“That is for my daughter,” he said gravely. “Send it to her if anything
final happens to me....”

Moreno tried to laugh as though he couldn’t at all believe in the
possibility of a fatality. But he stopped his feigned merriment abruptly
when the contractor went on in a still graver voice,

“This thicker envelope contains an authorization duly made out, by means
of which you will be able to collect the money the government owes me,
and other sums at the bank. A man as competent as you ought to find it
possible, by means of all that I have prepared for you in this packet,
to take over my business. I am also leaving a will, appointing you my
daughter’s guardian. You are the only man here, Moreno, in whom I place
my confidence. Even though now and then you have been more on my enemy’s
side than mine ... but that doesn’t matter! I know that you are honest,
and I am entrusting my daughter and my fortune to you,--everything I
have in the world.”

Moreno was so moved by this proof of confidence in him that he was
forced to raise a hand to his eyes. Then he stood up to grasp the
Italian’s hand, and with broken phrases expressed his intention of
fulfilling with the utmost exactitude the obligation laid upon him. He
vowed that he would devote himself to the care of his friend’s daughter
and fortune, if the duel should result fatally for him.

Sunrise; a meadow overgrown with fine grass, along the river bank; at
the far end, some old willows, their roots half exposed to the air.
Slowly dying, they lay across the stream, and it seemed as though at any
moment they might fall into it.

A gloomy spot at best; and it was here that Elena’s friends had elected
to fight their duel. The light striking horizontally and almost level
with the surface of the ground, elongated the shadows of the human
figures and the trees, making them seem fantastic and unreal.

Pirovani arrived first, escorted by Moreno and don Carlos, all of them
dressed in black. But the contractor was distinguished from those who
accompanied him by his coat, which was new and of a solemn cut. He had
received it the preceding week from Buenos Aires. It was the creation of
a well-known tailor there of whom he had ordered a complete outfit of
clothes similar to those made for the most fastidious millionaires of
the capital.

Behind this group came a tall, heavy old man, whose nose was purplish
and bulbous, due to excessive use of alcohol through a long and
prosperous life. He carried a surgeon’s instrument case. This was the
doctor whom Rojas had gone to fetch the day before.

A few minutes later Canterac, Torre Bianca and Watson arrived. The
captain and the _marqués_ wore long frock coats, less striking than
Pirovani’s, and black neckties, just as though they were officiating at
a funeral. Watson alone wore a dark-colored business suit.

After ceremoniously saluting his antagonist and the latter’s seconds
from afar, Canterac began to walk up and down along the river bank,
pretending to amuse himself watching the birds who were displaying their
customary morning animation, or throwing stones into the current. The
contractor did not wish to make a less gallant showing; bent on
imitating the captain in everything, he also walked up and down near
the willows, and looked at the river. And thus both of them continued
promenading up and down, like two automatons, each on that part of the
bank he had selected.

Torre Bianca, who because of his experience in such matters, directed
the arrangements, began to pace out distances. He asked Watson for the
two canes that the latter had foresightedly brought with him, and stuck
one into the ground. Then he looked toward the sun with one hand over
his eyes in order to discover just how the light struck; and then once
more he measured out twenty paces.

“Twenty,” he said, and stuck in the second cane.

Then he went up to the other seconds, drew out a coin, and after a word
from Moreno, tossed it into the air. As it fell, the government employee
said to Rojas,

“We have won, don Carlos. We can choose our ground.”

The _marqués_, who had brought his pistol case, spread it open on the
grass. With elaborate care and deliberation he loaded the weapons,
producing the same coin in order to consult chance once again. As the
metal disc fell, Moreno leaned over to look at it and said to the
rancher,

“Luck is with us. We can choose the revolver we prefer.”

Then Pirovani’s seconds went to bring him up to that one of the canes
they had chosen. The _marqués_ and Watson conducted their principal to
the spot marked by the second cane.

Meanwhile the doctor somewhat confusedly set about his preparations. It
was the first time that he had witnessed a duel. With one knee on the
ground he opened his instrument case and began to unroll bandages, open
medicine flasks, and examine the condition of his instruments.

The antagonists stood facing one another, Canterac rigid, his face grave
but inexpressive, like a soldier awaiting the word of command.
Pirovani’s eyes glowed like coals, he looked aggressive, furious. When
Moreno came up to him to give him a revolver, he said, very low,

“You watch me kill him. I know I’m going to do it....”

But then he forgot his homicidal hopes to add,

“I wish they would explain clearly to me how much time I can have to
take aim. I don’t want to make any mistake, and be taken for an
ignoramus who doesn’t understand these affairs.”

The two opponents held their pistols aloft, the barrels point up. Moreno
noticed that Pirovani’s coat was unbuttoned and carefully buttoned it.
Then he turned up the Italian’s collar so that the white of his shirt
could not be seen. Meanwhile, Torre Bianca was examining Canterac, who
was correctly buttoned up, in military fashion, but he too needed to
have his coat collar turned up. Both men, before taking their weapons,
had removed their hats and given them to the seconds.

Taking a stand between them both, the _marqués_ removed a paper from his
pocket and read slowly:

“ ..._Secondly, the director of the duel will clap his hands three
times, whereupon the principals are to take aim and fire when they are
ready, in the interval between the first and the third handclap._”

“_Thirdly, if one of the two principals fires after the third handclap
he will be disqualified, and declared an outlaw to the gentleman’s
code._”

Pirovani, with his pistol held above him, thrust his head forward and
looked toward the marqués so as to hear better, and he nodded at each
word that came from Torre Bianca. Canterac remained impassive, as though
listening to something that was perfectly familiar to him.

The _marqués_ went on reading, and finally put away the sheet of paper
and addressed both antagonists.

“It is my duty to ask those here present if they are able to come to
terms without firing. Is it possible for you gentlemen to settle this
difficulty without having recourse to the duel? Does either of you wish
to offer excuses to the other?”

Pirovani violently shook his head. “No!” Canterac remained motionless.
Not a line of his sombre expression softened.

The _marqués_ spoke again, removing his hat with mournful solemnity,

“Then fate is to decide between you, and each of you is to comply with
the requirements of the field of honor.”

He took a few steps backward, keeping the combatants in full view. Then
he raised his hand. Were they ready? Pirovani nodded. His adversary
continued motionless.

The _marqués_ brought his hands to within a few inches of one another,
indicating that he was ready to give the first handclap. Every motion
that he made was so slow that it assumed a tragic solemnity.

The other seconds, at a considerable distance from him, were looking on
with ill-dissimulated emotion. Still kneeling near his instrument case,
the doctor was looking up with wide-open eyes.

The _marqués_ brought his hands together, slowly uttering “Fire....
One....”

Both men brought their revolvers down simultaneously.

Pirovani, whose sole thought at that moment was that he must not shoot
after the third handclap, fired at once. His opponent blinked one eye,
and the muscles of his cheek on the same side contracted slightly, as
though he had felt a projectile brush close by. But he at once recovered
his impassivity and went on taking aim.

The _marqués_ clapped his hands again. “Two!”

When Pirovani saw that he had not wounded his enemy, and that now he
stood disarmed before him, there passed over his face like a swift
cloud, an expression of pure fear. But it had gone in an instant. Then,
looking at Canterac who was still taking aim, he crossed his arms,
pointing his own useless revolver at his breast, and, as though defying
death, presented himself full face to the shot.

Moreno clutched Rojas by the shoulder.

“_Pucha!_ ... He is going to kill him,” he said between his teeth.

Torre Bianca gave the third clap. “Three!” But the instant before
Canterac had fired.

There was a general rush in one direction. Only the captain remained
motionless, one arm hanging by his side, the still smoking revolver in
his left hand.

Pirovani lay stretched on the ground, an inert mass. The men who reached
him first saw a thread of blood coming from the top of his head, and
running out, a miniature stream, on the grass. Then his head was hidden
from view, for every one was crowding around the fallen body, leaning
over to hear what the doctor was saying.

In a few moments the latter looked up, and stammered,

“There’s nothing to be done ... he’s dead!”

Seeing that Canterac was approaching to learn what had been the effect
of his shot, Torre Bianca went up to him, quickening his steps. His
gesture told Canterac what had happened even before he spoke.

His second judged it necessary to get him away from the field and
ordered him to follow. On the other side of the sand dunes a vehicle was
waiting. It was the same one that had transported Elena to the garden
party.

When this cart deposited them in front of the house that had once
belonged to Pirovani, both men stood hesitant.... Torre Bianca could not
ask the captain to enter the house of the man he had just shot; nor did
Canterac dare move towards it.

So they were standing, unable to make a decision, when Robledo appeared.
He had evidently been prowling about the vicinity to learn some news of
the event. When he saw Canterac, he looked questioningly at him.

“And the other ...?”

Canterac bowed his head, and the _marqués_ with a gesture told Robledo
what had happened.

All three men stood silent. Finally the Frenchman said very low,

“My career is ended, my family lost to me.... And the most frightful
part of it all is that I can feel no hate when I think of that poor
man.... What is to become of me?”

Robledo was the only one of the three capable at that moment of coming
to a determined decision.

“The first thing you must do, Canterac, is to get away. There’ll be a
great stir about this affair. We won’t be able to hush it up as though
it were a fist-fight in the _boliche_. You must get away to the Andes,
at once. When you get into Chile you can wait there.... Everything in
this world can be settled somehow ... perhaps well, perhaps badly, but
settled somehow.”

The Frenchman, however, had lost his grip for the moment. What could he
do? He had no money ... he had spent it all for that mad garden
party.... How could he live in Chile? He knew no one there....

Robledo took his arm and pulled him gently away from the others.

“The first thing to do is to get away,” he repeated. “I’ll see that you
have what you need to do that. Come!”

Canterac however hesitated to obey. He was looking back at Torre Bianca.

“Before I go,” he murmured, “I would like to say good-by to the
_marquesa_.”

Robledo listened with a pitying smile to this plea. Then he took hold of
him with paternal superiority.

“Let’s not lose time,” he said. “Look after yourself, and nobody else.
The _marquesa_ has other things to think about.”

And he took Canterac with him to his quarters.

All that day the town seethed with the news of the duel. Indeed some of
the inhabitants treated the occasion as a holiday. In the main street
thick groups of men and women gathered, talking, gesticulating, and
casting hostile glances at the house that had once been the
contractor’s. Torre Bianca’s name, and his wife’s, were bandied about
even more frequently than those of the men who had fought the duel.

Some of the _gauchos_ who were friends of Manos Duras passed in and out
among the groups. Apparently the recent event had quite overshadowed the
hostility existing between them and the people of the settlement.

In the middle of the afternoon Manos Duras himself came riding up the
main street. He stared with profound interest at the dead man’s house.
Some of the half-breed girls spoke to him. What did he think of that
woman who made the men around her kill one another in cold blood?... But
the notorious _gaucho_ merely shrugged, and smiling contemptuously,
passed on.

Three of his friends were waiting for him at the _boliche_. They were
men who lived the greater part of the year in the foothills of the
Andes. Recently they had been paying him a visit at his ranch. Under
other circumstances don Roque would have been alarmed to learn of this
fact. He would have suspected that these pals of the _gaucho’s_ were
preparing some shameless piece of cattle rustling. But at that
particular moment the most important persons at the dam were giving the
_comisario_ far more to worry about than the thieving _gauchos_ had ever
done.

When Manos Duras stepped into the “_Almacén del Gallego_,” he noticed
that there were many more customers there than on other workday
afternoons. Everyone was talking about the contractor’s death.

“That woman did it all,” someone was shouting. “She’s to blame for the
whole thing, the--!”

Manos Duras bethought him of the afternoon when he had first seen the
_marquesa_; and the memory was enough to make him look as aggressively
at the man who was talking as though the words contained an insult for
him.

“If two men chose to fight with bullets for this lady, what have you got
to say about it?... I’m just as ready as they were to draw a bead on
anyone who insults her.... Come on now, let’s see if there’s one of you
dares step on my poncho....”

This _gaucho_ challenge was received in silence by the _Gallego’s_
patrons. When the talk began again it was about subjects that Manos
Duras could not take exception to.

At nightfall Torre Bianca from one of his windows looked wonderingly at
the groups of people in the street. Their number had noticeably
increased. Then he noticed that the _comisario_, who had just returned
from Fuerte Sarmiento, was going about talking to different people in
the crowd, urging them to go home. When he saw the _marqués_ at the
window the police commissioner raised his hat to him.

Men and women turned to stare at Elena’s husband. Many of the glances
turned in his direction were hostile, but no one dared make any
demonstration against him.

Torre Bianca could not conceal his amazement at having so many eyes
fastened upon him. Then he took in the fact that there was something
very unfriendly in the glances coming his way. Haughtily, but sadly, he
closed the window. He did not understand.

A little later Sebastiana opened the house door and leaned over the
railing of the balcony. She was irresistibly attracted by this crowd in
which she spied many old friends. But when they saw her, the women who
were in the street began to gesticulate and shriek out insults.

Annoyed by such an incomprehensible reception, she replied in the same
fashion; but crushed finally by the strength of numbers of her enemies,
and seeing that several of the men were joining in the attack on her,
contributing loud guffaws and vile names, she retired defeated. Her
meditations in the kitchen during the next few hours brought her to an
alarming conclusion. Every woman of the region, even though she might
formerly have been a friend, would now be against her because she was in
the service of the _marquesa_!

