the daughter reanimated the energy of her father and the rest. If she did not succeed in reviving hope in their breasts, at all events she aroused in them sufficient spirit to encounter the necessary struggle before them. The final words of this young creature put a stop to all hesitation, and completed the happy reaction she had excited in their minds.
"Our friends," said she, "on finding we do not arrive, will suspect our misfortune, and devote themselves immediately to a search for us. Don Estevan, to whom all the secrets of the wilderness are known, will infallibly recover our trail. Our position, therefore, is far from desperate. Let us not abandon ourselves, if we do not wish God to abandon us. Let us go: soon I hope we shall find our way out of the forest, and see the sun once more."
So they began their march.
Unfortunately it is impossible to find the right direction in a virgin forest, unless we are well acquainted with the localities, – the forests, where all the trees are alike, where there is no visible horizon, and where the only available knowledge is the instinct of the brute, not the reason of man. Thus the travellers wandered at random the whole day long, always turning, without knowing it, in the same circle, travelling far without advancing, and vainly seeking to find a road which was not in existence.
Don Pedro endeavoured to discover a reason why the men who had stolen their horses should have abandoned them in this inextricable labyrinth; why they had been thus callously condemned to an agonising death; and who the enemy might be who had cruelly conceived a plan of such atrocious revenge. But the hacendero racked his brains in vain for even a surmise. His mind suggested no one on whom suspicion could rest as the probable author of this unqualified crime.
All the morning the travellers continued their devious course: the sun went down, the day gave way to night, and they were still toiling on, wandering mechanically without any fixed direction, now to the right, now to the left; struggling on more in the endeavour to escape from their thoughts by physical fatigue, than in the hope of emerging from the forest – their horrible prison.
Doña Hermosa uttered no complaint. Cool and resolute, she pushed forward with a firm step, encouraging her companions by voice and gesture, and still finding spirit enough to chide and shame them for their want of perseverance.
All of a sudden she uttered a cry of pain. She had been bitten by a snake. This fresh misfortune, which should have apparently completed the travellers' despair, on the contrary, excited them to such a pitch, that they forgot all else, except how to think for and to save her whom they called their guardian angel.
But human strength has limits, beyond which it may not go. The travellers, overcome by fatigue and their poignant emotions during their wanderings, and convinced, besides, of the inutility of their efforts, were on the point of yielding to their despair, when God placed them suddenly face to face with the hunter.
CHAPTER V
CONFIDENTIAL CHAT
After conducting his guests to the compartment of the teocali which he had appointed for them, the Tigercat retraced his steps, and turned in the direction of a sufficiently ample excavation, which served for his own particular abode.
The old man walked at a slow pace, with his head raised, and his brow wrinkled under the tension of mighty thoughts. The flame of the torch he held in his right hand played capriciously over his countenance, revealing a strange expression on his features, where hate, joy, and uneasiness reflected themselves by turns.
When he arrived at his cuarto (bedchamber), – if it is right to give the name chamber to a kind of hole ten feet square by seven feet high, which contained as furniture a few skulls of the bison dispersed here and there, with a handful of maize-straw negligently thrown into a corner, and serving, no doubt, as couch for the inhabitants of this sorry refuge, – the Tigercat fixed his ocote torch in a bracket of iron made fast to the wall, crossed his arms on his breast, lifted his eyes with an air of defiance, and muttered the words:
"At last!"
Doubtless these words summed up in his thoughts a long series of dark and bold combinations.
After pronouncing these words, the old man cast a searching glance around him, as if he dreaded having been overheard. A mocking smile passed across his pale lips; he sat down on a bison's skull, and, burying his face in his hands, plunged into profound meditation.
A long time elapsed before he changed his position. At last, a slight noise fell on his ear: he lifted his head with a start, and turned towards the entrance to his cell.
"Come in!" he shouted. "I have waited for you with impatience."
"I think not!" replied a powerful voice; and the young hunter appeared at the threshold, where he stopped, holding his head erect, and looking proud and daring.
A shade crossed the forehead of the Tigercat.
"Ah, ha!" cried he, with pretended gaiety. "In truth, I was not expecting you, muchacho (boy); but never mind; you are welcome."
"Is that wish truly in your thoughts at this moment?" sneered the other.
"And why should it not be in my thoughts? Am I in the habit of disguising them?"
"It is a useful habit under particular circumstances."
"A truth I do not deny; but not in this case. Come in; sit down, and let us talk."
"I comply," answered the hunter, taking a few steps forward, "particularly as I have to demand an explanation from you."
The Tigercat frowned, and replied, with rising and ill-suppressed anger:
"Is it to me you speak thus? Have you forgotten who I am?"
"I forget nothing that I ought to remember," concisely replied the other.
"Boy! Have you forgotten that I am your father?"
"My father! Who will prove it?"
"You are over-venturesome," cried the old man in ire.
"After all," said the hunter scornfully, "it is nothing to me whether you be my father or not. What does it matter? Have you not told me a thousand times over, that bonds of relationship do not exist in nature; that they are only a factitious sentiment, invented by human egotism for the profit of the petty exigencies of debased society? Here, we are only two men, equals in strength and courage; of whom the one comes to demand from the other a clear and unvarnished explanation."
While the hunter was speaking, the old man fixed upon him a look which flashed fire from under his half-closed eyelids. When he ceased, the Tigercat smiled ironically.
"The wolf's cub feels he is cutting his teeth, and wants to bite his fosterer."
"He will devour him without hesitation, if it be needful," fiercely replied the hunter, as he let the butt end of the heavy rifle he carried in his hand fall violently on the ground.
Instead of being lashed into a fury by a menace uttered so peremptorily, the Tigercat suddenly became calm. His austere features lighted up with an expression of good nature which rarely visited them. Clapping his large hands together gaily, he exclaimed, with an air of lively satisfaction:
"Well roared, my lion's whelp! ¡Vive Dios! You deserve your name, Stoneheart! The more I see of you, the more I love you. I am proud of you, muchacho; for you are my handiwork, and I congratulate myself on my success in producing so complete a monster. Go on as you have begun, my son:
