionless by the road. He wanted to look a while longer at that woman. A grave, thoughtful expression had come over his face as though he had a presentiment that this meeting, in some way or other, was to affect his life. But when Elena and her companions passed behind a hillock of sand and disappeared from his range of vision, the gaucho no longer felt the dazzling stimulation of her presence. He smiled cynically to himself while pictures of barbaric lubricity passed through his mind, driving out his doubts and restoring to him his accustomed boldness.