render the young Count of Mediana still more
handsome and interesting than was that of Tiburcio Arellanos.

Would not that countenance, ennobled by toil and travel, remind Dona
Rosarita of the love for which she had every reason to feel proud and
happy? Would it not tell of dangers overcome, and surround itself with
a double halo of sacrifice and suffering?

As to the rough countenances of the hunters, sun, fatigue, and danger of
every kind had left them unchanged. If the hot winds had bronzed their
skin, six months more of the adventurous life to which they were
accustomed left no trace upon their sunburnt features.

They testified no surprise on seeing the gambusino, but a lively
curiosity was depicted in the glance of each. A look from Gayferos,
however, soon satisfied them. That look doubtless assured them that all
was as they wished. Fabian alone expressed some astonishment on seeing
his old companion so near the Hacienda del Venado.

"Was if in order to precede us here that you came to take leave of us
near Tubac?" asked Fabian.

"Doubtless--did I not tell you so?" replied Gayferos.

"I did not understand you thus," said Fabian, who, without seeming to
attach much importance to that which was said or done around him,
relapsed into the melancholy silence which had become habitual to him.

Gayferos turned his horse's head round, and the four travellers
continued their journey in silence.

At the expiration of an hour, during which Gayferos and the Canadian
only exchanged a few words in a low tone, and to which Fabian, always
absorbed in thought, gave no attention, the recollections of a past, not
very remote, crowded upon the memory of the three travellers. They were
again crossing the plain which extends beyond El Salto de Agua, and a
few minutes afterwards they reached the torrent itself which foams down
perpetually between the rocks. A bridge, the same size as the former
one, replaced that which had been precipitated into the gulf below by
those men who now slept their last sleep in the valley of gold, the
object of their ambition.

The Canadian here dismounted.

"Now, Fabian," said he, "here Don Estevan was found; the three bandits
(I except, however, poor Diaz, the tenor of the Indians) were there.
See, here are still the prints of your horse's hoofs--when he slipped
from this rock, dragging you downwards in his fall. Ah! Fabian, my
child, I can even now see the water foaming around you--ev