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Women of more mature age are busied with culinary cares, preparing the evening repast over fires kindled in the open air; while several are straining out the honey of the wild bee, called tosimi, which a party of bee-hunters, just returned to the tolderia, has brought home.
She knows Nacena by name, as by sight; having on many occasions seen her at the old tolderia. But the two have never had acquaintance, nor held conversation; the sister of Kaolin always seeming shy with her, and never visiting the estancia, as did the other girls of the tribe.
After a day's rest at their old tolderia, the two parties of Tovas, now united in amity, set out on return to their Sacred Town. And along with them goes the Senora Halberger, with all the members of her family including the Guano Indian domestics, and, needless to say, not leaving Gaspar Mendez behind.
I don't know the exact spot where the gringo has established himself; but didn't Aguara say the nearest way to it is along the river's bank, down to their old tolderia? If so, certainly they're making a round about. Ha! I fancy I know the reason; natural, too, as the other.
Soon as Nacena had started on return to the town, the gaucho and his companions commence making preparations to descend from the hill. Not by the road leading down to the tolderia, but the path by which they came up.
I mustn't even travel within sight of it. If the Tovas have had any hand in this ugly business and, by the Virgin, I believe they have, however hard it is to think so some of them may still be near, and possibly a party gone back to their old tolderia.
Now, it's likely, almost certain, that while on their way to the tolderia, or coming back, he has seen one, given chase to it, leaving Francesca somewhere to wait for him. Well, tia, you know what an ostrich is to chase? Now lagging along as if you could easily throw the noose round its neck, then putting on a fresh spurt 'twould tempt any one to keep on after it.
No wonder, then, these savages if savages they may be called have obtained the fanciful designation of centaurs the "Red Centaurs of the Chaco." Those seen by Ludwig Halberger and his family are the "Tovas," already introduced. Their village, termed tolderia, is about ten miles off, up the river.
For in the Chaco are various communities of Indians, often at deadly feud with one another. Though such conjecture seems improbable, the thing is yet possible; and to assure himself, Halberger at length resolves upon going over to the tolderia of the Tovas. Ordering his horse saddled, he mounts, and is about to ride off alone, when a sweet voice salutes him, saying:
But as there is neither road nor any regular path between the two places, he needs to keep scanning the plain, lest on their return he may pass them unobserved. But he sees nothing of them till reaching the tolderia, and there only the hoof-marks of his master's horse, with those of his young mistress's pony, both conspicuous in the dust-covered ground by the doors of the toldos.
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