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Ghastly and pallid, with his arm supported in a sling, he is on the way back to Halberger's estancia, to complete the ruffian's task assigned to him by the Dictator of Paraguay, and make more desolate the home he had already enough ruined.
Fully commissioned and furnished with sufficient funds gold coin which passes current among the savages of the Chaco, as with civilised people the plenipotentiary had started off, and made his way up the Pilcomayo, till reaching the old town of the Tovas. Had Halberger's estancia stood on the river's bank, the result might have been different.
For the same tale which Aguara had told to his captive on the way, he has repeated, with some variations, to the elders of the tribe assembled in council within the malocca. So far not much of a fiction; only that part accounting for the death of the young brave who fell to Halberger's bullet a stray shot, while the latter was defending himself against Valdez.
It did not need the reward offered to secure the latter's zeal; for, as stated, he too had his own old grudge against the German, brought about by a still older and more bitter hostility to Halberger's right hand man Gaspar, the gaucho. With this double stimulus to action, Valdez entered upon the prosecution of his search, after that of the soldiers had failed.
In soliloquy he has himself declared it: hastening to communicate news which he knows will be welcome to the Paraguayan tyrant, and afterwards return to Halberger's estancia with a party of those hireling soldiers quaintly termed cuarteleros from their living in barracks, or cuartels.
Halberger's first thought is that Valdez may be their prisoner; for he, of course, knows of the hostility existing between them and the Paraguayans, and remembers that, in his last interview with Naraguana, the aged cacique was bitter as ever against the Paraguayan people. But no; there is not the slightest sign of the white man being guarded, bound, or escorted.
For these were also friends of her father, now alike fatherless, though made so by a more cruel fate. Low murmurings are here and there heard, which speak of an intent to prosecute inquiry on the subject of Halberger's assassination even to the carrying it into Paraguay.
But a week has passed over, and no Naraguana, nor any messenger from him, has made appearance at the estancia. No Indian of the Tovas tribe has been seen about the place, nor anywhere near it; in short, no redskin has been seen at all, save the guanos, Halberger's own male and female domestics. Strange all this!
Looking across this champaign from Halberger's house at almost any hour of the day, one would rarely fail to observe living creatures moving upon it.
He it was who came forth from the sumac grove wounded by Halberger's bullet, and the wound has proved fatal; this accounting for the pieces of sipos seen at their camping-place. Another change in the composition of the party is, that the white man, Valdez, is no longer with it.
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