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All eyes were instantly turned on Carlos the cibolero, with looks of inquiry and admiration. All felt that it must be from his bow had sped that deadly shaft; and they were the more convinced of this because some who had noticed the third Pane pierced with a rifle bullet, had just declared the fact to the crowd. Yes, it must be so. The pale-face was the avenger of their chief!
"Amigo! you stand a fair chance to recover your cattle." "Why do you think so?" "Because their drivers, four in number, have been near this spot not much over twenty-four hours ago. The animals, therefore, cannot be far off." "But how know you this?" "Oh, that is plain enough," coolly responded the cibolero. "The men who drove your beasts were mounted on the same horses that made yonder trail."
The actual experience of his prowess by some of them, and the exaggerated reports of it known to others, had made such an impression upon the whole troop, that the cibolero could have put a considerable body of them to flight only by showing himself!
"You, Comandante a valiant soldier to let a silly dream trouble you! But come! what was it? I'm a good interpreter of dreams. I warrant I read it to your bettor satisfaction." "Simple enough it is, then. I thought myself upon the cliff of La Nina. I thought that I was alone with Carlos the cibolero! I thought that he knew all, and that he had brought me there to punish me to avenge her.
They had similar ones themselves, and could manufacture them at will. They would have purchased the long brown rifle; but that was a souvenir Carlos would not have parted with for a score of mules. For the next day or two the cibolero continued his hunting. He found the buffalo grow every hour more excited and wild.
Hence their confidence of success. They certainly had taken measures that promised it, supposing their hypothesis to be correct that is, supposing the cibolero to be in the cave at that moment, and that during the night he should come out of the ravine. They were soon to know the sun had already gone down. They would not have long to watch. Carlos was in the cave, and at that very moment.
The delivery, therefore, from the fear of apprehended death, as well as from the other thought that was torturing him, had restored Vizcarra to a composure he had not enjoyed for the twenty-four hours preceding; and he now began to imbibe, to its full extent, another passion that of vengeance against the cibolero.
Some believed that the cibolero had come with the bona fide desire to obtain help against the Indians that those who accompanied him were only a few Tagnos whom he had collected to aid in the pursuit and that the Comandante, having first promised to aid him, had afterwards refused, and that this had led to the strange conduct of the cibolero!
At first he exhibited anger, but the countenance of the cibolero, that had undergone a complete metamorphosis during the short interval, soon changed his anger into alarm. "How dare you intrude, sir? how dare " "Not so loud, colonel! not so loud you will be heard!"
There was the Presidio, and within its walls perhaps in some dark chamber the cibolero well knew his sister was a captive; but under such peculiar circumstances that her release would be a most difficult enterprise. In the first place, the villain who held her would assuredly deny that she was there. To have released her would be an acknowledgment of his guilt. What proof of it could Carlos give?
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