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He puts his arm around my neck and whispers in my ear, "I'm a MOVING OFF!" "Moving off?" "Hush! Don't speak so loud. Moving off. Ah! wot's that? Don't you hear? there! listen!" We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor. "It's them wot he sent! Old Altascar sent. They've been here all night.
May it be the curse and torment of your old age, as you and yours have made it of mine!" We stepped between the principal actors in this scene, which only the passion of Altascar made tragical, but Tryan, with a humility but ill concealing his triumph, interrupted, "Let him curse on. He 'll find 'em coming home to him sooner than the cattle he has lost through his sloth and pride.
When we were again beside the crackling fire, in the shifting shadows of the great chamber, Altascar told me how he had that morning met the horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie; how that, farther on, he found him lying, quite cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his person; that he had probably become exhausted in fording the creek, and that he had as probably reached the mound only to die for want of that help he had so freely given to others; that, as a last act, he had freed his horse.
Horses are always ready saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in half an hour from the time of our arrival we were again "loping" in the staring sunlight. But not as cheerfully as before. George and myself were weighed down by restraint, and Altascar was gravely quiet.
He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly before him. "It was made by me, senor." "I kept it as a clue to him, Don Altascar," I said. "If I could find him " "He is here." "Here! and" but I could not say "well!"
We have a muddy walk for a few hundred yards before we strike a dry trail, and simultaneously the white walls of Altascar's appear like a snowbank before us. Lights are moving in the courtyard; but otherwise the old tomblike repose characterizes the building. One of the peons recognized me as I entered the court, and Altascar met me on the corridor.
I understood the gravity of the old man's face, the hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the building, in an electric flash of consciousness: I held the clue to the broken riata at last. Altascar took my hand, and we crossed the corridor to a sombre apartment. A few tall candles were burning in sconces before the window.
He presently arose from his stooping posture, and advancing to within a few paces of Joseph Tryan, said, in a voice broken with passion: "And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put you in possession of my land in the fashion of my country." He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points. "I don't know your courts, your judges, or your CORREGIDORES. Take the LLANO! and take this with it.
From others whom we picked up from time to time we heard of George's self-sacrificing devotion, with the praises of the many he had helped and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to return until I had seen him, and soon prepared myself to take a boat to the lower VALDA of the foothills, and visit Altascar.
He puts his arm around my neck, and whispers in my ear, "I'm a-moving off!" "Moving off?" "Hush! Don't speak so loud. Moving off! Ah! wot's that? Don't you hear? there! listen!" We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click beneath the floor. "It's them wot he sent I old Altascar sent. They've been here all night.
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