Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco. Reid Mayne

      Hearkening a little longer, he hears the sound again, apparently further off, and as his practised ear tells him, the distance increasing.

      “It must be his horse,” he reiterates, still continuing to listen. “And who but he on the animal’s back? Going off? Yes; slowly enough. No wonder at that. Ha! he’s come to a halt. What’s the best thing for me to do?”

      He sits silently considering, but only for a few seconds; then glancing around the glade, in which yester eve he had shed innocent blood, at the same time losing some of his own, he sees another break among the bushes, where the tapir path goes out again. Faint as the light still is, it shows him some horse-tracks, apparently quite fresh, leading off that way.

      He stays not for more, but again plying the spur, re-enters the thicket, not to go back to the ford, but on in the opposite direction. The tapir path takes him up an acclivity, from the stream’s edge to the level of the higher plain, and against it he urges his horse to as much speed as the nature of the ground will permit. He has thrown away caution now, and presses forward without fear, expecting soon to see a man on horseback, but so badly crippled as to be easily overtaken, and as easily overcome.

      What he does see, on reaching the summit of the slope, is something very different – two horses instead of one, with a man upon the back of each! And though one may be wounded and disabled, as he knows him to be, the other is not so, as he can well see. Instead, a man in full health, strength, and vigour, one Rufino Valdez fears as much as hates, though hating him with his whole heart. For it is Gaspar, the gaucho, once his rival in the affections of a Paraguayan girl, and successful in gaining them.

      That the vaqueano’s fear now predominates over his antipathy is evident from his behaviour. Instead of dashing on after to overtake the horsemen, who, with backs towards him, are slowly retiring, he shows only a desire to shun them. True, there would be two to one, and he has himself but a single arm available – his left, broken and bandaged, being now in a sling. But then only one of the two would be likely to stand against him, the other being too far gone for light. Indeed, Halberger – for Valdez naturally supposes it to be he – sits drooped in his saddle, as though he had difficulty in keeping to it. Not that he has any idea of attacking them does the vaqueano take note of this, nor has he the slightest thought of attempting to overtake them. Even knew he that the wounded man were about to drop dead, he knows the other would be more than his match, with both his own arms sound and at their best, for they have been already locked in deadly strife with those of the gaucho, who could have taken his life, but generously forebore. Not for the world would Rufino Valdez again engage in single combat with Caspar Mendez, and soon as setting eyes on the latter he draws bridle so abruptly that his horse starts back as if he had trodden upon a rattlesnake.

      Quieting the animal with some whispered words, he places himself behind a thick bush, and there stays all of a tremble, the only thing stedfast about him being his gaze, fixed upon the forms of the departing travellers. So carefully does he screen himself, that from the front nothing is visible to indicate the presence of anyone there, save the point of a spear, with dry blood upon the blade, projecting above the bushes, and just touching the fronds of a palm-tree, its ensanguined hue in vivid contrast with the green of the leaves, as guilt and death in the midst of innocence and life!

      Not till they have passed almost out of his sight, their heads gradually going down behind the culms of the tall pampas grass, does Rufino Valdez breathe freely. Then his nerves becoming braced by the anger which burns within – a fierce rage, from the old hatred of jealousy, interrupted by this new and bitter disappointment, the thwarting of a scheme, so far successful, but still only half accomplished – he gives utterance to a string of blasphemous anathemas, with threats, in correspondence.