Besides, you forget their
dogs. Scores they have--ay, hundreds, some of them keen-scented as
beagles. _Carrai_! they'd smell the nasty witch half-a-mile off, and so
discover her whereabouts to their masters."

"True," returns Cypriano, seeing the plan he has proposed would not do.
"In that way they would find her, no doubt."

"And if they didn't," interposed Ludwig, speaking from a sentiment of
humanity, "it would be dreadful."

"Dreadful! what do you mean?" asks Cypriano, looking puzzled. "For them
_not_ to find her is just what we want."

"Ah, cousin! how would it be for _her_? Tied to a tree, with no hope--
no chance of getting loosed from it--she'd die of hunger or thirst--
miserably perish. Wicked as Shebotha is, we'd be worse than she if we
left her to such a fate as that, to say nothing of our bringing it upon
her. Ay, and for doing so we'd deserve the same ourselves, or something
as bad."

"Well, Senor Ludwig," rejoins the gaucho, with an air of submission
rather than conviction, "you may be right in what you say, and I'm not
the man to deny it. But there need be no difference of opinion on that
point. Leaving Shebotha tied to a tree wouldn't do on any account, for
the reasons I've stated. It might--most likely would, and, as you say,
it ought--end in ourselves getting tied to trees or stakes, with a
bundle of faggots between our legs set to the tune of a slow fire.
But," he adds, after a second or two spent considering, "there's only
one other way I can think of to deal with the witch, if we're not to
take her with us."

"What's the other?" asks Cypriano, seeing that the gaucho hesitates to
declare it.

"Why, knock her on the head, or draw the blade of a _cuchilla_ across
her throat, and so stop her grunting at once and for ever. The old
wretch deserves no better fate and hanging's too good for her. But
they'd find her dead body all the same; though not with a tongue in it
to tell who stopped her wind, or, what's of more consequence, how and
which way we went off. Besides, I dare say, the Senor Ludwig wouldn't
agree to our getting disembarrassed of her in that fashion."

"Oh! no, no!" ejaculates the humane youth, horrified at the thought of
such cruelty, "anything but that, Caspar."

"Well, there isn't anything but what I propose doing--that is, taking
her along. I'm willing to accommodate her on the croup of my _recado_,
and will show her all the gallantry she deserves. If you're jeal