d is now on return to
make report to his master, El Supremo, leaving the latter to take such
other steps as may deem desirable.

The _vaqueano_ has passed the preceding night with the Indians at their
camp, leaving it long before daybreak, though Aguara, for certain
reasons, very much wished him to return with them to their town, and
proposed it. A proposal, for reasons of his own, the cunning Paraguayan
declined, giving excuses that but ill satisfied the young cacique, and
which he rather reluctantly accepted. He could not, however, well
refuse to let Valdez go his way. The man was not a prisoner moreover,
his promise to be soon back, as the bearer of rich presents, was an
argument irresistible; and influenced by this, more than aught else,
Aguara gave him permission to depart.

The young chief's reasons for wishing to detain him were of a kind
altogether personal. Much as he likes the captive he is carrying with
him, he would rather she had been made captive by other means, and in a
less violent manner. And he is now returning to his tribe, not so
triumphantly, but with some apprehension as to how he will be received
by the elders. What will they say when the truth is told them,--all the
details of the red tragedy just enacted? He would lay the blame, where
most part of it properly belongs, on the shoulders of the Paraguayan,
and, indeed, intends doing so. But he would rather have the latter with
him to meet the storm, should there be such, by explaining in his own
way, why he killed the other white man. For Valdez had already said
something to them of an old hostility between himself and the
hunter-naturalist, knowing that the Tovas, as well as other Chaco
Indians, acknowledge the rights of the _vendetta_.

But just for the reason Aguara desires to have him along with him, is
the _vaqueano_ inclined to die opposite course; in truth, determined
upon it. Not for the world would he now return to the Tovas town. He
has too much intelligence for that, or too great regard for his safety--
his very life, which he believes, and with good cause, would be more
than risked, were he again to show himself among a people whose
hospitality he has so outraged. For he knows he as done this, and that
there will surely be that storm of which the young cacique is
apprehensive--a very tempest of indignation among the elders and friends
of the deceased Naraguana, when they hear of the fate which has befallen
the harmless st