At about the same time of the day, Watson returned to town. After the
morning’s tragedy he had accompanied the seconds and the doctor while
they transported the victim’s body to a dilapidated ranch house near the
river. Then they determined to remove it to Fuerte Sarmiento, since
Pirovani was to be buried there, in order to avoid the outbreaks that
would be imminent if this ceremony were performed in La Presa.

As he was riding into town, just as he reached the first houses of the
settlement he encountered Canterac.

The latter also was on horseback; and he wore a sombrero and a poncho
just like the _gauchos_. From his saddle hung a sack of the kind used by
the cow-punchers to carry clothing and various belongings.

As soon as Watson recognized him he stopped to say good-by, for Canterac
had all the appearance of one prepared to cross the Patagonian desert.

Canterac, by way of replying to his question, pointed to that part of
the horizon where the first stars were beginning to glitter over the
invisible Andes. Then he told him that he counted on spending the night
at a ranch near Fuerte Sarmiento, and that he would probably be under
way again before dawn.

“Good-by, Watson,” he said. “It would have been a good thing for us if
that woman had never come here. Strange, in what a different light I see
things now. But ... it’s too late.”

For a few seconds he looked hesitatingly at the youth; then finally with
decision, he said,

“I’ve earned at least the right to speak through my folly ... listen to
what I am going to say, and don’t be offended if I give you advice that
you don’t ask for.... Never let anything come between you and Robledo,
boy.... There are few souls in this world like his. It’s thanks to him
that I am getting away. Everything in this outfit belongs to him....
Don’t trust anyone who speaks ill of him....”

He eyed the boy sadly at these words; and before he rode away, he
offered him still another bit of advice.

“And don’t on any account forget that young lady they call _Flor de Rio
Negro_!” Then he shook Watson by the hand, waved him good-by, and
leaning down, spurred his horse. In a moment he had vanished into the
darkness of the new-born night.

CHAPTER XV

Watson, as he went on towards the town, felt the prick of a conscience
that has lost its accustomed tranquility.

With remorse he remembered the brief dialogue in Canterac’s park, in the
course of which he had answered Robledo harshly.

“And for this woman,” he thought, “for this woman who coolly sends men
to their death, I treated my best friend in such fashion!”

And after Robledo’s image came that of Celinda, with unhappy,
reproachful eyes....

“Poor _Flor de Rio Negro_,” he thought to himself. “Tomorrow I must go
beg her to forgive me ... if she will listen to me....”

Absorbed in his thoughts, he rode into La Presa, letting his horse pick
the way. Suddenly he noticed that the animal was hesitating, about to
stop. Raising his head Watson saw that he was in front of Elena’s house.

The _comisario_, assisted by two of his men, was with paternal
exhortations gently shoving the last group of curiosity-mongers out of
the way.

Don Roque followed them down the street, and Richard was about to ride
on when he noticed that one of the windows of the Torre Bianca’s house
had opened. A woman’s hand was beckoning to him. Watson remained
indifferent to the summons, and the window swung out wide enough to let
Elena appear in the opening. She was dressed in black, as though in
mourning, but she wore her floating veils with considerable coquetry.

Richard felt that he must at least approach the house sufficiently to
offer his greetings. He took off his hat in response to Elena’s
affectionate signs to him.

“Such a long time since I have seen you, Ricardo!... Come in at
once....”

But he shook his head, looking at her sternly.

“You do not ask for whom I am in mourning,” she went on. “It is for my
husband’s mother, a dear old lady whom I loved very much. I feel so bad
about this loss.... And I do so need at this very moment to talk to a
friend....”

As she spoke she tried to maintain a sorrowful expression, although at
the same time she was employing every gracious word and gesture she knew
to persuade him to come in. But Richard persistently shook his head, and
said, finally,

“I shall come to see you when you are living in some other house, and
when your husband is present. I cannot come now.”

Coldly he went away without turning around; and Elena’s emotions ran the
scale from intense surprise to hot anger. Finally she banged the window
shut with a violence that threatened to demolish it.

That night after supper Watson offered Robledo his apologies for his
unfriendly words to him at the garden _fête_; but Robledo cut him
short.

“That’s all over and done with, Watson. We’re as good friends as before,
aren’t we? So what does all that matter? The terrible part of this
affair is what happened to poor Pirovani ... and in some ways it’s even
worse for Canterac. Of course his words make an impression on you. Poor
fellow! He wouldn’t take anything more than what was absolutely
necessary for his journey over the mountains. He’s going to wait for
news from me in Chile, he says. I must get some letters of
recommendation for him from friends of mine in Buenos Aires.... But what
a catastrophe, Watson!... And all for a woman!”

Robledo was silent for a while. Then he added optimistically,

“She isn’t _bad_, she’s merely a woman of impulse, whose emotions have
never had the slightest training; and so she sows evil, without knowing
always what she is doing, because all her attention is centered on
herself. She has never discovered that she isn’t the center of the
universe. If she were rich, she would perhaps be good. But she cannot be
content with a modest sort of existence, and she’s incapable of
sacrificing herself. All the trouble in her life comes from the fact
that she has so little and desires so much!”

He smiled sadly and then went on after a pause,

“Fortunately all women are not like that. She herself told me that in
this age of ours, the woman who thinks at all is unhappy and hates all
the rest of creation if she can’t have the pearl necklace that is ‘the
modern woman’s uniform’.... I am quoting.... But there is something more
terrible still than the woman who is determined to get a pearl necklace
for herself, Richard, and that is the woman who having had it once, has
lost it, and feels that she must at any cost get it back!”

The memory of Gualicho, the demon who tormented the Indians with his
wiles, driving them to the point where they mounted their horses and
pursued him with darts and tomahawks, passed through his mind. Elena, in
the old world, would have been merely one of many dangerous women; and
her powers for evil would have been checked and neutralized by the
proximity of others like herself. But here, surrounded by men who
admired her, conscious of primitive surroundings among which she stood
out like a being of finer clay, she had, without wishing to, exerted an
influence as evil as that of the red-skinned demon, in former times the
terror of the wandering _gauchos_ of the Pampas.

She herself had been a victim of the loneliness of her surroundings to
the extent at least of becoming enamored of Watson. She had believed
that she could play with men and despise them. That at least was what
she had intimated to Robledo one evening, while she gazed pityingly at
her victims. But Richard was youth, and masculine energy incarnate; he
was, moreover, the object of a young girl’s first love; and so to this
mature coquette, eager to win him away from an inexperienced adolescent,
as a proof that her former powers of seduction had not yet waned, he
represented an irresistible temptation.... And now her vanity had been
cruelly wounded. Not only had the only man she had found interesting in
this wild desert repulsed her; she had every reason to believe that he
despised her....

Robledo meanwhile went on talking about the _marquesa_ with a somewhat
contemptuous pity.

“She really believes that she was born for higher things, and yet fate
seems determined to make her roll downhill.... It isn’t surprising that
she should appear to be a bad woman, when you consider that she doesn’t
know what resignation means.”

But the effect of Elena’s influence on affairs at the dam was
sufficiently alarming....

“Our contractor dead ... our chief engineer a fugitive.... How can we
carry on the work, Watson? The construction at the dam will be delayed
and the spring floods will come before we have braced the walls. What
are we going to do? I’ll have to run up to Buenos Aires to get help.”

And he spent most of the night worrying about what was to be done to
save three years’ labor from destruction.

The next morning Watson got on his horse; but instead of riding towards
the canal works he took the road to the Rojas ranch. There was no use
going on with this secondary part of the work until the government sent
down a new engineer to take over the completing of the work on the dam.

When he reached the ranch he was about to dismount and open the
“palisade,” or barrier poles that closed the way. But near it he
discovered a small half-breed, about ten years of age, a chubby little
fellow with velvety antelope’s eyes, and a skin of a lustrous light
chocolate color. The small boy, one finger in his nose, was smiling at
him.

“The master went out early this morning,” he said in reply to Richard’s
question. “Last night someone stole one of his cows.”

“And where’s your mistress, Cachafaz?”

Young Puck, who had earned his name Cachafaz through an unbelievable
series of deviltries, took his finger out of his nose, and pointed
vaguely to the horizon line.

“She just now left. You’ll find her somewhere near.”

And with his dirty forefinger he gestured in a zigzag towards the
distant desert. Watson grasped the fact that for young master Cachafaz
“just now” might mean one hour, or two or three, and “somewhere near”
might mean anywhere within two leagues. But he must see Celinda!
Determined to find her, he set his horse off at a gallop towards the
open, trusting that luck would lead him in the right direction.

But what young Cachafaz had not told the visitor was that, in his
estimable mother’s opinion, the little mistress of the ranch was sick.
Cachafaz’s mother was an old Indian woman who had come to take
Sebastiana’s place as housekeeper; but she lacked some of Sebastiana’s
virtues; she had neither her good humor nor her talent for work. All day
long she kept a Paraguay cigar in one corner of her blue,
nicotine-stained lips, and when don Carlos wasn’t at home, she used his
carved calabash and silver _bombilla_ for the absorption of her own
_mate_.

The servants and peons at the ranch looked upon Cachafaz’s mother with
superstitious respect, for it was generally believed that she was a
witch and held dealings with the invisible spirits of the air, those
that howl as they whirl inside the sand columns as high as towers, that
the hurricanes drive in front of them when they come down from the
plateau lands. When the old squaw noticed that Celinda was in very poor
spirits indeed and found her crying several times, she shook her head
knowingly, as though all this merely confirmed her suspicions.

“The trouble with the girl is that she’s sick, and I know what sickness
she’s sick of.”

An ancestor of the old woman’s had been a great medicine man back in the
times when the Indians were still the owners of the land. He was always
summoned whenever the chiefs fell sick. His son had inherited his secret
lore, but unfortunately he had handed on only a part of it to his
daughter, who became Cachafaz’s mother.

“It’s the _ayacuyas_ that are bothering the girl, and she must be cured
of the wounds left by their arrows.”

The old squaw was well acquainted with the _ayacuyas_, hob-goblins so
diminutive that a dozen of them would scarcely cover a finger nail; they
always carried bows and arrows, and it was the wounds from these weapons
that caused most of the sicknesses in the world.

She herself had never seen them, for she was nothing but a poor
ignorant, miserable old woman, but her father, and her grandfather
before him, who had been great _machis_ or medicine men, had often had
dealings with these little creatures. Only the native Indians could see
them. Some of the _gringo_ doctors pretended to have seen them too, and
called them by a name in their own language, _microbe_, but what did
they know about them ...?

And if you took their bows and arrows away from them, they attacked
human beings with tooth and nail, and it was important to know how, by
bleeding and sucking, to get the splinters of the arrows, or the nails
and teeth that the invisible demons left in the bodies of their victims,
out of the poisoned wounds.

“I’ll find you a _machi_ who’ll make you well, little lady, and take
away this sadness that the _ayacuyas_ brought upon you. But don’t let
the master know of it.”

Celinda smiled at the remedies suggested by Cachafaz’s mother. When she
grew tired of being shut up in the ranch house she went to get her horse
and rode him hither and yon over the desert with no goal to reach. She
never wore boy’s clothes now. She hated those clothes because of the
memories they awoke. She preferred riding in skirts; and she had laid
aside too the lassoo that had once been her favorite plaything.

That morning she had been galloping for more than an hour over the ranch
when she noticed, on a slight elevation, a rider standing motionless;
the distance diminished him to the size of a little tin soldier.

She stopped when she noticed that the miniature rider was plunging down
the slope and galloping towards her as though he had recognized her. For
some time he was lost to sight, then he reappeared, much bigger in size,
on the edge of a deep depression. When she saw that the rider was
Watson, her first impulse was to flee. But she repented of this impulse
as though it were cowardly, and turning her horse about, remained
motionless in a disdainful attitude.

Richard rode up to her, and with his hat in his hand and eyes humbly
cast down, he was about to beg pardon. He opened his mouth to speak but
the words would not come. Nor did Celinda give him time.

“What do you want?” she asked harshly. “Has your _gringa_ dismissed you?
Other people’s leavings aren’t welcome here.”

And she wheeled her horse about to ride away. Richard made a desperate
effort.

“Celinda! I’ve come to tell you I’m sorry.... I came to get my _Flor de
Rio Negro_ ... to....”

She softened a little at the note of child-like humility in the young
man’s voice; but at once she recovered herself and looked at him
unforgivingly.

“Ask alms of God, brother, and go your way. Today I have no alms to
give!”

She began to move away; but she stopped long enough to tell him with the
cruelty of a spoiled child,

“I don’t like men who ask for pardon. Anyway, I vowed that if you wanted
to see me again you’d have to catch me with the rope.... But you’ll
never be able to. You’re nothing but a tenderfoot, and a _gringo_, and
you’re awkward and I don’t like you!”

And spurring her horse she went off at a gallop, not however, before
casting Richard a look of complete scorn.

He stood distressed by this dismissal, and felt no desire to follow her.
Then his vanity took offense as he went over the words that she had
thrown at him. She had belittled him as a man, and he was going to get
hold of her and show her that he was no tenderfoot nor as awkward as she
made out.

