body, they'll require a little
browning, but as it so happens I've got the stuff to give it them.
After the service rendered me by a coat of that colour, you may trust
this gaucho never to go on any expedition over the pampas without a cake
of brown paint stowed away in some corner of his _alparejas_. For the
poncho, it won't be out of place. As you know, there are many of the
common kind among the Tovas Indians, worn and woven by them; with some
of better sort, snatched, no doubt, from the shoulders of some poor
gaucho, found straying too far from the settlements."

"But, Gaspar," says Ludwig, still doubting the possibility of the
scheme; "surely such a disguise as you speak of will never do? In the
daylight they'd see through it."

"Ah! in the daylight, yes, they might. But I don't intend giving them
that chance. If I enter their town at all, and I see no other way for
it, that entry must be made in the darkness. I propose making it
to-morrow evening, after the sun's gone down, and when it's got to be
late twilight. Then they'll all be off guard, engaged in driving their
animals into the _corrales_, and less likely to notice any one strolling
about the streets."

"But supposing you get safe into the place, and can go about without
attracting attention, what will you do?" questions Ludwig.

"What can you?" is the form in which Cypriano puts it.

"Well, senoritos, that will depend on circumstances, and a good deal on
the sort of luck in store for us. Still you mustn't suppose I'm
trusting all to chance. Gaspar Mendez isn't the man to thrust his hand
into a hornet's nest, without a likelihood--nay, a certainty, of drawing
some honey out of it."

"Then you have such certainty now?" interrogates Cypriano, a gleam of
hope irradiating his countenance. For the figurative words lead him to
believe that the gaucho has not yet revealed the whole of his scheme.

"Of course I have," is Gaspar's rejoinder. "If I hadn't we might as
well give everything up, and take the back-track home again. We won't
do that, while there's a chance left for taking the _muchachita_ along
with us."

"Never!" exclaims Cypriano, with determined emphasis. "If I have to go
into their town myself, and die in it, I'll do that rather than return
without my cousin."

"Be calm, _hijo mio_!" counsels Gaspar in a soothing tone, intended to
curb the excitement of the fiery youth; "I don't think there will be any
need for you either to ente