one down
over the Gran Chaco, and its vast grassy plains and green palm-groves
are again under the purple of twilight. Herds of stately _quazutis_ and
troops of the _pampas_ roebuck--beautiful creatures, spotted like fawns
of the fallow-deer--move leisurely towards their watering-places, having
already browsed to satiety on pastures where they are but rarely
disturbed by the hunter, for here no sound of horse nor baying of
molossian ever breaks the stillness of the early morn, and the only
enemies they have habitually to dread are the red puma and yellow
jaguar, throughout Spanish America respectively, but erroneously, named
lion (_leon_) and tiger (_tigre)_, from a resemblance, though a very
slight one, which these, the largest of the New World's _felidae_, bear
to their still grander congeners of the Old.

The scene we are about to depict is upon the Pilcomayo's bank, some
twenty miles above the old _tomeria_ of the Tovas Indians, and therefore
thirty from the house of Ludwig Halberger--now his no more, but a house
of mourning. The mourners, however, are not all in it, for by a
camp-fire freshly kindled at the place we speak of; two of them are seen
seated. One is the son of the murdered man, the other his nephew; while
not far off is a third individual, who mourns almost as much as either.
Need I say it is Caspar, the gaucho?

Or is it necessary to give explanation of their being thus far from home
so soon after that sad event, the cause of their sorrow? No. The
circumstances speak for themselves; telling than to be there on an
errand connected with that same crime; in short, in pursuit of the
criminals.

Who these may be they have as yet no definite knowledge. All is but
blind conjectures, the only thing certain being that the double crime
has been committed by Indians; for the trail which has conducted to the
spot they are now on, first coming down the river's bank to the branch
stream, then over its ford and back again, could have been made only by
a mounted party of red men.

But of what tribe? That is the question which puzzles them. Not the
only one, however. Something besides causes them surprise, equally
perplexing them. Among the other hoof-marks, they have observed some
that must have been made by a horse with shoes on; and as they know the
Chaco Indians never ride such, the thing strikes them as very strange.
It would not so much, were the shod-tracks only traceable twice along
the trail; th