Then began a wild race through the ranch, one rider following the other
up hill and down, from ridge to gully. Now and then Celinda, who had a
great advantage over her pursuer, would rein in her horse as though she
wanted to be overtaken; but as soon as he came near, she started off at
a gallop again, insulting him with the terms that the _gauchos_ of other
days used when they made fun of the awkward Europeans and their lack of
skill as riders.

“Clodhopper _gringo_! Tenderfoot, who doesn’t know one end of a horse
from another!”

Richard kept a coil of lariat that _Flor de Rio Negro_ had given him on
the front of his saddle. As he rode along he let it out and began
throwing it over her head every time he came near her. But the lassoo
always fell into space, while Celinda, from far away, laughed at this
exhibition. However, her laughter had changed its character and was
growing heartier and happier, as though expressing, not so much contempt
for the man she was mocking, as genuine merriment. Watson too was
laughing; so often, when they had laughed together, they had made up
their quarrels!

In their circlings about they had little by little approached the ranch.
Celinda jumped her horse over an obstacle of tree-trunks and rode into
the corral. Watson did not dare let his horse take the height and rode
around the palisade in order to get in through a gate.

He reached the main building of the ranch with calculated slowness,
hoping that someone would come out to whom he could speak. Celinda
remained invisible, and he did not dare go up to the front door of the
house, for fear the _señorita_ Rojas might receive him in unfriendly
fashion.

Again little Cachafaz appeared quite providentially, close to the
horse’s feet.

“Tell the _señorita_ Celinda I would like to come in and say ‘how do you
do’ to her!”

Cachafaz went away scratching his little fat chocolate colored belly
under his loose shirt. In a few minutes he came out of the house, and in
his soft Indian singsong he announced to Watson,

“Mistress says you’re to go away, and that she doesn’t want to see you,
because you are ... because you are very ugly!”

Cachafaz burst out laughing at his own words; but Watson looked
despondently at the house. Then he turned his horse about, and, a little
consoled by a resolution he had just taken, rode homeward.

“I shall come back tomorrow,” he said to himself. “I shall come back
every day until she forgives me.”

Elena sat absorbed in thought, sitting in an armchair. Then she took up
a position near the window where she could look out on the main street
without being seen.

As a matter of fact she could be seen only by two of the four policemen
of La Presa. Don Roque had placed them near the house so that there
should be no more gathering in groups around it as on the day before.
For the moment the people of the settlement seemed to have forgotten
Pirovani’s former dwelling. No one seemed at all inclined to stop in
front of it, and the _comisario’s_ precaution seemed superfluous.
Besides many of the workmen from the dam had gone to Fuerte Sarmiento to
be present at the contractor’s funeral. The others were either in the
_Gallego’s_ shop, or gathering to talk in different places on the
outskirts of the town, where they heatedly discussed the possibility of
the immediate suspension of the work, which would leave most of them out
of employment.

Some of the more optimistic ones were certain that on the very next
train a new chief engineer would arrive, quite as though the government
at Buenos Aires could not go on for a day without starting up the works
at the dam again. The Galician and some of the other Spaniards were
betting on don Manuel Robledo as the new director of the works.

Some of the old peons who had labored on all the public works of the
country shrugged their shoulders with characteristic fatalism.

“The cart is caught in the mire, and you’ll see a long time pass before
its wheels revolve again!”

Meanwhile Elena, standing behind the window, was gazing at the solitary
street and mentally reviewing all the difficulties of her present
situation. Pirovani dead ... Canterac a fugitive ... she no longer even
knew who owned the house she was living in. Besides this, Robledo must
have been talking about her to the only man whose presence gave
emotional interest to the monotony of her life in that God-forsaken
country. Perhaps at that very moment this man, whom she needed, was
with that girl who had tried to lash her face with a riding whip....

Never, in the whole course of her complicated history, the many phases
of which she alone knew, had she found herself placed in a situation so
difficult. Even that heterogeneous mob, in which there was many a man
with a European crime record, dared to criticize her, and went so far as
to force the public authorities to set a guard over her ... there they
were, those two men armed with sabres, just within sight of her window.
And she had crossed the ocean and come to live in this wild land only to
find herself in this lamentable situation!

She had always found a way out of the difficulties of her life, she had
always discovered a solution. Sometimes it was a bad one, and sometimes
profitable ... but what was the solution of the difficulties that faced
her now?... Should she go away? But how? She and her husband were as
penniless as when they arrived; more so, since Robledo was not going to
pay their fare back. And where could they go, with the law lying in wait
for her husband if he should return to Paris?

She was terrified at the thought of remaining in La Presa. Her life
there had been tolerable up to the present, thanks to Pirovani’s
generosity, and the rivalry she had stirred up among the men of the
community. But now that the Italian was dead she would have to give up
this house that was palatial compared to the other dwellings of the
settlement. No one would come any more to admire her, pay her
attentions, and desire her, doing everything to make life agreeable for
her. Only Robledo remained ... and he was an enemy! And as for Watson,
who might have provided the solution she was seeking ... there was his
partner in the way!

An idea that she had been cherishing of late passed through her mind.
When she had been out riding with Watson, it had occurred to her more
than once that now was the time to leave Torre Bianca, who was, after
all, a failure, who would never succeed in getting ashore from the
shipwreck.... But with Watson she would be able to make her way in the
world. He was young, energetic.... With the advice of an experienced
woman to guide him through a life of adventure, he would succeed
anywhere. In her previous life she had had similar experiences under far
less favorable circumstances.... But of what use to think about Watson?
This solution was denied her. An implacable hate burned in her at the
thought.

Richard had gone away for good and all. She could not doubt that, after
the words they had exchanged while she stood at her window the day
before....

Perhaps it would be easy to win him back if she could only have him
alone with her for a while. But, aware of that danger, hadn’t he told
her bluntly that he would call upon her again only if her husband were
present? The tone in which he had spoken, and his look at her as he
spoke, had shown her clearly enough that he would be immovable on this
point.

Ignorant as she could not help but be of the young man’s conversation
with Canterac after the duel, she naturally attributed his change of
manner to Celinda’s influence.

“She has taken him away from me,” the older woman thought. “It is she
who stands in my way.... How I hate her!”

And while she pursued these reflections, she felt agitated and divided
by diverse and opposing thoughts as though she were two distinct
persons. The image of Watson comforted her even in these painful
moments. He was young, he was the master fated to come along sometime in
the life of a woman who has played coldly and cruelly with men. In all
her previous life she had sought men out of ambition or vanity. But now
she needed Watson; she needed him not only because he could get her out
of the critical situation in which she found herself, but because he was
youth and strength and resourcefulness, he was everything she lacked,
everything her weary life needed. And as though that were not enough,
she felt the pain of jealousy, the jealousy of an impulsive and mature
woman who sees her last hope of happiness snatched away by a rival young
enough to be her daughter.

And with this torment, there was all the difficulty of the tragic
situation created by the rivalry she had excited between two of her
admirers; and there was the urgent necessity of protecting herself
against the general hostility that was likely to pursue her throughout
the whole community.

“What am I to do?” she kept saying to herself. “Where shall I go?”

A knock at the drawing room door interrupted her. It was Sebastiana,
who came in with a timid, undecided expression, fingering a corner of
her apron, and smiling at her mistress as though looking for words in
which to explain what had brought her there.

Elena gave her a little encouragement, and finally the half-breed
plucked up courage enough to speak.

“I was in the employ of don Pirovani, and as he is dead now ... and for
the reason that everybody knows, I must go away.”

The _marquesa_ signified her surprise at this decision. Sebastiana could
remain, of course. She was pleased with her services. The contractor’s
death was not sufficient reason for her going. As long as she must work
somewhere, she might as well work for Elena. But the half-breed was
insistent, and went on shaking her head.

“I must go. If I stay, there are friends of mine here who’ll scratch my
eyes out. Many thanks!... just the same, I’d rather stay on good terms
with my people ... and ... I might as well say it ... the _señora
marquesa_ hasn’t any friends here.”

At this Elena deemed it prudent not to continue the conversation. So she
expressed her acceptance of Sebastiana’s decision.

“Very well, if you are afraid to stay here....”

This prudence quite moved Sebastiana.

“I’d like to stay. The _señora_ is very kind, and never did me any
harm.... But that’s the way people are, and I can’t fight all the women
in town.... But if there’s anything I can do for the _señora_, she has
only to ask.... It would be a pleasure....”

Finally, after expatiating further on her desire to be useful to Elena,
and her unwillingness to leave her, Sebastiana withdrew.

Near the door she stopped to reply to Elena’s question about the
whereabouts of the _marqués_.

“I don’t know. He went out this morning and hasn’t come back yet.
Perhaps he went to Fuerte Sarmiento with don Moreno for the funeral of
my poor old master.”

When she was once more alone Elena’s thoughts turned to her husband as
to someone long forgotten but now presenting himself with renewed
importance. She was so accustomed to looking upon him as a person
entirely lacking in desires of his own, as someone ready to accept all
her notions, and disposed to believe whatever she wanted him to believe!
But this latest episode of her life had been of such a violent
nature.... In a large city it would have caused little more than a
ripple. But here, in the monotony of life in a pioneer community, where
such unprecedented events were rare, surrounded by this rabble of
adventurers, predisposed to insult persons of superior rank....

She felt more and more uneasy at the thought of the possibility that
Torre Bianca might learn the real cause of the rivalry between those two
men whose duel he had directed. Mentally she reviewed all that had
passed between her husband and herself since the previous day. On
returning to the house, Federico had told her of the sad outcome of the
duel; he had obviously taken certain precautions in telling her the
news, as though fearful of the emotion it might cause her. But later
that day he had appeared a changed man. He would not speak, he answered
her questions in monosyllables. And twice she surprised him gazing
fixedly at her with an expression that she had never seen him wear
before. After having closed the window, to shut out the stares of the
crowd that so much annoyed him, he had shut himself up in his bedroom,
and had gone away the next morning very early, while Elena was still
asleep. All that day she had not seen him. What was she to think?

But her uneasiness soon left her. She was so accustomed to controlling
her husband that she concluded that her suspicions and fears were all
uncalled for. Besides, even though her uneasiness should be well
founded, she would always be able to calm and reassure him, as she had
done so many times before.

The sight of a passer-by slowly walking in front of the house, and
looking attentively at the windows, was enough to make her forget all
about her husband ... Manos Duras! An hour earlier, when, as now, she
had stood at the window, she had thought once or twice that she saw the
_gaucho_ standing at the entrance to an alley that ran into the main
street near the house. The notorious cow-puncher was roaming around the
town on foot just like a European laborer on a holiday. As soon as he
caught sight of the _marquesa_ on the other side of the window panes, he
saluted her, taking off his hat with a flourish and showing his wolf’s
teeth.

This was the first pleasant greeting that Elena had received since
Pirovani’s death. She felt instinctively that this man was the only
admirer left her; that this should be seemed to her so comic that she
could not help smiling. Henceforth there was only one suitor for her
favor whom she could count on in that part of the world ... and he was
a cattle-rustling _gaucho_!

She stood meditating once more, her forehead pressed against the
window-panes, staring at the solitary street. Manos Duras had
disappeared in the neighboring alleyway, and even the two policemen,
considering their vigil unnecessary, had wandered off to the _boliche_.

Again three discreet raps on the door ... Sebastiana entered more
resolutely. This time she spoke very low, and with a confidential
expression in her crafty eyes.

“Has the master come in?” asked Elena.

“No; it’s something else I’m to tell you.... I was in the corral a
moment ago, and the _gaucho_ they call Manos Duras suddenly looked in at
the back gate and he said....”

Sebastiana made a valiant effort to recall the man’s words. He had
charged her to tell the _señora marquesa_ that he was “at her orders for
anything she might choose to command, that in times of trouble one
discovers one’s true friends, and now that there were so many people
both in the town and outside of it, talking evil of the _señora_ out of
pure envy, Manos Duras was glad to have the opportunity to say that he
was just the same in his sentiments as before.”

“Tell your mistress that I don’t turn around with every wind like the
others, and that she will always be the same for me, for I’m one of
those that break but never bend ... that’s what he told me to tell the
_señora_....”

Elena received the words with a smile. Poor man! And yet there were
people who said he was no better than a bandit! To her at that moment he
seemed the most interesting male creature in the region; he was the only
gentleman to offer her assistance!

When the half-breed went out of the room Elena remained standing near
the window, her eyes following the passers-by as they came and went in
constantly increasing numbers. Several times she stepped back at sight
of groups of workmen on horseback or in carriages returning from Fuerte
Sarmiento. They must undoubtedly be those who had gone to the
contractor’s funeral. All of them, she noticed, looked askance at the
house before they passed on.

At dusk she saw a solitary rider go by, his head obstinately held down.
It was Richard Watson. From his dust-covered clothing, and the lagging
pace of his horse, she concluded that he had not been to the funeral. He
must have spent the day riding in the open, undoubtedly on the Rojas
ranch or wandering near the river with that girl who was so free with
her whip.--“And I have to stay shut up here like a wild beast to escape
the insults of this miserable and unjust rabble ... and then they wonder
that I do the things I do....”

