at the very same hour, was doing him a service by causing not
only obstruction, but serious damage to the man he regards as his
greatest enemy.

This second warren lay at least a hundred miles from the one they have
succeeded in crossing, in a direction due east from the latter, and on
the straight route for the city of Assuncion.

Let us throw aside circumlocution, and at once give account of the
incident.

On this same day, and, as already said, almost the same hour, when the
trackers are brought up by the _biscachera_, a single horseman is seen
with head turned towards the Paraguay, and making as if to reach this
river; from which he is distant some eighteen or twenty miles. He rides
at a rapid rate; and that he has been doing so for a long continuance of
time, can be told by the lagging gait of his horse, and the sweat
saturating the animal's coat from neck to croup. For all, he slackens
not the pace; instead, seems anxious to increase it, every now and then
digging his spurs deep, and by strokes of a spear shaft he carries in
his hands, urging his roadster onward. Anyone witness to his acting in
this apparently frantic fashion, would suppose him either demented, or
fleeing from pursuers who seek nothing less than his life. But as the
plain over which he rides is smooth, level, and treeless for long
leagues to his rear as also to right and left, and no pursuer nor aught
of living thing visible upon it, the latter, at least, cannot be the
case. And for the former, a glance at the man's face tells that neither
is insanity the cause of his cruel behaviour to his horse. Rufino
Valdez--for he is the hastening horseman--if bad, is by no means mad.

Superfluous to say, what the errand pressing him to such speed. In
soliloquy he has himself declared it: hastening to communicate news
which he knows will be welcome to the Paraguayan tyrant, and afterwards
return to Halberger's _estancia_ with a party of those hireling
soldiers--quaintly termed _cuarteleros_ from their living in barracks,
or _cuartels_.

With this sinister purpose in view, and the expectation of a rich
reward, the _vaqueano_ has given his roadster but little rest since
parting from the Tovas' camp; and the animal is now nigh broken down.
Little recks its rider. Unlike a true gaucho, he cares not what
mischance may befall his steed, so long as it serves his present
necessity. If it but carry him to the Paraguay, it may drop down dead
on the river