ting from this place. Thanks to the Virgin, I know the way
they went now, as well as if I'd been along with them."

"How do you know that?" questions Cypriano, who with Ludwig has been
examining the Indian trail down by the water's edge--apart from the
gaucho, who had followed it up to the summit of the slope.

"Come hither!" he calls out. "Look there!" he adds as they get beside
him, "You see that these tracks have the toes all turned down stream;
which tells me the horses did the same, and, I should say, also their
riders. Yes! Soon as out of the water they turned down; proof good as
positive that they've gone along the _riacho_ this side, and back again
to the big river. So it's no use our delaying longer here; there's
nothing farther to be learnt, or gained by it."

So says Gaspar; but Cypriano, and also Ludwig, think otherwise. Both
have a wish--indeed, an earnest desire--once more to look upon the
tracks of the pony on which they know Francesca to have been mounted.
And communicating this to the gaucho, he holds their horses while they
return to search for them.

To their satisfaction they again beheld the diminutive hoof-marks; two
or three of which have escaped being trampled out by the horses that
came behind. And after regarding them for a time with sad glances,
Ludwig turns away sighing, while his cousin gives utterance to what more
resembles a curse, accompanied by words breathing vengeance against the
abductors.

Rejoining the gaucho, all three mount into their saddles; and, without
further dallying, ride off down the _riacho_, to make back for the main
river.

But, again upon the latter's bank, they find the trail blind as before,
with nothing to guide them, save the stream itself. To the gaucho,
however, this seems sufficient, and turning his horses's head upward, he
cries out--

"Now, _muchachos mios_! we must on to the _salitral_!"

And on for this they ride; to reach the point where it commences, just
as the sun's lower limb touches, seeming to rest on the level line of
the horizon.

And now, having arrived on the edge of the _salitral_, they make halt,
still keeping to their saddles, with eyes bent over the waste which
stretches far beyond and before them. Greater than ever is the gloom in
their looks as they behold the sterile tract, which should have shown
snow-white, all black and forbidding. For the _salitral_, as all the
rest of the campo, is covered with a stratum of mud, an