alone, or in small bands, at the most of four, incessantly traverse the Far West, which they explore in its most mysterious depths, for the purpose of hunting, trapping, or discovering the numberless gold veins it contains in its bosom.
The adventurers halted, dismounted, fastened their horses to picket ropes, and began immediately, with that skill and quickness only attained by long habit, making their preparations to bivouac. The grass was pulled up over a considerable extent of ground; the baggage, piled up in a circle, formed a breastwork, behind which a sudden attack of the desert marauders might be resisted; and then fires were lighted in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross in the interior of the camp.
When all this had been attended to, some of the adventurers put up a large tent above a palanquin hermetically closed, which was carried by two mules, one before and one behind. When the tent was pitched, the mules were taken out of the palanquin, and the curtains, in falling, covered it so completely, that it was entirely concealed.
This palanquin was a riddle to the adventurers. No one knew what it contained, though the general curiosity was singularly aroused on the subject of a mystery so specially incomprehensible in this deserted country; each kept carefully to himself the opinions he had formed about it – above all, since the day when, in the midst of a difficult piece of country, and during the momentary absence of the chief of the Cuadrilla, who usually never left the palanquin, which he guarded like a miser does his treasure, a hunter leaned over and slightly opened one of the curtains; but the man had scarce time to take a furtive peep through the opening, ere the chief, suddenly coming up, split his skull open with a blow of his machete, and laid him dead at his feet. Then he turned to the terrified witnesses, and said calmly, – "Is there another among you who would like to discover what I think proper to keep secret?"
These words were uttered in such a tone of implacable raillery and furious cruelty, that these villains, for the most part without faith or law, and accustomed to brave, with a laugh, the greatest perils, felt an internal shudder, and their blood stagnated in their veins. This lesson had been sufficient. No one tried afterwards to discover the captain's secret.
The final arrangements had been scarcely made for the encampment, ere the sound of horses was heard, and two horsemen arrived at a gallop.
"Here is the Captain," the adventurers said to each other.
The newcomers gave their reins to men who ran up to receive them, and walked hastily toward the tent. On arriving there, the first stopped and addressed his companion: – "Caballero," he said to him, "you are welcome among us; although very poor ourselves, we will gladly share the little we possess with you."
"Thanks," the second said, with a bow, "I will not abuse your gracious hospitality; tomorrow, at sunrise, I think I shall be sufficiently rested to continue my journey."
"You will act as you think proper: seat yourself by this fire prepared for us, while I go for a few moments into that tent. I will soon rejoin you, and have the honour of keeping you company."
The stranger bowed, and took his place by the fire, lighted a short distance from the tent, while the captain let the curtain he had lifted fail behind him, and disappeared from his guest's sight.
The latter was a man of marked features, his stalwart limbs denoting a far from ordinary strength; the few wrinkles that furrowed his energetic face served to indicate that he had already passed midlife, though no trace of decrepitude was visible on his solidly-built body, and not a white hair silvered his long and thick locks, which were black as a raven's wing. He wore the costume of the rich Mexican hacenderos, that is to say, the mança; the zarapé, of many colours; the velvet calzoneras, open at the knee, and botas vaqueras; his hat, of vicuna skin, gallooned with gold, was drawn in by a rich toquilla, fastened with a costly diamond; a sheathless machete hung from his right hip, merely passed through an iron ring: the barrels of two six-chambered revolvers shone in his waist belt, and he had thrown on the grass by his side an American rifle, beautifully damascened with silver.
When the Captain left him alone, this man, while installing himself before the fire in the most comfortable way possible, that is to say, arranging his zarapé and water bottles to serve as a bed, if necessary, had cast a furtive glance around, whose expression would, doubtless, have supplied the adventurers with serious matter of thought had they been able to notice it; but all were busied in getting the bivouac snug, and preparations for supper; and trusting entirely in the loyalty of prairie hospitality, they did not at all dream of watching what the stranger seated at their fire was about.
The unknown, after a few moments' reflection, rose and walked up to a party of trappers, whose conversation seemed very animated, and who were gesticulating with that fire natural to southern races.
"Eh!" one of them said, on noticing the stranger, "this señor will set us right with a word."
The latter, thus directly appealed to, turned toward the speaker.
"What is the matter, caballeros?" he asked.
"Oh, a very simple matter," the adventurer made answer; "your horse, a noble and handsome animal, I must allow, señor, will not associate with others; it stamps its feet and bites at the companions we have given it."
"Oh, that is, indeed, simple enough," a second adventurer remarked, with a grin; "that horse is a costeño, and too proud to associate with poor tierras interiores like our horses."
At this singular reason, all burst into an Homeric laugh. The stranger smiled cunningly.
"It may be the reason you state, or perhaps some other," he said gently; "at any rate, there is a very simple way of settling the dispute, which I will employ."
"Ah!" the second speaker said, "what is it?"
"This," the stranger replied, with the same air of placidity.
Then, walking up to the horse, which two men had a difficulty in holding, he said, – "Let go!"
"But if we let go, nobody knows what will happen."
"Let go! I answer for all then," addressing his horse, – "Lillo!" he said.
At this name, the horse raised its noble head, and fixing its sparkling eye on the man who had called it, with a sharp and irresistible movement, it threw off the two men who tried to check it, sent them rolling on the grass, to the shouts of their comrades, and rubbed its head against its master's chest with a neigh of pleasure.
"You see," the stranger said, as he patted the noble animal, "it is not difficult."
"Hum!" the first adventurer who picked himself up said, in an angry tone, and rubbing his shoulder; "that is a demonio to which I would not entrust my skin, old and wrinkled as it is at present."
"Do not trouble yourself any further about the horse, I will attend to it."
"On the faith of Domingo, I have had enough, for my part; 'tis a noble brute, but it has a fiend inside it."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders without replying, and returned to the fire, followed by his horse, which paced step by step behind him, not evincing the slightest wish to indulge further in those eccentricities which had so greatly astonished the adventurers, who are, however, all men well versed in the equine art. This horse was a pure barb of Arab stock, and had probably cost its present owner an enormous sum, and its pace seemed strange to men accustomed to American horses. Its master gave it provender, hobbled it near him, and then sat down again by the fire: at the same instant the Captain appeared in the entrance of the tent.
"I beg your pardon," he said, with that charming courtesy natural to the Hispano-Americans;
