"Come hither!" he calls out. "Look there!" he adds as they get beside him, "You see that these tracks have the toes all turned down stream; which tells me the horses did the same, and, I should say, also their riders. Yes! Soon as out of the water they turned down; proof good as positive that they"ve gone along the _riacho_ this side, and back again to the big river. So it"s no use our delaying longer here; there"s nothing farther to be learnt, or gained by it."
So says Gaspar; but Cypriano, and also Ludwig, think otherwise. Both have a wish--indeed, an earnest desire--once more to look upon the tracks of the pony on which they know Francesca to have been mounted.
And communicating this to the gaucho, he holds their horses while they return to search for them.
To their satisfaction they again beheld the diminutive hoof-marks; two or three of which have escaped being trampled out by the horses that came behind. And after regarding them for a time with sad glances, Ludwig turns away sighing, while his cousin gives utterance to what more resembles a curse, accompanied by words breathing vengeance against the abductors.
Rejoining the gaucho, all three mount into their saddles; and, without further dallying, ride off down the _riacho_, to make back for the main river.
But, again upon the latter"s bank, they find the trail blind as before, with nothing to guide them, save the stream itself. To the gaucho, however, this seems sufficient, and turning his horses"s head upward, he cries out--
"Now, _muchachos mios_! we must on to the _salitral_!"
And on for this they ride; to reach the point where it commences, just as the sun"s lower limb touches, seeming to rest on the level line of the horizon.
And now, having arrived on the edge of the _salitral_, they make halt, still keeping to their saddles, with eyes bent over the waste which stretches far beyond and before them. Greater than ever is the gloom in their looks as they behold the sterile tract, which should have shown snow-white, all black and forbidding. For the _salitral_, as all the rest of the campo, is covered with a stratum of mud, and the _travesia_ across it has been altogether obliterated.
Gaspar only knows the place where it begins; this by the bank of the river which there also commences its curve, turning abruptly off to the south. He thinks the route across the _salitral_ is due westward, but he is not sure. And there is no sign of road now, not a trace to indicate the direction. Looking west, with the sun"s disc right before their faces, they see nothing but the brown bald expanse, treeless as cheerless, with neither break nor bush, stick nor stone, to relieve the monotony of its surface, or serve as a land-mark for the traveller. And the same thing both to the right and left, far as their eyes can reach; for here the river, after turning off, has no longer a skirting of trees; its banks beyond being a low-lying saline marsh--in short, a part of the _salitral_. To ride out upon that wilderness waste, to all appearance endless, with any chance or hope of finding the way across it, would be like embarking in an open boat, and steering straight for the open ocean.
Not on that night, anyhow, do they intend making the attempt, as the darkness will soon be down upon them. So dismounting from their horses, they set about establishing a camp.
But when established they take little delight in its occupation. Now more than ever are they doubtful and dejected; thinking of that terrible _travesia_, of which all traces are lost, and none may be found beyond.
To Cypriano no night since their starting out seemed so long as this.
Little dream they, while seated around their camp-fire, or lying sleepless alongside it, that the tract of country they so much dread entering upon, will, in a few hours" time, prove their best friend.
Instead of sending them further astray it will put them once more on the lost trail, with no longer a likelihood of their again losing it.
Unaware of this good fortune before them, they seek rest with feelings of the utmost despondency, and find sleep only in short s.n.a.t.c.hes.
CHAPTER FORTY.
ON THE SALITRAL.
Next morning the trackers are up at an early hour--the earlier because of their increased anxiety--and after break fasting on broiled ostrich leg, make ready to recommence their journey.
_Nolens volens_, they must embark upon that brown, limitless expanse, which looks unattractive in the light of the rising sun as it did under that of the setting.
In their saddles, and gazing over it before setting out, Gaspar says--
"_Hijos mios_; we can"t do better than head due westward. That will bring us out of the _salitral_, somewhere. Luckily there"s a sun in the sky to hold us to a straight course. If we hadn"t that for a guide, we might go zig-zagging all about, and be obliged to spend a night amidst the saltpetre; perhaps three or four of them. To do so would be to risk our lives; possibly lose them. The thirst of itself would kill us, for there"s never drinkable water in a _salitral_. However, with the sun behind our backs, and we"ll take care to keep it so, there won"t be much danger of our getting bewildered. We must make haste, though. Once it mounts above our heads, I defy Old Nick himself to tell east from west.
So let"s put on the best speed we can take out of the legs of our animals."
With this admonition, and a word to his horse, the gaucho goes off at a gallop; the others starting simultaneously at the same pace, and all three riding side by side. For on the smooth, open surface of the _salitral_ there is no need for travelling single file. Over it a thousand hors.e.m.e.n--or ten thousand for that matter--might march abreast, with wide s.p.a.ces between.
Proceeding onward, they leave behind them three distinct traces of a somewhat rare and original kind--the reverse of what would be made by travellers pa.s.sing over ground thinly covered with snow, where the trail would be darker than the surrounding surface. Theirs, on the contrary, is lighter coloured--in point of fact, quite white, from the saltpetre tossed to the top by the hooves of their galloping horses.
