oner; but my
brains have been so muddled with what's happened, and the hurry we've
been in all along, I've forgotten a good many things. He said they had
a town there too, where they sometimes went to live, but oftener to die.
I warrant me that's the very place they're in now; and, from what I
understood him to say, it can't be very far t'other side this
_salitral_. He spoke of a hill rising above the town, which could be
seen a long way off: a curious hill, shaped something like a wash-basin
turned bottom upwards. Now, if we could only sight that hill."

At this he ceases speaking, and elevates his eyes, with an interrogative
glance which takes in all the plain ahead, up to the horizon's verge.
Only for a few seconds is he silent, when his voice is again heard, this
time in grave, but gleeful, exclamation:--

"_Por todos Santos_! there's the hill itself!"

The others looking out behold a dome-shaped eminence, with a flat,
table-like top recognisable from the quaint description Gaspar has just
given of it, though little more than its summit is visible above the
plain--for they are still several miles distant from it.

"We must go no nearer to it now," observes the gaucho, adding, in a tone
of apprehension, "we may be too near already. _Caspita_! Just look at
that!"

The last observation refers to the sun, which, suddenly shooting out
from the clouds hitherto obscuring it, again shows itself in the sky.
Not now, however, as in the early morning hours, behind their backs, but
right in front of them, and low down, threatening soon to set.

"_Vayate_!" he continues to ejaculate in a tone of mock scorn,
apostrophising the great luminary, "no thanks to you now, showing
yourself when you're not needed. Instead, I'd thank you more if you'd
kept your face hid a bit longer. Better for us if you had."

"Why better?" asks Cypriano, who, as well as Ludwig, has been listening
with some surprise to the singular monologue. "What harm can the sun do
us now more than ever?"

"Because now, more than ever, he's shining inopportunely, both as to
time and place."

"In what way?"

"In a way to show us to eyes we don't want to see us just yet. Look at
that hill yonder. Supposing now, just by chance, any of the Indians
should be idling upon it, or they have a vidette up there. Bah! what am
I babbling about? He couldn't see us if they had; not here, unless
through a telescope, and I don't think the Tovas are so far civili