owardly rascal who fired will no doubt be trying to turn
our camp, and by going both ways, one or other of us will be likely to
chance upon him. Away, Bois-Rose, away!"

Hurriedly pronouncing these words, Pepe grasped his rifle and struck off
to the left, followed by Tiburcio, who had no other weapon than his
knife. The Canadian, suddenly stooping, till his huge body was almost
horizontal, glided off to the right under the branches of the trees, and
then moved on with a silence and rapidity that showed how accustomed he
was to this mode of progression.

The camp-fire was abandoned to the guard of the half-wild horse, that,
freshly affrighted by the report of the carbine, once more plunged and
reared, until he had almost strangled himself in the noose of his lazo.

Meanwhile the day was beginning to break, and the red light of the fire
was every moment growing paler under the first rays of the morning.

"Let us stop here," said Pepe to Tiburcio, as soon as they had reached a
thicket where they could have the advantage of seeing without being
seen, and from which they commanded a view of the road leading to the
Salto de Agua. "Stand closely behind this sumac bush," continued he; "I
have an idea that this _picaron_, who has such a crooked sight, will
pass this way. If he do, I shall prove to him that the lessons
Bois-Rose has given me have not been altogether lost upon me. I manage
my piece somewhat better now than when I was in the service of her
Catholic majesty. There now, stand close, and not a word above a
whisper."

Tiburcio--or, as we may now call him, Fabian de Mediana--obeyed with
pleasure the injunctions of his companion. His spirit, troubled with a
few strange words he had heard from Bois-Rose and Pepe, was full of hope
that the latter would be able to complete the revelation just begun; and
he waited with anxious silence to hear what the ex-carabinier might say.

But the latter was silent. The sight of the young man--whom he had
himself assisted in making an orphan, and despoiling not only of his
title and wealth, but even of his name--renewed within him the remorse
which twenty years had not sufficed to blot out from his memory. Under
the dawning light he looked sadly but silently on the face of that child
whom he had often seen playing upon the beach of Elanchovi. In the
proud glance of the youth, Pepe saw once more the eyes of his high-born
mother; and in the elegant and manly form he recognis