The gaucho every now and then casts a glance over his shoulder, to a.s.sure himself of the sun"s disc being true behind their backs; and in this manner they press on, still keeping up the pace at which they had started.
They have made something more than ten miles from the point where they entered upon the _salitral_; and Gaspar begins to look inquiringly ahead, in the hope of sighting a tree, ridge, rock, or other land-mark to tell where the _travesia_ terminates. His attention thus occupied, he for awhile forgets what has. .h.i.therto been engaging it--the position of the sun.
And when next he turns to observe the great luminary, it is only to see that it is no longer there--at least no longer visible. A ma.s.s of dark cloud has drifted across its disc, completely obscuring it. In fact, it was the sudden darkening of the sky, and, as a consequence, the shadow coming over the plain before his face, which prompted him to turn round--recalling the necessity of caution as to their course.
"_Santos Dios_!" he cries out, his own brow becoming shadowed as the sky; "our luck has left us, and--"
"And what?" asks Cypriano, seeing that the gaucho hesitates, as if reluctant to say why fortune has so suddenly forsaken them. "There"s a cloud come over the sun; has that anything to do with it?"
"Everything, senorito. If that cloud don"t pa.s.s off again, we"re as good as lost. And," he adds, with eyes still turned to the east, his glance showing him to feel the gravest apprehension, "I am pretty sure it won"t pa.s.s off--for the rest of this day at all events. _Mira_!
It"s moving along the horizon--still rising up and spreading out!"
The others also perceive this, they too, having halted, and faced to eastward.
"_Santissima_!" continues the gaucho in the same serious tone, "_we"re lost as it is now_!"
"But how lost?" inquires Ludwig, who, with his more limited experience of pampas life, is puzzled to understand what the gaucho means. "In what way?"
"Just because there"s _no may_. That"s the very thing we"ve lost, senorito. Look around! Now, can you tell east from west, or north from south? No, not a single point of the compa.s.s. If we only knew one, that would be enough. But we don"t, and, therefore, as I"ve said, we"re lost--dead, downright lost; and, for anything beyond this, we"ll have to go a groping. At a crawl, too, like three blind cats."
"Nothing of the sort!" breaks in Cypriano, who, a little apart from the other two, has been for the last few seconds to all appearance holding communion with himself. "Nothing of the sort," he repeats riding towards them with a cheerful expression. "We"ll neither need to go groping, Gaspar, nor yet at a crawl. Possibly, we may have to slacken the pace a bit; but that"s all."
Both Ludwig and the gaucho, but especially the latter, sit regarding him with puzzled looks. For what can he mean? Certainly something which promises to release them from their dilemma, as can be told by his smiling countenance and confident bearing. In fine, he is asked to explain himself, and answering, says:--
"Look back along our trail. Don"t you see that it runs straight?"
"We do," replies Gaspar, speaking for both. "In a dead right line, thank the sun for that; and I only wish we could have had it to direct us a little longer, instead of leaving us in the lurch as it has done.
But go on, senorito! I oughtn"t to have interrupted you."
"Well," proceeds the young Paraguayan, "there"s no reason why we shouldn"t still travel in that same right line--since we can."
"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es the gaucho, who has now caught the other"s meaning, "I see the whole thing. Bravo, Senor Cypriano! You"ve beaten me in the craft of the pampas. But I"m not jealous--no. Only proud to think my own pupil has shown himself worthy of his teacher. _Gracias a Dios_!"
During all this dialogue, Ludwig is silent, seated in his saddle, a very picture of astonishment, alike wondering at what his cousin can mean, and the burst of joyous enthusiasm it has elicited from the gaucho"s lips. His wonder is brought to an end, however, by Cypriano turning round to him, and giving the explanation in detail.
"Don"t you see, _sobrino mio_, that one of us can stay by the end of the trail we"ve already made, or two for that matter, while the third rides forward. The others can call after to keep him in a straight line and to the course. The three of us following one another, and the last giving the directions from our trail behind, we can"t possibly go astray. Thanks to that white stuff, our back-tracks can be seen without difficulty, and to a sufficient distance for our purpose."
Long before Cypriano has reached the end of his explanatory discourse, Ludwig, of quick wit too, catches his meaning, and with an enthusiasm equalling that of the gaucho, cries out:--
"_Viva, sobrino mio_! You"re a genius!"
Not a moment more is lost or spent upon that spot; Ludwig being the one chosen to lead off, the gaucho following, with a long s.p.a.ce between them, while the rear is brought up by Cypriano himself; who for this go, and not Gaspar, acts as guide and director.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE.
TRAVELLING TANDEM.
An odd spectacle the trio of trackers would afford to anyone seeing them on the _salitral_ now, without knowing what they are at; one riding directly in the wake and on the track of the other, with over a hundred yards between each pair. And, as all are going at full gallop, it might be supposed that the foremost is fleeing from the other two--one of the pursuers having a blown horse and fallen hopelessly behind!