She remained motionless, her eyes closed, while the shadows of twilight
crept out of the corners of the room, and came to mingle their darkness
in the core of her being. A faint and fading light from outside gave a
certain bluish phosphorescence to the window panes, outlining Elena’s
motionless silhouette.

When night had fallen she called Sebastiana, who answered, saying that
she was bringing the light.

And she appeared bearing a large lamp which she placed on the table in
the centre of the parlor.

She was on the point of going away, believing that she had discharged
her full duty, when her mistress stopped her.

“Do you know where that Manos Duras you spoke to me about a while ago is
now?”

The half-breed, always inclined to chatter, produced a long preamble
before giving a definite reply. Manos Duras was going about these days
with some friends of his from the mountains who were staying with him at
his ranch ... they were a poor sort and not at all God-fearing. No
telling what they might be up to ... and he had said while he was
talking at the gate that he might soon go away on a long trip and that
this was the principal reason why he had come to bother the _señora_, in
case she should want him to do anything for her.

“And probably,” she wound up, “if he hasn’t gone back to his ranch, I’ll
find him this very moment at the _boliche_!”

“Go find him,” said Elena, “and tell him that I want him to be in front
of the house at ten o’clock.... You needn’t say anything else. But be
careful how you tell him ... I don’t care to have anyone overhear....”

Sebastiana had some doubts as to whether she had heard the first words
correctly, but at being admonished by her mistress to be discreet, she
forgot her astonishment and began affirming vehemently that the _señora_
could rest easy as to her prudence and that she was accustomed to
discharging confidential missions with the utmost care.

She went out of the house and made a bee-line for the _boliche_. If the
_gaucho_ was not there, it would mean that he had started for his ranch.

When she reached the door of the _Gallego’s_ establishment, she stopped
and peered inside. As it was the supper hour the customers were not
numerous. The majority of them had gone to their own homes where they
were having their evening meal with their families. An hour later they
would have returned to sit around the counter. An old _gaucho_ was
strumming the guitar while he gazed up at the paunch of one of the
crocodiles hanging from the ceiling. Manos Duras’ three guests were
listening attentively. Manos Duras himself was sitting on a horse’s
skull, and leaning one shoulder against the wall, was smoking
meditatively. As the owner of the _boliche_ was absent, Friterini,
behind the counter, was assuming all the airs of proprietorship, while
he blissfully perused an ancient and greasy copy of an Italian magazine.

Manos Duras looked up when he heard a discreet cough, and saw a
half-breed in the door beckoning to him to come out. When he had
followed her to the rear of the _Gallego’s_ shop, Sebastiana delivered
her message in a mysterious manner, keeping one finger on her lips; she
even went so far as to wink one eye. The _gaucho_ needn’t take her for a
fool. She had some idea what her message meant!

When the half-breed had gone, Manos Duras waited a few minutes before
returning to the _boliche_. He wanted to be alone in the dark, for it
seemed to him that he could enjoy his satisfaction better there. But in
his satisfaction there was a great deal of astonishment. How could he
have foreseen, that afternoon, as he wandered in front of the great
_señora’s_ house, that she would send him a message asking him to see
her in private that very night?

When through Sebastiana, whom he found in the corral, he had made his
offer of assistance to her mistress he had simply been, in his own
special way, obeying a chivalrous impulse. He wanted to appear to the
_marquesa’s_ eyes to be a man different from the rest, and he had
offered his protection without any hope that she would accept it.... Yet
one hour later she was sending for him. What was she going to ask him to
do for her?

Fortified by male vanity he dismissed his doubts. Even though he was a
rough cattle merchant, he was after all a man; and a better one at that
than these others.... They were all afraid of him ... these _gringas_
from the other side of the world were capricious creatures ... one never
knew where their fancy might lead them.... Manos Duras smiled....

“Just what I always said,” he thought, “they are all alike!”

And he returned to the _boliche_ and sat down with his friends, waiting
for the hour stipulated by the great _señora_.

Robledo and Watson were at that moment finishing their supper.

Someone knocked at the door.

They were both astonished to see Torre Bianca come in; he was so
thoroughly covered with dust that his black clothes looked grey, and
his hair and mustache were completely white.

“I’ve just come back from Fuerte Sarmiento, from poor Pirovani’s
funeral.... Moreno brought me back in his carriage.”

Robledo invited him to sit down at the table.

“Have some supper here, if you don’t feel that you must go at once to
your house.”

Torre Bianca shook his head.

“I do not intend to go back to my house.”

He spoke with such decision that Robledo stared at him. So tense were
the nerves of the _marqués_ that his hands shook and his tongue stumbled
over the words he spoke.

“I had something to eat with Moreno before coming back here.... But I’ll
eat a little now.... Death ... it’s pretty grim, isn’t it? Poor
Pirovani.... I’ll have a drink if you don’t mind.”

In spite of mentioning several times that he was hungry, he ate very
little of the food brought him by Robledo’s servant. But on the other
hand he drank a great deal of wine, tossing it down mechanically, as
though unaware that he was drinking.

Robledo thought he noticed the odor of gin about him. Undoubtedly he and
Moreno had had several drinks before starting on the journey home.
Perhaps this was the explanation of his excitement. He was not in the
habit of drinking liquor.

Watson, who had finished his supper, noticed that Torre Bianca was
looking at him as though he wanted to intimate that his presence was
inopportune.

“Is Moreno at his place now?” the young American inquired.

And on hearing that he was, Watson took himself off to discuss with the
government employee the report that was to be presented at Buenos Aires,
urging that the work at the dam be continued.

When Torre Bianca found himself alone with his friend, he became a
different person. His excitement abated suddenly, he lowered his eyes,
and it seemed to Robledo that he was shrinking in his chair like
something soft that huddles in on itself for lack of support from
within. All the spurious energy of alcohol had vanished at a stroke and
Torre Bianca, sitting opposite him there, had all the appearance of a
wrapping from which the contents has been deftly removed.

“I must talk to you,” he said, lifting his mild and pleading eyes to his
friend. “You are all that is left me now, the only human being in the
world who cares anything about me ... and for that very reason you must
let me have the truth. Today, while they were burying poor Pirovani, I
could think of nothing but this.... ‘I must see Robledo. He will tell me
frankly what I am to think of all this.’ What I mean by ‘all this’ is
the things I have noticed since yesterday ... everywhere I go ... the
way people look at me, the dislike they show in their gestures, the
names I can hear them calling me in their minds ... they don’t have to
speak, because I can guess it all.... Oh, it is too horrible!”

His voice broke on a note of complete discouragement and he covered his
face with his hands. Robledo murmured a few words intended to cheer him
up a little, but the _marqués_ interrupted him.

“You can talk later, Manuel. But first you must hear some things you
don’t know, and some of the things I told you once and that you have
forgotten. I must ask you one thing. Do you believe that my wife is
deceiving me?”

Robledo looked his astonishment at his friend’s words. Several minutes
passed before he attempted to reply. It was obvious that Torre Bianca
was in terror of his answer! And to avoid hearing it, he began relating
the whole story of his relations with Elena.

Robledo had heard a part of this history when he was in Paris; how the
_marqués_ had met her in London, the high rank her family held in Russia
at the court of the Czars, and so on.... But now the speaker’s tone was
quite changed, as though Torre Bianca himself had his doubts about the
authenticity of that past in which, up to that very day, he had had
complete faith, and about which he had always shown a great deal of
pride.

Furthermore, between the lines of his narrative, Federico was revealing
new episodes to his friend. Apparently the events of the past stood out
in clearer relief now, and his attention was caught by details that
until then had passed unnoticed. There had always been in his house an
intimate friend, a favored friend, whom his wife treated with the utmost
confidence, asserting that she had known him since the days when she was
living with her distinguished family. And when one “friend” went away,
another appeared ... but the place was never vacant. Twice the _marqués_
had fought duels for his wife’s honor, as a result of her being
calumniated by men who but a short time before had been frequent
visitors in her drawing-room. And with remorse he recalled that his
antagonist in one of these duels had been a friend of his whom he had
seriously wounded.

“I have told you the whole story of my life with this woman,” he said.
“At least all that I am sure of concerning her life. All the rest is
what she herself says ... and I don’t know whether I am to believe it or
not.... I even doubt what she says about her nationality and her name. I
told her frankly everything about myself ... and she gave me back lies
... lies ... lies....”

Again he looked anxiously at Robledo, hoping that the latter would give
him some faith in what he had once believed.

Like a drowning man, the _marqués_ was grasping at straws as he sank.
But Robledo looked away, and gave an ambiguous shrug.

“Since a few hours ago I have been looking at things with new eyes. Oh
God! The cruel glances of those poor people when I opened the window
yesterday! And today during the funeral ... I can’t tell you what
torment I endured!... And I, who never in my whole life have been afraid
of anyone, I couldn’t meet the hostile eyes of those workmen ... and
what was worse, some of them were mocking and contemptuous. Poor Moreno
kept taking me aside, and talking very loud so that I wouldn’t hear the
things people were saying behind me.... He didn’t know that I noticed
everything he was doing to protect me.... But this afternoon I felt so
overwhelmed, that I thought of you, my friend ... and I thought of my
poor old mother as though I were still a child. She had deprived herself
of everything so that her son might preserve the honor of his race! And
her son ends up by being the laughing-stock of a workmen’s camp, in a
wild uncivilized corner of the globe.... Oh, how shameful!”

He covered his eyes with his hands as if to shut out the cruel
spectacle. Then he looked up to ask with breathless anxiety,

“You, who are my only friend, and who knew something of my life in
Paris, do you believe that Fontenoy was my wife’s lover?”

Again Robledo made an ambiguous gesture. What could he reply? And again
Torre Bianca, with anguish in his voice, asked,

“And those two men who went out yesterday morning to kill one another,
do you think it was on Elena’s account?”

But this time Robledo did not take refuge in ambiguity. He merely
lowered his eyes; and the _marqués_ took the silence that followed to
mean “yes”....

Then hiding his face again in desperation, he said,

“And it was I, her husband, who acted as master of the duel in which
those two men fought....”

A long silence. The _marqués_ laid his head down on his hands, and
Robledo watched him, pityingly. Suddenly Torre Bianca straightened up,
and said, slowly rubbing his forehead,

“I can’t go on here. I am ashamed to meet the eyes of these people. But
I can’t go away with her, either. She couldn’t deceive me now ... and
when I look, at her, and see how false she is, and how falsely she
smiles, I shall kill her ... I am certain that I shall kill her!”

The moment had come for Robledo to speak.

“Don’t think about her any more. For the time being you must rest.
Tomorrow we’ll find a better way of your getting rid of your wife.
You’ll stay here tonight. And I’ll plan what we must do tomorrow. She
will go away. I don’t know just how; but she’ll go. And you will stay
with me.”

He laid an affectionate hand on Torre Bianca’s shoulder, and his tone
while he spoke, was like that of a father. But the _marqués_ kept his
face covered, and he shook his head.

He hated her! And yet, at the thought of separating from her forever, he
felt a sharp pang, a strange anxiety....

CHAPTER XVI

Pricked by her feminine curiosity, Sebastiana impatiently awaited the
hour of her mistress’s _rendez-vous_.

She was in the kitchen, in the corral covered over by a wooden shelter.
Several times Sebastiana carried her small lamp over to the table where
she kept an alarm clock to discover the hour. A little before ten she
took off the old shoes she wore, and in her stocking feet crossed the
corral, keeping close under the balcony of the house.

In this fashion, with noiseless step, she reached the corner of the
building nearest the window of Elena’s bedroom. Then she sat down on the
ground, huddling close to a pillar. In this fashion she could hear
without being seen.

In a little while she made out through the darkness the form of Manos
Duras approaching the house. She saw him take off his spurs and hide
them in his belt, after which he cautiously went up the wooden outside
stairway. Shortly after this the window of the _señora’s_ bedroom opened
and she came out, with a sign to her visitor that he was to make no
noise.

Sebastiana strained her ears to hear, but the window was so far away
that it was only with the greatest effort of concentration that she
could catch a few fragments of phrases. The words that passed between
the speakers were uttered in such low tones that she could not be
certain that she heard them correctly. It seemed to her that she caught
the names “Celinda” and “_Flor de Rio Negro_”; but she concluded that
her sense of hearing must be playing her a trick.

“What has my former little mistress got to do with the schemes of these
people?” she asked herself. “You must be imagining things, Sebastiana!”

Thrusting her head out from the shadow of the pillar, she succeeded in
seeing both speakers. Manos Duras was nodding approbation of what the
_señora_ was saying. Then he spoke briefly, emphasizing what he had to
say with impressive gestures. At a certain point he tried to seize the
_marquesa’s_ hand, but she drew back, with a movement that expressed
both repugnance and hauteur. At once he appeared to repent of his
impulsiveness, and in a louder tone, and as though making a promise, she
said to him,

“We’ll speak of this some other time, when you have fulfilled your part
of the contract. You understand what we have agreed upon.”

And she took leave of him with a certain coquetry of manner, although
she succeeded in keeping out of his reach.

When he saw that the window had closed upon the _señora_, the _gaucho_
went down the steps. On reaching the street he stopped and looked back.

