The sun was beginning to sink, and hunger dictated to us that we should
hasten our steps. I therefore led my companions towards the bivouac. We
had but just started again, when five or six hares came giddily running
almost between our legs. Lucien was skillful enough to shoot one, and
Sumichrast knocked down another. L'Encuerado loaded with the game, we
proceeded to our hut.

Being now reassured as to our bill-of-fare for dinner by this unexpected
windfall, I kept on walking towards the entrance of a glade, the soil of
which, being quite burrowed, betrayed the presence of the moles. Each of
us lay down under the shade of a tree. Chance led me under a robinia or
iron-wood tree, the trunk of which will defy the best-tempered axe. In
front of me stood a _tepehuage_, a kind of mahogany-tree, with
dark-colored foliage, which will become, some day, the object of
considerable trade between Europe and Mexico; the beauty of this red
wood, veined with black, renders it highly fitted for the manufacture of
furniture.

Gringalet had followed the Indian. I advised Lucien to keep silence, so
as to observe the operations of the moles, who would be certain to come
out of their burrows as soon as the sun set. In fact, first one, then
two, and at last twenty made their appearance; and in less than a
quarter of an hour I counted more than a hundred engaged in throwing up
the ground, playing about, and fighting, all the time uttering shrill
cries. Lucien was much amused as he watched them squatting down on their
hinder parts, making grimaces, and gnawing the roots and bark.

A single gunshot would have enabled us to double our store of grease,
but it would have been a waste of our powder and shot. In fear of
yielding to the temptation, I was thinking of giving the signal for
departure, when it became evident that the animals whose games were
enlivening us were actuated by a sudden panic. All the moles, which
were solemnly seated, nodded to and fro their enormous heads, showing
their long yellow incisors, and seemed to sniff the air. Suddenly they
all rushed towards their burrows. A _jaquarete_ had scattered them by
springing in among them. The new-comer, a species of wild-cat, with a
coat of the darkest black, left two or three victims dead upon the
ground, and then set up a plaintive mewing.

This call soon attracted two young ones, which darted at once on the
first mole they came to. Each of them seized hold of one side of their
pr