ar well
knows they are not yet out of danger.

"Come, _muchachos_," he cries to them, soon as they have disposed of
their animals, "there's something more to be done before we can call
ourselves safe. A _tormenta's_ not a thing to be trifled with. There
isn't corner or cranny in this cave the dust wouldn't reach to. It
could find its way into a corked bottle, I believe. _Carramba_! there
it comes!"

The last words are spoken as a whiff of icy wind, now blowing furiously
down the ravine, turns into the cavern's mouth, bringing with it both
dust and dry leaves.

For a moment the gaucho stands in the entrance gazing out; the others
doing likewise. Little can they see; for the darkness is now almost
opaque, save at intervals, when the ravine is lit up by jets of forked
and sheet lightning. But much do they hear; the loud bellowing of wind,
the roaring of thunder, and the almost continuous crashing of trees,
whose branches break off as though they were but brittle glass. And the
stream which courses past close to the cave's mouth, now a tiny mulct,
will soon be a raging, foaming torrent, as Gaspar well knows.

They stay not to see that, nor aught else. They have other work before
them--the something of which the gaucho spoke, and to which he now
hastily turns, crying out--

"Your ponchos, my lads! Get them, quick! We must close up the entrance
with them, otherwise we'll stand a good chance of being smothered.
_Vaya_!"

Neither needs urging to haste. Young as they are, they too have had
experience of a _tormenta_. More than once they have witnessed it,
remembering how in their house, near Assuncion, it drove the dust
through the keyholes of me doors, finding its way into every crack and
crevice, making ridges across the floor, just as snow in northern
lands--of which, however, they know nothing, save from what they have
read, or been told by one who will tell them of such things no more.

In a few seconds' time, three ponchos--for each possesses one--are
snatched from the cantles of their saddles, and as speedily spread
across the entrance of the cave--just covering it, with not an inch to
spare. With like speed and dexterity, they join them together, in a
rough but firm stitching done by the nimble fingers of the gaucho--his
thread a strip of thong, and for needle the sharp terminal spine of the
_pita_ plant--one of which he finds growing near by. They attach them
at top by their knife blades stuck int