“Two, instead of one,” Sebastiana thought she heard him say. And as he
spoke he looked like a hungry wolf licking his chops.

But still Sebastiana doubted having heard what had actually been said,
and she retired to her dingy bed in her hut in the corral, somewhat
disappointed by the scanty results of her eaves-dropping.

The only memory of what she had overheard that claimed her attention to
the point of keeping her awake, was that of the phrases concerning
“Celinda” and “_Flor de Rio Negro_”; but what possible reason could
there be for these two people to talk about her niña?

Robledo also spent a bad night. Worn out by his conflicting emotions the
_marqués_ had finally accepted his friend’s invitation, and his host had
put him in the same room that Torre Bianca had occupied when he and his
wife arrived at La Presa.

Twice that night Robledo woke up to find that he was straining to hear
the sounds coming from the next room. Muttered words and groans came
through the thin walls....

“Federico, do you want something?”

In a weak, humble voice came Torre Bianca’s reply. From the comparative
silence that followed it seemed that he was making not altogether
unsuccessful attempts to be quiet.

A third time Robledo woke, but this time the bars of his window were
outlined against the light sky of early morning. A sharp noise had
broken into his slumber, making him start up in bed.

When he came out into the living-room, he found Watson leaning down over
a chair, fastening on his spurs. It was the noise made by this chair
falling over a few moments before which had aroused him. When he saw his
young partner, Robledo exclaimed cheerfully, “Up so early?... And you
got in pretty late last night too....”

But Watson seemed to be in low spirits; he offered no explanation beyond
saying that as there was no work that day, he was going out on a long
ride.

When he had gone, Robledo finished dressing, walking up and down in the
living room as he did so. Passing by the door of Torre Bianca’s bedroom
he felt tempted to open it and go in. He wanted to see his friend. A
vague presentiment made him uneasy.

“How had poor Federico spent the night?” he wondered.

He opened the door, and looking in, uttered an exclamation of
astonishment. There was no one in the room. The bed, on which the
bed-clothes hung tossed about in disorder, was empty. Robledo stood for
several minutes trying to think out a solution for the mystery. He
concluded that Federico, not being able to sleep, must have gone out to
walk as soon as it grew light.

Instinctively he looked scrutinizingly about the room. He noticed some
sheets of paper on the table, all of them bearing the beginnings of a
letter in Torre Bianca’s handwriting. He had evidently felt it useless
to continue any of them.

Robledo picked one of them up. “Thank you for all you have done ... but
I can’t go on--” another one began, “The only woman who ever really
loved me was my mother, and she is dead. If only I could feel sure of
seeing her again--”

Robledo looked at some of the other sheets. They contained nothing but
crossed out and unintelligible phrases. Torre Bianca had done his best
to write and had finally given it up. Robledo could see his friend in
the late hours of the night throwing down his pen ... he had just picked
it up off the floor ... and saying with the scorn of one who already
considers himself above earthly cares: “What does it matter....”

He stood with the papers in his hand, trying to determine what he had
best do. Then it occurred to him that perhaps the _marqués_ was
wandering about up at the dam. These scrawls of his gave evidence of
indecision ... at such a time wouldn’t he be likely to go to the place
where he had been happiest in La Presa, to the scene of his work?

He examined the ground outside the house carefully and gave an
exclamation of satisfaction at distinguishing among the fresh tracks of
Watson’s horse, a man’s foot prints. They must be Torre Bianca’s!

The tracks led down an alley between his house and the neighboring one,
and then came out on the open. Once outside the town, he lost the traces
of the footprints among the many tracks made by those who had passed in
and out of the settlement that morning.

Instinctively he went towards the river, following the bank upward of
the current. The surface of the water he watched so intently was not
broken by the slightest object. Finally he stopped this search of his
that had no guide nor reason other than a presentiment.

“This Federico,” he said to himself, “has upset me with his troubles.
Why should I have such absurd fears about him?... Let’s go home.... I
feel sure that I’ll find him at the house. He’s probably been taking a
walk on the other side of town.”

And with a hurried anxious step he went back to La Presa.

At the very same hour of the day, near the Rojas ranch, Manos Duras,
with his three comrades from the mountains, was talking in the shade of
some _matorrales_ that grew a little higher than their heads.

They had dismounted and were holding their horses by their bridles. One
of them was dressed in different style from his companions, and seemed
more like a laborer from a neighboring town than one of the _gauchos_ of
the country. To this fellow Manos Duras was giving directions which he
accepted in silence, with a few rapid blinks of approval. He then
mounted his horse and the other two looked after him until he
disappeared behind some _matorrales_.

“The old dog is going to learn what it costs to give me any of his
threats,” growled Manos Duras with a smile full of venom.

One of the mountaineers, whom the others called Piola and who seemed to
be older than the rest, and better mannered, shook his head and looked
dubious. His comrade’s plan was all right except for Manos Duras’
intention of staying in town a day or two after striking his blow. It
would be much better, in his opinion, to retreat together and at once
into the mountains.

“Leave the plans alone, brother. I know what I’m doing,” Manos Duras
replied. “I want to collect something that will be due me. Perhaps I can
get my pay this very night, and if so I’ll overtake you by tomorrow.”

His horse, an excellent animal, would surely be able to make up for the
disadvantage of a late start, and would overtake the first party, that
was to carry the baggage, before they had covered half the distance to
the ranch.

Meanwhile his messenger was galloping toward the Rojas property. At the
palisade, he opened the gate, and continued his rapid pace through the
estate of don Carlos Rojas.

When he drew near the main building, Cachafaz, made aware of his arrival
by the barking of the dogs as they leapt in front of the horse’s hoofs,
and snapped at the horseman’s legs, came out to meet him. With sharp
cries the boy called off the dogs and then listened with the gravity of
a grown man to what the gaucho had to say.

But scarcely was the message delivered when Cachafaz, with shouts of
joy, rushed into the ranch house, quite unmindful of the messenger.

Don Carlos was in the parlor having his tenth gourdful of mate that
morning. Celinda, in feminine attire, sat in a cane armchair, absorbed
apparently by her own melancholy thoughts.

“Master,” cried the little half-breed, bursting in like a small
whirlwind, “the _comisario_ has just sent word that you are to go at
once to the _pueblo_. They have caught the thief who stole our heifer!”

Pleased by this news, the rancher followed Cachafaz out of the room,
taking with him his calabashful of _mate_ and continuing to sip it
through the _bombilla_ as he walked. He wanted to learn some of the
details of this capture from the messenger who had come in such hot
haste to inform him of it.

But on stepping outside his front door, he was perplexed at discovering
that the horseman had disappeared. Cachafaz ran shouting around the
buildings and through the various corrals without being able to discover
the messenger. Finally, with a shrug, don Rojas concluded that the
_comisario_ must have charged some _gaucho_ who was riding through that
section of the country to deliver the message as he went by. After all
it was good news! The fellow probably had a long journey to make and
hadn’t wanted to lose any time. Nor should he lose any either! Thereupon
don Carlos mounted his horse to go see the commissioner. He would be
back for the midday meal, he told Celinda.

Manos Duras and his three companions, lying flat on the ground, saw the
rancher go by in the direction of La Presa. Keeping their faces close to
the _matorral_ roots, they laughed cynically as they watched him ride
away.

“He’s going after the cow we ate yesterday,” commented Piola.

And Manos Duras added, with characteristic impudence,

“We’ll see what he has to say when we have carried off his little
heifer.”

Watson, who was riding in the vicinity of the ranch, eager to approach
it, and yet fearful of arousing Celinda’s resentment by his presence,
also saw don Rojas pass by, going in the direction of La Presa.

This strengthened his courage. Celinda then was alone at the ranch, and
he could invent some pretext for going to see her.... But then he lost
heart again.... He couldn’t stand having Cachafaz come out as on the day
before and tell him that Celinda would not see him. No, he preferred
roaming about over the plains ... and perhaps Celinda, bored by her
solitude, would come out and get on her horse....

He felt disposed to wait at least until sundown. As was his habit he
carried a few eatables in one of his saddle bags. But for the time being
he had quite forgotten that human beings are born with the mortal
infirmity of hunger. Other matters seemed far more important to him at
the moment.

Meanwhile, his friend Robledo was wandering along the main street of La
Presa, head down, absorbed by his reflections. He had just stopped in at
his house. Torre Bianca was still not there. His breakfast had waited
for him in vain. Where could he be?

He heard someone calling to him from the middle of the street and looked
up. The rancher Rojas was talking excitedly to the _comisario_, who
looked amazed, then bewildered. Robledo walked towards them.

“Someone came to my ranch this morning to tell me that the _comisario_
wanted to see me and return the cow that was stolen from me three days
ago.... And now don Roque says he never sent any such message, and
doesn’t know anything about this business. Did you ever hear the like?
Who could the fellow be who brought the message?... I’d like to show him
what I think of his joke!”

Robledo listened abstractedly for a few minutes, trying to feign a
decent amount of interest. Then he went on his way through the town. For
the moment he was entirely pre-occupied with thoughts of his friend.
Every time he saw a man in the distance he thought it must be Torre
Bianca.

“It’s too bad that Watson went away so early this morning,” he thought.
“If he were here he would help me look for Federico.”

But Watson, far away on the desert, torn between his desire to see
Celinda and his fear of being harshly dismissed by her, was little by
little approaching the ranch as he rode around it in wide circles. When,
however, he reached the palisades of the Rojas property, he was again
torn by indecision. How was he to explain his presence on the ranch
grounds when _Flor de Rio Negro_ had ordered him never to come there
again?

But the sight of a gate swinging wide open gave him courage.

“No matter what she may say, I’m going in,” he decided. “I must see her,
even though nothing comes of it but her calling me names....”

And he rode slowly forward down the trail leading to the ranch house.
Suddenly his horse started and quickened his walk, then stopped abruptly
as though about to rear.

Across the path lay the bodies of two dogs, recently killed, it seemed,
for their mangled heads lay in two fresh rivulets of blood. A few paces
farther on he found a man also stretched across the trail.

He too was dead. Richard recognized him as one of don Carlos’ half-breed
peons, although his head was frightfully shattered by the explosion of
the bullets at close range. One of the corpse’s eye sockets was
completely empty, and through this opening to the skull was oozing some
of the brain. The thirsty earth was avidly drinking up the murdered
man’s blood.

Watson flung himself down from his horse, and holding his revolver in
his right hand, he made his way toward the house. When, on looking
through the door opening into the living room he saw no one, he began to
call.

The wicker chair in which Celinda usually sat lay overturned on the
floor. The cover of the large table had apparently been roughly pulled
off and lay on the ground, while the papers and small objects that
usually covered it were scattered about under foot.

He continued shouting “Where are you?... It’s me, Watson!” until steps
finally became audible in the hall leading to the inner rooms of the
ranch house; and finally there appeared in the doorway the wrinkled,
copper-colored face of Cachafaz’s mother. Then the other servants, all
of them half-breeds, also crept out of their hiding places; but to
Watson’s questions they stammered unintelligible replies or else
maintained a terrified silence.

Richard came out of the house just in time to see young Cachafaz peer
anxiously out from one of the corrals; and no sooner did the others see
the boy than they all began giving their account of what had taken
place; but the little fellow spoke with a certain authoritative air of
knowing what he was about and Watson listened attentively.

He, Cachafaz, had been with his young mistress that morning and had
seen everything. Three men had come galloping towards the house full
speed. Then the dogs began to bark and just as he stepped out of the
house to run and see what was the matter with them, he heard the shots
that killed the poor hounds. Then he saw a peon running towards the
horsemen, probably to ask them why they were coming into the ranch in
that fashion; but before he could say a word they drew their revolvers
and shot him down.

“I ran through the house,” continued Cachafaz breathlessly. “The
_señorita_ was just going out to see what was happening when three men
rushed in and threw a poncho over her head; then they picked her up and
carried her away.... I was under the table ... but as soon as they had
gone I crept out and I saw them get on their horses, carrying my
mistress this way in their arms ... so ... under their ponchos. That’s
all I know.”

Then the others burst out once more, each eager to tell what he or she
had witnessed, though as a matter of fact, none of them had seen much
for they had all run to cover as soon as they saw the peon drop dead,
and had remained in their hiding places until Watson had arrived. Watson
meanwhile, as he tried to get some clear impression from all these
divergent accounts of what had actually taken place, thought
remorsefully of those moments of indecision when he had been wandering
outside the boundary lines of the ranch. If he had only arrived half an
hour earlier, if he had only been with Celinda, to defend her, to drive
off these kidnappers....

He divined from the look in Cachafaz’s antelope eyes that the boy did,
as a matter of fact, know more than he had told, so he led the small
half-breed, who was smiling scornfully at the contradictory statements
being poured out by the excited servants, into the next room. There
Cachafaz, standing on tiptoe, whispered to him,

“It was Manos Duras ... and I know where he took our _señora_!”

