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For the gaucho had been twice over this ground before once on a hunting excursion in the company of his late master; and once at an earlier period of his life on an expedition of less pleasant remembrance, when, as a captive himself, he was carried up the Pilcomayo by a party of Guaycuru Indians, from whom he was fortunate in making escape.
His objective point for the present is a high bluff which hems in the valley of the Pilcomayo, and from which a view may be obtained of the river for long leagues upward and downward, as of the deserted village, at no great distance off upon its bank. Through a ravine that cuts this bluff transversely, the latter can alone be reached from the elevated plain over which they are advancing.
For nearly an hour they continue this rate of speed, the conspicuous trail enabling them to travel rapidly and without interruption. It still carries them up the Pilcomayo, though not always along the river's immediate bank.
The signal for recall was hoisted aboard the Blanco Encalada, the firing gradually ceased, the Huascar, Angamos, and Pilcomayo got their anchors, and shortly after nightfall the whole Chilian fleet was once more anchored safely under the lee of San Lorenzo island.
At length all preparations were completed, and on the 2nd of April 1880, exactly a week after Jim had returned to Valparaiso in the Angamos, the fleet, consisting of the Blanco, Huascar, Angamos, Pilcomayo, Mathias Cousino, and the two torpedo-boats Guacolda and Janequeo, left that port and, steaming out of the bay, headed to the northward.
But he at length succeeds, so far as to discover that the whole horse troop, to whomsoever belonging, have recrossed the ford; and crossing it himself, he sees they have gone back up the Pilcomayo river. Among them is one showing a shod hoof; but he knows that has not been made by his master's horse, the bar being larger and broader, with the claw more deeply indented.
As hitherto, it continues up the bank of the Pilcomayo, and at intervals they observe the tracks of Francesca's pony, where they have not been trampled out by the other horses behind. And, as on the preceding day, they see the hoof-marks of the shod animal, both going and returning the return track evidently the more recently made.
To explain, then, how Ludwig Halberger came to be domiciled there, so far from civilisation, and so high up the Pilcomayo river of mysterious note it is necessary to give some details of his life antecedent to the time of his having established this solitary estancia.
They have almost invariably ended disastrously. The Spanish traveller, Ibarete, set out with high hopes to travel along its banks, but he and seventeen men perished in the attempt. Two half- famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which has proved itself the river of death to so many brave men, remains to this day unexplored.
The labours of the padres, both Jesuit and Franciscan, have alike signally failed; the savages of the Chaco refusing obedience to the cross as submission to the sword. Three large rivers the Salado, Vermejo, and Pilcomayo course through the territory of the Chaco; the first forming its southern boundary, the others intersecting it.
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