.

But on reaching it, a sight meets their eyes--it is now daylight--
causing a surprise to Ludwig and Cypriano; but to Gaspar something
more--something akin to dismay. For the sage gaucho mentally sees
further than either of his less experienced companions; and that now
observed by him gives token of a new trouble in store for them. The
plain is no longer a green grassy savanna, as when they galloped across
it on the afternoon preceding, but a smooth expanse, dark brown in
colour, its surface glittering under the red rays of the rising sun,
whose disc is as yet but half visible above the horizon!

"_Santos Dios_!" exclaims the gaucho, as he sits in his saddle,
contemplating the transformation, to him no mystery. "I thought it
would be so."

"How very strange!" remarks Ludwig.

"Not at all strange, _senorito_; but just as it should be, and as we
might have expected."

"But what has caused it?"

"Oh, cousin," answered Cypriano, who now comprehends all. "Can't you
see? I do."

"See what?"

"Why, that the dust has settled down over the plain; and the rain coming
after, has converted it into mud."

"Quite right, Senor Cypriano," interposes Gaspar; "but that isn't the
worst of it."

Both turn their eyes upon him, wondering what worse he can allude to.
Cypriano interrogates:--

"Is it some new danger, Gaspar?"

"Not exactly a danger, but almost as bad; a likelihood of our being
again delayed."

"But how?"

"We'll no longer have track or trace to guide us, if this abominable
sludge extend to the river; as I daresay it does. There we'll find the
trail blind as an owl at noontide. As you see, the thing's nearly an
inch thick all over the ground. 'Twould smother up the wheel-ruts of a
loaded _carreta_."

His words, clearly understood by both his young companions, cause them
renewed uneasiness. For they can reason, that if the trail be
obliterated, their chances of being able to follow the route taken by
the abductors will be reduced to simple guessing; and what hope would
there be searching that way over the limitless wilderness of the Chaco?

"Well?" says Gaspar, after they had remained for some moments gazing
over the cheerless expanse which extends to the very verge of their
vision, "it won't serve any good purpose, our loitering here. We may as
well push on to the river, and there learn the worst--if worst it's to
be. _Vamonos_!"

With this, the Spanish synonym for "Come along!" the gaucho