Richard fired rapid questions at him, and the boy explained as best he
could. No, neither of the three men who had carried away Celinda was
Manos Duras. But when Cachafaz left his first hiding place, which was
under the table, he had run into a corral nearby where there was a heap
of alfalfa drying for the winter feed of the cows. He had crept to the
top of it, and from there he could see way, way off into the distance.
So he had seen how the three riders met a fourth who was waiting for
them outside the ranch gates, and that fourth was undoubtedly Manos
Duras. Then all four started off in the same direction riding hard, and
carrying Celinda with them swung across one of the saddles, a
prisoner....

And from the top of his alfalfa heap he had seen Watson coming, but he
had been so scared that he hadn’t come down until he was quite sure that
it was the _patroncita’s_ friend and no one else.

Watson could not for several minutes co-ordinate his thoughts. It seemed
to him that the first thing he must do was to go find Celinda and free
her at once, without a thought for the advantage of numbers on the side
of the bandits. He had one ally at least, young Cachafaz, who knew where
Celinda was being concealed. That was the important thing; knowing
that, everything else should be easy. He’d fight the ruffians and bring
Celinda back of course! And with the absurd self-confidence of lovers,
who are incapable of perceiving the actual size of the obstacles placed
in their way, he mounted his horse and beckoned to Cachafaz to come with
him.

With a flying leap, Cachafaz landed on the horse’s cruppers, and
clutched Watson’s blouse; then the latter spurred his mount, and they
started off at a gallop.

As soon as they had passed through the gate Richard turned his horse in
the direction of the Manos Duras’ ranch, which he had often seen from a
distance. But Cachafaz exclaimed,

“That’s the wrong direction!” and he pointed to the highest part of the
bluffs overhanging the river.

“Go over there,” he whispered, “to the ranch of the Dead Squaw.”

The tumble-down ranch house, known as that of the “Dead Squaw,” had a
certain notoriety in the vicinity; it was rarely visited for it was
generally reputed to be the usual stopping-place of travellers wanting
to cross that part of the country without being seen.

“We’ll find them there,” said Cachafaz, “if they haven’t gone on to some
other place.”

At the same hour, on returning to his house after a fruitless search,
Robledo experienced a surprise no less disagreeable than fell to
Watson’s share when he arrived at the Rojas’ ranch.

On the threshold of the front door sat Sebastiana, apparently waiting
for him, to judge from her grunt of satisfaction at sight of him. He too
felt relieved to see her, for it flashed through his mind that
doubtless Torre Bianca had sent her, with a message explaining his
disappearance. Probably the poor weak-willed _marqués_ had gone back to
his wife and was once more lending his credulity to her lies.

“Did your master send you?... Have you a note from him for me?”

Sebastiana blinked her slant eyes by way of showing her astonishment.

“Master?... _El marqués?_ ... I know nothing about him. I thought he was
here. No, I came for something quite different.”

She got up heavily, sighing, as she lifted her weight up to a vertical
position; then she said, in a hoarse whisper,

“I couldn’t sleep all night, and here I am waiting for you to answer a
question for me, don Robledo.”

The engineer listened somewhat ironically, though with admirable
patience, to this plea for consultation. But no sooner did the
half-breed begin talking, than his expression completely changed, and
indicated the closest attention to what she was saying.

The woman finished her account of what she had seen and heard the night
before.

“Why did the _señorona_ and Manos Duras talk so much about my little
mistress?... What has my little white dove to do with them?... As I’m
nothing but an old fool who can’t understand anything, I said to myself,
‘I’m going to see don Manuel who knows everything. He can tell me....’”

But Robledo was not listening now. He seemed absorbed. Suddenly he made
a gesture as though he had just discovered a terrible truth. Abruptly
he turned his back on Sebastiana, and went rapidly back to the place he
had just come from.

Then to the half-breed’s astonishment the engineer began running, with
increasing speed, as though her words had made him fearful of arriving
too late. While he was still a distance away from the other men he began
to shout and gesticulate to don Carlos and the _comisario_ who were
still talking just where he had left them a few minutes earlier.
Uncomprehendingly they looked at one another when they heard him say,
pantingly,

“Get on your horses ... at once! That story about the cow was a ruse of
Manos Duras to get you away from the ranch! I’m afraid something has
happened to Celinda ... we must get out there as soon as possible ... if
it isn’t already too late....”

Don Roque, recovering from his momentary stupefaction, rushed to his
house to get out his gun and mount his horse. His four policemen, whom
he summoned at once, rushed around in an attempt to follow their
leader’s moves, but only three of them succeeded in finding mounts and
borrowing a few guns from the neighbors. Obviously their sabres would be
more useless than ever on this occasion!

Meanwhile Robledo had gone back to his house and while the servant was
saddling his horse, he strapped on his revolver holster and a cartridge
belt, and sent for all the overseers of the works who lived near by and
had guns. In addition he borrowed the _Gallego’s_ American rifle which
the proprietor of the _boliche_ kept hidden under his counter.

In addition to carrying on his own preparations, Robledo kept an eye on
don Carlos Rojas for fear he might escape. He had obliged Celinda’s
father to come back to the house with him, and now he was urging him to
be prudent.

“Getting there half an hour sooner isn’t going to change what has
already happened. All you’ll do is to let the bandits get you too into
their clutches ... if nothing worse. We’ll all go together ... just be
patient a few minutes longer!”

But the rancher received these admonitions with grunts of protest,
trembling all the while with rage and anxiety. Robledo, standing on
guard in his doorway, stepped forward to greet the men he had sent for
and explain to them what he wanted of them. The _Gallego_ came up to the
group, his American rifle in his hand, and, with a solemnity befitting
the handing over of his entire family, entrusted it to Robledo, his
fellow countryman.

This offered just the opportunity don Carlos had been waiting for.
Jumping into the saddle, he galloped off without paying the slightest
attention to the shouts sent after him.

The rescuing party was hastily organized. It consisted of a dozen
horsemen, all of them carrying rifles, and under the leadership of
Robledo and don Roque they speedily galloped off.

The news meanwhile had spread through the town and a group of women and
children gathered to speed the troup of horsemen with shrill shouts. As
they passed the house of the unfortunate Pirovani, Robledo could not
restrain his uneasy impulse to glance up at the windows.

“This woman has perhaps prepared another tragedy for us,” he thought....

At that instant Watson was dismounting, and with Cachafaz at his heels,
was crawling through the tough _matorrales_. The little half-breed had
directed him to a sand hill on the edge of the plateau; and from this
elevation he and his small guide could look down almost perpendicularly
on the ruins of Dead Squaw ranch.

Watson knew the place by name. Twenty years earlier it had been
inhabited by ranchers who sent their cattle out to pasture in the lands
adjoining. But the capricious hurricanes of the desert had suddenly
spread a thick mantel of sand over these pasture lands; then the waters
of the well, which up till then had been relatively fresh, turned
brackish, and finally became liquid salt. All the human inhabitants had
fled and the adobe buildings soon fell into ruins. Only vagabonds now
sought the shelter of the crumbling roof of the abandoned ranch.

As Watson advanced, cat-like, through the thick tough shrub-growths of
the sand hill he felt an eerie fear at the stillness of the ranch below.
Not a dog barked ... surely Cachafaz must have made a mistake in his
deductions, surely that silent ranch was as deserted now as it had ever
been! But the little half-breed wriggling ahead of him, stopped between
two _mattoral_ trunks and made a sign to Watson that he was to come
nearer.

Thrusting his head between the branches Richard made out a sandy
elevation twenty yards below in the centre of which was the ranch house.
Two horses were nosing along together, nibbling at the sparse grass; and
a man with a rifle laid across his knees sat on the ground keeping
watch.

Cachafaz murmured into his ear,

“That’s one of the men who carried away the _patroncita_.”

However much Watson might peer and stretch his neck to see, he could
discover no one else below. Making his way backwards from his
observatory he slid down to the bottom of the hill and took out a pencil
and bit of paper from his pocket. His bright animal-eyes shining as
though he already knew what the mission was that he was to be entrusted
with, the boy watched Watson write.

Richard gave him the paper and pointed to the place where his horse was
tethered.

“Get to the town as fast as you can and give this to the _señor_
Robledo, or else to the _comisario_ ... whichever one you meet first.”

And he was about to add further directions but Cachafaz was no longer
listening. He was already flying down the hill; then with a jump he
sprang on the horse, and was off at a fast gallop.

Once more Watson went up the sand slope to observe what was going on at
the ranch. Then he saw two men; first the one he had seen before, who
was still sitting on the ground with his rifle on his knees; and another
one standing in front of him, carrying no other weapons but the knife
and revolver in his belt. This was a _gaucho_ whom he recognized
immediately--Manos Duras. The two men were talking, but the distance
separating him from them was too great to permit of his catching any
words. So it was useless for the moment to continue his observation of
the camp; useless also to think of attacking.... Not even with the
advantage to be gained by surprising them could he take the risk.
Although there were only two men visible, it was reasonable to suppose
that inside the ranch house there were several more, perhaps asleep.

“What have they done with Celinda?” thought the youth.

Crawling along between the _matorrales_ he followed the edge of the
sand-hill until he reached a place opposite the one from which he had
made his first inspection. The two bandits went on talking, without
giving evidence of the slightest suspicion that on the edge of the slope
near them a man was gliding through the brush, spying on them.

The man facing Manos Duras was the so-called Piola. He was speaking in a
tone of vigorous expostulation.

“You know very well that I don’t have any use for this kind of business.
I steer clear of any mix-up with women in it. It always ends up wrong
and there’s the devil and all hell to pay. It would have been a much
better job, as long as you were picking one out, to have rustled a herd
in Limay and sold it in the _Cordillera_ ... or why the devil didn’t you
pick on some of old man Rojas’ cows that we might have sold for good
money instead of making us waste our time here like a lot of kids
stealing this little she-calf....”

Manos Duras’ only reply was a gesture indicating that what he chose to
do was his business. Piola took up his complaint again.

“It may be that you know what you are doing. And we fellows are sticking
to you like brothers. But if you got any coin for kidnapping this girl,
the least you could do is to share it with us.”

The _gaucho_ looked at him with scornful anger.

“Money--nothing! Haven’t I told you man, that this is a matter of
getting even?... Old Rojas insulted me, and I’m doing the worst thing to
him that I can think of ... and anyway, you know what our bargain
was.... You are to keep her for me, and as soon as we get into the
mountains, it will be your turn....”

Piola showed his fangs in a smile of appreciation at this part of the
contract.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll keep her for you ... your turn first ...
that is if you catch up with us by tomorrow. But if you’re late, you
won’t find her quite as you left her.... But why don’t you start out
with us now? What’s up in La Presa tonight that you can’t go along with
us?”

“Just a little matter to settle,” said Manos Duras with an insolent
smile. “I want to leave all my accounts in order before I go.”

But Piola was far from sharing his comrade’s assurance that the
adventure in hand would end successfully. He calculated that perhaps at
that very moment what had happened at the Rojas ranch was already known
at La Presa. If news of the kidnapping had not yet reached the town, it
would be sure to do so before long, for don Carlos would be returning
to his ranch after his fruitless trip to see the _comisario_. Wasn’t
Manos Duras afraid, he inquired, that the inhabitants of La Presa would
attribute the girl’s disappearance to him?

“Maybe,” replied the _gaucho_, in a tone of contemptuous indifference.
“But they have attributed so many things to me without being able to
prove any of them ...! If they see me in town they’ll think that I
haven’t had anything to do with this affair. Nobody saw me at the Rojas
place. Besides, I shall go to my ranch first in case anyone should come
up there to look for me. Then this afternoon I’ll ride into town as
usual ... by midnight I’ll have finished my business and be on the way
to join you.”

Piola winked his left eye and pointed towards the ranch house.

“What does _she_ say?”

“She thinks we carried her off to get ransom money out of the old
man.... She has no idea of what’s in store for her.... Pretty enough,
too, and she doesn’t seem to be much scared now that she’s got over her
first fright. _Pucha!_ She kept me busy for a while.... Little devil,
kicking and biting under the poncho when I put her on the saddle in
front of me! I’m keeping her with her hands bound in the house yonder.
If I didn’t she’d be fighting to get out, and you’d have to knock her
down as though she were a man!”

Manos Duras stood silent, absorbed by his thoughts for a few moments.
Then he added with a cynical smile,

“I came out because it was getting pretty difficult to keep my hands off
of her ... but the fact is, brother, there’s another one who’s even more
to my taste ... and I’m going to see her soon. Just the same this one is
a pretty fine specimen, and when a man’s alone with her, the devil
begins looking around for his innings ... and as we’re in enemy country,
I’ve no business to forget what I’m doing, and lose time.... But I’ll
make up for fasting today by feasting tomorrow. Today I have another
game to finish. So, just as soon as the others get back, I’ll be off.
You’ll go ahead with the she-calf, and I’ll go back to the ranch ... and
it’ll be ‘so long’ until tomorrow ... _si Dios quiere_!”

Watson grew weary of wriggling about through the _matorral_ bushes when
he found that there was nothing more to see than the two bandits talking
together, and the crumbling ranch-house, its door tight-closed, a few
planks of wood carelessly nailed across it. No, there seemed to be no
other living being around, and after a while he began to doubt that
Celinda’s captors had hidden her in the building opposite him. Perhaps
they had carried her off to a place much harder to find, and had left
her there under guard of the other two men?

