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Updated: September 2, 2025
This was broken by the young man Tiburcio, who, used to the wild life of the plains and forests, was very little frightened by the presence of the jaguars. "If you have a horse," said he, "you need not much fear the jaguar; he is sure to take your horse first. Here, we have twenty horses and only one tiger." "The young man reasons well," rejoined Baraja, reassured by the observation of Tiburcio.
"Yes, trust to me," said old Benito to Baraja, "in a quarter of an hour you will hear the howlings of these red devils sound in your ears like the trumpets of the last judgment!" "Carramba! you are the most skilled man about tigers and Indians that I ever met with, but you might be more consoling. I wish to God I could doubt the truth of your words!"
"Do you think," said Baraja, addressing himself to Benito, "that the jaguar is likely to return again? I have known these animals howl at night around my hut, and then go off altogether." "Yes," replied Benito, "that may be when their drinking place is left free to them. Here we have intercepted their approach to the water.
As the outlaw said this, he pointed with his whip, first to himself, and then to his two comrades, Oroche and Baraja. "They have both espoused our quarrel," he added. "From what motive?" inquired the Spaniard.
The followers, Cuchillo, Baraja, Oroche, and Pedro Diaz were already in their saddles the last mounted on a magnificent and fiery steed, which told that the generous haciendado had kept his promise. The motive for this hasty departure from the hacienda was unknown only to Benito and the other domestics.
"Well one thing," said Cuchillo, "the result of it all is that I have made a vow never to play another card; for the cards, as you see, were the original cause of this ugly affair." "A good resolution," said Baraja, "and just such as I have come to myself. I have promised never to touch another card; they have cost me a fortune in fact, altogether ruined me."
"You already knew, then, that we were here?" said Baraja. "Of course. We have been two hours involuntarily playing the spy upon you. Ah! I know a part of the country where travellers that take no more precautions than you would soon find their heads stripped of the skin. But come, Dormilon! to our work!" "What if the jaguars come our way?" suggested the Senator, apprehensively.
Benito did not reply, but his companion felt him press his arm convulsively, and then the sight which struck Baraja was more terrible than any answer. The old man's eyes were rolling wildly, and he was vainly trying to stanch the blood which flowed from a wound made by an arrow that had just pierced his throat. He fell, crying: "What is ordained must happen.
"Yes," coolly answered Baraja, "I know you use words that cause your friends to drop dead; but these words are harmless at a distance besides I have got a tongue as sharp as yours, Senor Cuchillo." As Baraja said this, he drew his knife from its sheath in which action he was imitated by his antagonist and both placed themselves simultaneously in an attitude for fight.
All of them preserved silence the only sounds heard being the crackling of the dry sticks with which Baraja kept the fire profusely supplied. "Gently there, Baraja! gently!" called out the vaquero, "if you consume our stock of firewood in that fashion, you will soon make an end of it, and, por Dios! amigo, you will have to go to the woods for a fresh supply."
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