Finally, tired of the uselessness of his observation, he slid down the
sand-hill and sat near the spot where Cachafaz had jumped onto his
horse. Time passed, but so slowly, it seemed a lifetime that he had been
waiting there, helplessly, in the slow torture of anxiety and
inactivity.

Something was moving on the horizon.... His eyes, which had for so long
scanned the landscape without discovering anything new in it, suddenly
grew animated as he made out between the dark patches of the distant
_matorrales_ a small rider who grew larger as he steadily galloped
towards the sand-hill. In a few minutes Watson recognized him. He had
seen the same horse and rider pass by that very morning ... don Carlos
Rojas.

Although the rancher was coming straight towards him, Richard thought it
prudent to go to meet him, and began running, with all the speed he
could make in the soft sand, furrowed by the black roots of the brush
from around which the wind had scattered the supporting soil so that his
feet kept catching in the exposed root fibres, and his progress was
constantly being interrupted by violent stumblings.

As soon as don Carlos caught sight of him, he reined in his horse and
pulled his revolver from the holster. Then, recognizing him, the rancher
dismounted.

Watson was perplexed. He had sent his message to La Presa. How was it
don Carlos had come in response to it ... and alone?

“Where are the others?” asked Watson. “Have you seen Robledo?”

Don Carlos replied evasively. Perhaps Robledo and the _comisario_ would
get there soon, but then again they might take hours....

“And I wasn’t going to wait for them,” don Carlos wound up. “Bunch of
slow-pokes. No knowing when they’ll get here. I got tired waiting and so
I came alone.”

Then he went on to explain that while he was riding as fast as he could
towards Manos Duras’s ranch, without stopping to go back to his own, he
had seen a rider coming rapidly towards him. He had drawn his revolver
in order to stop him, but there was something about the rider’s
appearance, that made him determine not to shoot.

“He looked like a monkey on a horse. Cachafaz it was! Then he told me
that you were here and showed me your note. I told him to ride ahead and
tell the others so that they shouldn’t lose more time going to my place.
So he’ll show them the way out here.... But what has happened?”

They walked along among the _matorral_ roots, following the path made by
Watson, Rojas leading his horse. He tethered him at the bottom of the
sand-hill, and then, on hands and knees, followed Watson up the slope
from the top of which they could look down on Dead Squaw ranch.

As they peered through the openings in the bushes they saw Piola still
sitting on the ground, just as before, but he was alone. Manos Duras had
disappeared.

The fellow was smoking and looking about uneasily, as though
instinctively, with the sharp senses of the desert dweller, he had
become aware of the hidden enemy. Every now and then he stretched his
neck and stared into the distance as though expecting a new arrival.

“Let’s attack!” whispered don Carlos.

It apparently was a small matter to him that the mountaineer held his
gun in front of him ready to aim. Rojas and Watson had no arms but their
revolvers.

“Don’t forget there’s another one somewhere about,” said Watson.

“Well, what of it?... That makes two, and there are two of us. Let’s go
for them. I want to take a crack at that fellow!”

And he pulled out his revolver, apparently with the idea of firing from
where he was, without taking any account of the distance the bullet
would have to travel. Watson checked him, laying a hand on his arm, and
whispering in his ear,

“There are two other men that I haven’t located yet. We’d better wait
for Robledo and the rest.”

They waited in a state of painful indecision, fluctuating between the
determination to wait prudently and the impulse to try their luck and
attack without knowing the exact number of the enemy to be reckoned
with.

But it was not long before Watson discovered the whereabouts of Manos
Duras’s other companions. Suddenly the silence was broken by the furious
barking of dogs in the distance. Piola stood up with a shout. Manos
Duras came out of the ranch house and went around the corner of the
adobe building, remaining in full sight of the two men spying upon him
from among the _matorral_ bushes.

Two other mountaineers were arriving. After the morning’s work, they had
gone to Manos Duras’s ranch to get the troop of horses that were to
accompany them on their journey into the mountains, carrying the food
and the other supplies necessary for so long an expedition, and the dogs
of the ranch had come along with the party.

In a few minutes the two new arrivals, armed with rifles and bringing
six horses loaded with sacks and roped bundles, reached the sandy
elevation. The dogs, after leaping about among the decaying buildings,
joyfully greeting the master they could not see, began to bark uneasily
and nose anxiously about. Then they broke into shrill fierce howls.
Their mouths dripping, their backs bristling, they tried to spring up
the sand slope, sliding back and running to the _gauchos_ to warn them
of the hidden enemy.

Instead of trying to quiet the dogs, the two horsemen looked up
threateningly at the _matorrales_ of the sandy elevation.

“They’ve spotted us,” muttered Rojas. “All the better. We’ll get through
this business right away!”

Watson followed him down the side of the hill. There was nothing to do
now but break cover. They came out at the point where the horse was
tethered; don Carlos mounted him and felt of his revolver to see if it
came out of the holster easily. Keeping close to the horse Watson moved
forward with Rojas, and in this fashion they advanced quite openly
towards the ranch-house.

When, preceded by the three dogs who, as they retreated, showed their
fangs and barked furiously, they reached the open space in front of the
building, they found themselves face to face with the two mountaineers
still on their horses, and Piola, with his rifle in position, ready to
fire. Don Carlos addressed him as though he were the leader of the band.

“Where is my daughter?” he demanded.

Imperturbably the _gaucho_ listened to him, as though not understanding
a word.

“There’s no need of useless talk,” Rojas continued, “If it’s money you
want, out with it, and perhaps we can come to an understanding.”

Piola remained silent. Meanwhile, in response to an almost imperceptible
signal from him, the other two _gauchos_ removed themselves to a
distance of a few yards, where they stood scanning the horizon line. One
of them rode back, dismounted, and began talking very low to Piola.
There was no one to be seen on the plain.

But the dogs continued barking, moving uneasily from one side of the
group to the other. It seemed that their agitation must be a remnant of
their previous excitement. The two riders had unquestionably arrived
alone.

Rojas continued his attempts to strike a bargain, at the same time
making extraordinary efforts to control his indignation.

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about, _señor_,” Piola replied
finally. “You’re on the wrong track. I never saw the young woman.”

“Aren’t you people friends of Manos Duras?”

While this was going on Watson moved away from the speakers with the
intention of getting around the ranch-house to the front door. But the
other mountaineer, guessing his intention, stepped in front of him,
taking aim at him, on the point of shooting. Finally without having
committed himself to any definite reply, Piola turned his back to Rojas
and walked away, disappearing behind the corner of the building.

The rancher attempted to follow him and brought up short against the man
who checked Watson. His rifle in position, he kept it pointed at both
men, and they were constrained to stand motionless while they inwardly
debated the question as to whether to yield to the menace of the gun
muzzle, or throw themselves upon the bandit.

With a blow, Piola knocked down the poorly joined planks with which the
door was patched, and came upon Manos Duras just at the moment when the
latter had reached the conclusion that his struggles with Celinda were
going to cost him too many scratches. The girl, in spite of the fact
that her hands were still bound, was defending herself with the ferocity
of a small tiger against the _gaucho’s_ attacks. She had torn his flesh
with her nails, bitten and kicked him. His face in several places
dripped blood, but such was his state of excitement that he was unaware
of more than a few of his wounds.

At sight of his comrade he tried to regain something of his customary
composure, and addressed him with fierce joviality.

“What did I tell you, brother? A fellow begins by playing and before he
knows it he loses his head, with a girl like that....”

But he became silent when he saw how Piola was looking at him.

“So, you’re playing in here like a green school boy! It doesn’t matter
to you what happens outside, does it?”

He motioned his leader towards the door, and once on the other side of
the threshold, he went on in a low tone,

“Old man Rojas is here with one of the _gringos_ from the dam. What are
we going to do?”

Manos Duras, in spite of his customary cynicism, was taken aback at the
news that only a few crumbling adobe walls separated him from Celinda’s
father. How had he arrived there so soon? Who could have revealed to him
the whereabouts of his kidnapped daughter? Then his native ferocity,
pricked by the memory of the insult done him, awoke to provide him with
a solution to the problem confronting him.

“Why not kill him?”

“And the _gringo_ too?” inquired Piola ironically. “You have an answer
to everything!”

The _gaucho_ from the Andes moved uneasily as though instinctively he
felt the proximity of danger. He could not believe that those two men
had come alone. Others must be close at hand to lend them help. The best
thing for Manos Duras to do in this situation was to mount his swift
horse without further loss of time, and start off with his prize on the
saddle in front of him for that part of the banks of the Limay where he
was to meet the rest of the expedition. Certainly he ought to give up
the idea of keeping any engagement in La Presa that night. Prudence
demanded a change of plans. While he was riding for safety with the
girl, he, Piola, and his men, would remain to distract the attention of
the pursuers. He could spend several hours convincing the old man that
his suspicions were ill-founded. And if other pursuers arrived from the
town they too would be convinced, on finding that the _gauchos_ had no
woman in their possession, and discovering no evidence of Manos Duras
having been at Dead Squaw ranch, that his comrades were merely peaceable
travellers using the ranch as a camping ground.

Manos Duras listened impatiently. No; he had taken a fancy to the
adventure just as it was and would not change any detail of the plan he
had made. He wanted to keep Celinda, well and good, but he would not
give up his visit to La Presa, where, as soon as it grew dark, he was
going to present himself on his mysterious errand.

“Well, there’s another way out still,” persisted Piola. “The old fellow
is offering money for the girl....”

But he got no farther. Close at hand, on the other side of the wall, a
shot rang out, and then a cry. Manos Duras’s trusted comrade uttered an
oath.

“There! The party’s begun!” he exclaimed, raising the trigger of his
gun, and running towards the spot from which the sound had apparently
come.

What had happened was that while the man who checked their advance kept
his gun aimed at Watson, who because of his youth seemed the more
dangerous of the two, Rojas had cautiously removed his revolver from the
holster and fired.

The man on guard fell over on his face, and Watson at once grasped his
rifle.

At the moment when Piola came around the turn of the building, Rojas had
already mounted his horse, for like many of his forefathers, he felt
more secure on his mount than he could ever feel standing on solid
ground. Watson, who had been wrestling with the wounded man for
possession of the rifle, at that moment wrested it from him, and was
raising it to his shoulder; but when he found that the mountaineer was
aiming at him, the American stooped with a quick instinctive motion,
and the bullet, which would otherwise have hit him square in the chest,
merely grazed his left shoulder. But the smarting pain caused by the
whizzing projectile made him drop the rifle he had seized, and raise his
right hand to his wounded shoulder.

Piola stepped towards him to make sure of his second shot; and at this
point in the duel Manos Duras thrust his head out of the shelter of the
corner wall.

What he noticed first was that Rojas was taking aim with his revolver at
Piola. Manos Duras with his own revolver took aim at the rancher; but he
could not draw the trigger. The other mountaineer who had been scouting
on the opposite side of the ranch came between him and his target.

“There’s a whole bunch of them coming,” he yelled.

The dogs were following him, making violent leaps in the direction of
the invisible enemy and back again.

And now events followed one another in such rapid succession that all
that happened seemed to crowd with fantastic velocity on the heels of
what was already occurring....

Manos Duras was the first to spring into action. With a rush he mounted
his horse, nibbling at patches of coarse grass, as undisturbed by the
shots fired as though he heard such detonations every day; and together,
horse and cattle thief disappeared behind the ranch house.

Piola turned from Watson to consider his own safety. He too felt safer
on horseback; keeping his rifle in his left hand, he jumped on his mount
with the remaining _gaucho_, and went to keep guard over the troop of
pack horses who represented the entire fortune of the band.

Rojas, apparently forgetting all possibility of danger to himself, rode
towards Watson.

“What have they done to you, _gringuito_?” he asked with genuine
emotion. “Have they killed you?”

“Nothing ... a scratch ... that’s all.”

Don Carlos had no time for more. It was imperative that he discover what
there was on the hidden side of the ranch house. He pushed his horse
forward, and passed the screening angle of the building.

No one. The door of the ramshackle building stood wide open. Through the
gaping aperture he could see the interior of the house. There was no one
there. But as he looked up from this disappointing scene, he caught
sight of a rider disappearing at a fast gallop in the direction of the
mountains; and this rider bore in front of him on the saddle a large
bundle which he held with both arms; and in spite of the rapidly
widening distance, Celinda’s father could see that the bundle was
struggling frantically.

“Ah, you criminal, you horse thief!”

He had had no worse fears. And while he stood, motionless for the moment
with despair, it seemed to him that he could still hear his little
daughter crying out to him for help....

CHAPTER XVII

When Elena finally got up the next morning, she was astonished to find
that Sebastiana paid no attention to her repeated calls.

At last one of the half-breed girls who worked under the house-keeper’s
directions presented herself and announced that Sebastiana hadn’t come
back to the house after her departure from it early that morning.

“They say there have been terrible goings-on at the Rojas ranch. The
_comisario_ and a lot of men are all riding out there now.”

Sebastiana, it seemed, had been seen on horseback riding out of the
town, accompanied by the _señor_ Robledo’s servant.

“She has gone to see what happened to her mistress ... everybody tells a
different story.... But one thing is sure and that is that someone was
killed out at the ranch....”

But the mistress of the house showed so little interest in what the
young half-breed was saying, that the girl stopped. A brief exclamation
of surprise had been the only comment made by the _señora_. Then she had
lapsed into silence as though the subject bored her.

All that morning Elena spent in her parlor, after the little maid had
brought her her breakfast. With impatience she contemplated the long
hours that must elapse before night. One thing she had determined upon.
She would send for Robledo, but he too, according to the report of the
servant girl, had gone with the comisario to the Rojas ranch, and would
probably not return before nightfall.

She could stay no longer in that place. For her husband it was
different; he had his work there. But she would ask Robledo to pay her
passage back to Paris, or at least to give her money enough to get to
Buenos Aires. Once in the capital, she would know how to get along. In
her early experiences she had had similar or worse situations to face
and she had long ago discovered that a woman of determined will can get
out of difficulties far more easily than a man.

As she went over in her mind the conversation she would have later that
day with the engineer, she felt consumed with impatience; but at the
same time she dreaded to see the hours glide swiftly by when she
remembered that at the end of a certain number of them someone was
likely to appear at her window and demand the fulfillment of a promise
she had made the night before.

It required a tremendous effort on her part to believe that she had not
dreamed that interview with Manos Duras. “What madness! How could I--the
person who is really I--have done such a thing?”

Yet, many times before in her life, she had felt the same wonder at her
own acts, as though there existed within her two antagonistic
personalities, each one of which aroused the loathing of the other.

“And perhaps that man will actually come back here,” she thought, with a
tremor of nervous irritation.

To quiet her nerves she assured herself that probably the _gaucho_ would
forget her promises. Then she remembered the vague news brought in by
the maid-servant about some frightful occurrence or other at the Rojas
ranch.

“He will not come,” she kept saying to herself as she contemplated the
possibility of Manos Duras’ coming to see her that night as had been
agreed. “How could he dare to make such absurd pretensions?...”

No, certainly not; and after the news which would by that time be the
common talk of the town, he would not dare come back to make any claims.
And even though that semi-savage was a fear-inspiring opponent at close
range, she had only to keep her doors and windows well locked in order
to protect herself from his presence.

She stopped thinking about the _gaucho_; but her memory was still
tormented by memories of the preceding night. What was it that had
happened near dawn just as the open space of her window began to grow
luminous? She had been in the confused state of half-consciousness, when
one’s eyes refuse to open, and one’s thoughts alternate between waking
and sleep.

But now that she was quite waked up, and could contemplate what had
occurred a few hours previous, she began to acquire the certainty that
there had been someone close to her window that morning. Now she could
distinctly remember the muffled sound of steps on the balcony, a slight
creaking of the boards in the outside wall, as though someone were
leaning heavily against them. She could even have averred that she had
heard sounds like the lamentations of someone lost; and instinctively
she believed that the being who had been near her in the night on the
other side of the bungalow wall was no other than her husband.

Twice she had gone to the window and had opened it in the hope of
finding some paper or other trace of her invisible visitor, who had come
with the dawn, and vanished at sunrise.

“It was Federico,” she thought. “It could have been no one else....
Robledo must know where he is! How I wish he would come back so I could
speak to him!”

A little after midday, as she was smoking her twentieth cigarette, there
came a knock at the door. Several moments elapsed, and again came a
knock. Elena concluded that, since Sebastiana was no longer there to
keep them in order, the young servant-girls had left the house after
lunch, to run about the town in search of news and gossip.

So she went to open the door herself, and was much astonished at sight
of her caller. It was Moreno. There was nothing so remarkable about his
coming to call, yet Elena could not conceal a gesture of astonishment.
She had forgotten him so completely! Of late other men than he had
completely absorbed her attention.

Blushing with embarrassment for the forgetfulness of him her surprise
had betrayed, she invited him to come in, in a tone of quite exaggerated
affability. Surely it was her good luck which was sending her this fool
to entertain her with his conversation during the interminable afternoon
that somehow or other she must live through! And this call was at least
a break in the monotony of her solitude.

As he came in Moreno looked at the furnishings with a gently protective
air, quite as though they belonged to him. Then, with an assurance he
had never before revealed, he sat down in the chair which the _marquesa_
indicated he was to occupy.

“I’m off to Buenos Aires by the afternoon train, _señora marquesa_,” he
announced with a gravity of a man who knows his own importance. “I must
see the government representatives and give them an account of what
happened here, and talk with the minister of public works about keeping
things going on.”

Elena received all this with nods of understanding and sympathy, her
eyes all the while smiling maliciously ... it was amusing to see this
worthy family man stressing his own importance.

“But before I went away, I wanted to see you again to discuss a matter
relating to my future responsibilities.”

As he went on talking the malicious sparkle in Elena’s eyes suddenly
went out, and in its place came a look of avid interest that at moments
increased to burning intensity.

“Poor fellow,” said Moreno, as he related how Pirovani had entrusted his
entire fortune to him, making him the guardian of his only daughter who
was at school in Italy, “poor fellow ... I find on looking through his
papers that he was even better off than I thought. This responsibility
he has left me is going to take most of my time, and I may have to
resign from my position. I don’t even know that I’ll be able to come
back here. Perhaps it will be a long time before we see one another
again.”

The government employee grew sad at thought of this prolonged
separation, although he managed to maintain the expression of intense
self-satisfaction which he had worn ever since the day of the funeral.

“As poor old Pirovani left the management of his fortune to me, and as
this house belongs to his heir, of whom I am the legal guardian, I am
empowered, _señora marquesa_, to tell you that you may remain here as
long as it suits your convenience, just as though it were your own
house, and without any question of your paying a single cent for it.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, _marquesa_!”

Her inquiring eyes looked at him fixedly. It was difficult to conceal
from him the surprise this news had caused her. Moreno, of all people,
the trustee of the contractor’s fortune, and still dazed by the amount
of the fortune so suddenly thrust into his possession, and about to
return to a great city, there to begin a new kind of existence....

Little by little from the sea of her amazement new plans began to emerge
like islands still of uncertain shape and in process of formation.
Within her, a dividing process was going on; side by side with the woman
of frivolous tastes, hungry for comforts and luxuries, emerged that
other woman, the one of ferocious energy, capable of harsh resolution in
difficult moments, the one who did not hesitate to commit cruelties. And
this woman, as she became roused, was imperiously commanding her
companion,

“Don’t let this man go away ... fate has sent him to you!”

Moreno, who was looking at her with more audacious eyes than in the days
when he had no hope of ever being rich and powerful, saw a shadow on the
_señora marquesa’s_ face, as though an invisible cloud were passing over
her. Then the corners of her mouth quivered, perhaps with pain, and she
raised her hands to her eyes, as though to hide some tears.

Moreno got up from his chair to console her. He remembered, at sight of
her mourning, that she must at that very moment be grieving over the
death of her husband’s mother. And in addition to that bereavement there
was the death of Pirovani, and Canterac’s flight, and so many
distressing occurrences in so short a time ...!

“All these things are very sad, _señora marquesa_, but you must not
weep, my friend!”

And he dared go so far as to take hold of her hands, pressing them
gently as he removed them from her eyes, humid with tears.

“I am not weeping for what is past,” she sighed, “but for myself, for my
misfortune. For them there is no remedy. I am all alone in the world. My
husband has not come back here since day before yesterday ... and
perhaps he will never come back. Who knows what calumnies people may
have poured into his ears! I had friends once, good friends, and one has
died while the other is a fugitive.... You were the only one left me ...
and now you are going away for ever!”

Shaken by these words, the government employee began to stammer,

“But you must always count on me, _señora marquesa_.... I am going
away, but in reality I am not going at all, for you will have me in
Buenos Aires, and....”

He decided that it was wiser not to go on, for his emotions might make
him incoherent. Elena, who had dried her tears, was looking at him with
passionate interest.

“I never have been able to make people understand me,” she said. “Men
for instance are always like this. They all come running when a woman
strikes their fancy, and they pursue her with their attentions, each in
turn gaining possession of his rival’s place until the poor thing is so
confused she doesn’t know which of them all she really prefers. Now that
you are going away, and that I am losing you, perhaps forever, I
suddenly take account of the fact that it was always the two poor
friends who have already left us who deliberately crowded into the front
row, and in doing so hid from me the man who is really the one I am most
interested in!”

Moreno was so impressed by these words that he took Elena’s left hand in
his.

“What are you saying, _marquesa_!”

She let him caress her hand, and then wove her smooth fingers about one
of his adding, in a tone of utmost sincerity, as though revealing her
most intimate thoughts,

“You always interested me ... because you were so modest, and I
recognized that modesty as being the kind that accompanies great
ability, abilities that you yourself do not yet suspect the existence of
in yourself. I like men who are good, men who have no false pride. So
often, when I was alone, I amused myself imagining what a man like you
might have become, had you lived in Europe ... and had you met the right
woman to inspire you, and to advise you and encourage your awakening
ambition....”

Moreno remained silent, looking at Elena with a kind of astonishment, as
though the words she had just uttered had won from him the utmost he was
capable of in the way of admiration. This wonderful woman had the same
thoughts that came to him so often ... but he had never dared put his
faith in them....

Elena sadly threw back her shoulders.

“But it is too late to talk of such things,” she went on in a tone of
discouragement.

“You have a family to work for, and I ... I am a woman with neither
illusions nor hopes, I am alone, I am poor ... and I do not know what is
in store for me.”

The government clerk remained pensive, his eyebrows drawn together, as
though mentally contemplating a vision thoroughly distasteful to him.
What he saw was a little house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires; in its
modest clean little rooms were a woman and some children ... his
children, his wife ... and then rapidly the vision vanished like a puff
of smoke, and Moreno recovered the air of assured self-satisfaction he
had displayed on first arriving that afternoon.

“I, too,” he said, “was busy thinking about a great many things last
night. I couldn’t sleep, and got up very late. That’s why I didn’t have
time to find out about what had happened at the Rojas’ place.... One of
the things I was thinking was that it might be a good idea for me to go
to Europe to look up Pirovani’s daughter, and keep a closer watch over
his property than I could do in Buenos Aires. Who knows? I might be able
to increase his fortune considerably, if I attended strictly to
business.... I am not vain enough to think that I have all the ability
you attribute to me, _marquesa_; but it is true that I know a little
arithmetic, and that I am methodical. I might be able to do at least as
well as other men in business ... why not?”

A long pause followed, and finally Moreno plucked up the courage to
stammer timidly,

“You might come with me to Europe, _marquesa_ ... to advise me. For, in
spite of the flattering opinion you have of me, I would be so ignorant
there of the things I ought to know....”

Elena started, and then, with a proud gesture, repelled this suggestion.

“How could I accept such a thing! You are mad!... But, my dear Moreno,
you would find me a terrible burden!... and besides, I am a married
woman, and if we travelled together, people would inevitably make the
worst suppositions about us!”

In spite of her protest, she took Moreno’s hands in hers and brought her
face close to his, surrounding him with the fragrant effluvia of her
perfumed flesh; and at the same time, she exclaimed warmly,

“What a great big heart you have! How can I show you how much I
appreciate your offering to do this?”

Moreno assumed an imploring expression as he in turn protested; what
could it matter to them what people said?... Anyway, no one knew them
in Europe. They could live in Paris, that marvellous city that he had
so often admired and that he might never have had the chance to see, had
not Pirovani’s death made it possible ... and it was for him to thank
the _marquesa_ if she should deign to accompany him and give him her
invaluable counsel.

“But your family?” inquired Elena, with an austerity of intonation
belied by her eyes.

With the good-natured cynicism of a rich man who firmly believes that
every difficulty in life can be solved with money, he replied,

“My family can stay in Buenos Aires. I’ll see to it that they have much
better quarters than they have ever had before. All that can easily be
arranged with money, and everybody will be happy. As for myself, I shall
of course have quite an income, for naturally I must pay myself for my
work as guardian. And besides that, I shall make money in a business
way.”

But Elena persisted with her refusals, although with diminishing
intensity, and Moreno thought the moment propitious for trying to
overcome her resistance by describing the delights of that Paris which
he had never seen, and those pleasures she had grown unmindful of for
having known them so well.

“It is madness,” persisted Elena, interrupting him. “I haven’t the
courage to face the scandal that would surely come of it. Just imagine
what people would say if we went away together!”

And then, assuming the modest, timid expression a young girl might wear
if confronted with something offensive to her innocence, she murmured,

“I am not the sort of woman you think me. Men are so fearfully ready to
believe everything they hear about a woman ... and Heaven only knows
what people may have said to you about me!... I alone can know how
unhappy I have been in my marriage. My husband is good, yes ... but he
never understood me. Still, all that is a far cry from running away with
another man, and giving everybody the right to talk about me!”

And then all the phrases stored in his memory from his assiduous reading
of society novels came pouring out.... What did marriage amount to
anyway?... And how could what people said have any weight with her? It
was her right to have real love in her life, and to take it wherever she
might find it ... and it was just as surely her right to “live her own
life,” side by side with a man capable of making life beautiful for her,
of making it worthy of all her wonderful gifts!

And as these passages culled from hundreds of novels came out, one after
the other, Moreno had the satisfaction of seeing that Elena too was
familiar with all these arguments, and that she too was moved and