Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco. Reid Mayne
and as sure will they be followed up to where he and his child are in hiding. A pity he has not continued along the tapir path, still further and far away! Alas! too late now; the delay may be fatal.
In a very agony of apprehension thus reflecting, Ludwig Halberger with shoulders stooped over his saddle-bow and head bent in among the branches, watches the Indian cavalcade approaching the stream’s bank; the nearer it comes, the more certain he that himself and his child are in deadliest danger.
Chapter Seven.
Valdez the “Vaqueano.”
To solve the seeming enigma of Rufino Valdez travelling in the company of the Tovas Indians, and on friendly terms with their young chief – for he is so – it will be necessary to turn back upon time, and give some further account of the vaqueano himself, and his villainous master; as also to tell why Naraguana and his people abandoned their old place of abode, with other events and circumstances succeeding. Of these the most serious has been the death of Naraguana himself. For the aged cacique is no more; having died only a few days after his latest visit paid to his palefaced protégé.
Nor were his last moments spent at the tolderia, now abandoned. His death took place at another town of his people some two hundred miles from this, and farther into the interior of the Chaco; a more ancient residence of the Tovas tribe – in short, their “Sacred city” and burying-place. For it is the custom of these Indians when any one of them dies – no matter when, where, and how, whether by the fate of war, accident in the chase, disease, or natural decay – to have the body borne to the sacred town, and there deposited in a cemetery containing the graves of their fathers. Not graves, as is usual, underground; but scaffolds standing high above it – such being the mode of Tovas interment.
Naraguana’s journey to this hallowed spot – his last in life – had been made not on horseback, but in a litera, borne by his faithful braves. Seized with a sudden illness, and the presentiment that his end was approaching, with a desire to die in the same place where he had been born, he gave commands for immediate removal thither – not only of himself, but everything and even body belonging to his tribe. It was but the work of a day; and on the next the old settlement was left forsaken, just as the hunter-naturalist has found it.
Had the latter been upon the banks of that branch stream just three weeks before, he would there have witnessed one of those spectacles peculiar to the South American pampas; as the prairies of the North. That is the crossing of a river by an entire Indian tribe, on the move from one encampment, or place of residence, to another. The men on horseback swimming or wading their horses; the women and children ferried over in skin boats – those of the Chaco termed pelotas– with troops of dogs intermingled in the passage; all amidst a fracas of shouts, the barking of dogs, neighing of horses, and shrill screaming of the youngsters, with now and then a peal of merry laughter, as some ludicrous mishap befalls one or other of the party. No laugh, however, was heard at the latest crossing of that stream by the Tovas. The serious illness of their chief forbade all thought of merriment; so serious, that on the second day after reaching the sacred town he breathed his last; his body being carried up and deposited upon that aerial tomb where reposed the bleaching bones of many other caciques – his predecessors.
His sudden seizure, with the abrupt departure following, accounts for Halberger having had no notice of all this – Naraguana having been delirious in his dying moments, and indeed for some time before. And his death has caused changes in the internal affairs of the Tovas tribe, attended with much excitement. For the form of government among these Chaco savages is more republican than monarchical; each new cacique having to receive his authority not from hereditary right, but by election. His son, Aguara, however, popular with the younger warriors of the tribe, carried the day, and has become Naraguana’s successor.
Even had the hunter-naturalist been aware of these events, he might not have seen in them any danger to himself. For surely the death of Naraguana would not affect his relations with the Tovas tribe; at least so far as to losing their friendship, or bringing about an estrangement. Not likely would such have arisen, but for certain other events of more sinister bearing, transpiring at the same period; to recount which it is necessary for us to return still further upon time, and again go back to Paraguay and its Dictator.
Foiled in his wicked intent, and failing to discover whither his intended victims had fled, Francia employed for the finding of them one of his minions – this man of most ill repute, Rufino Valdez. It did not need the reward offered to secure the latter’s zeal; for, as stated, he too had his own old grudge against the German, brought about by a still older and more bitter hostility to Halberger’s right hand man – Gaspar, the gaucho. With this double stimulus to action, Valdez entered upon the prosecution of his search, after that of the soldiers had failed. At first with confident expectation of a speedy success; for it had not yet occurred to either him or his employer that the fugitives could have escaped clear out of the country; a thing seemingly impossible with its frontiers so guarded. It was only after Valdez had explored every nook and corner of Paraguayan territory in search of them, all to no purpose, that Francia was forced to the conclusion, they were no longer within his dominions. But, confiding in his own interpretation of international law, and the rights of extradition, he commissioned his emissary to visit the adjacent States, and there continue inquiry for the missing ones. That law of his own making, already referred to, led him to think he could demand the Prussian’s wife to be returned to Paraguay, whatever claim he might have upon the Prussian himself.
For over two years has Rufino Valdez been occupied in this bootless quest, without finding the slightest trace of the fugitives, or word as to their whereabouts. He has travelled down the river to Corrientes, and beyond to Buenos Ayres, and Monte Video at the La Plata’s mouth. Also up northward to the Brazilian frontier fort of Coimbra; all the while without ever a thought of turning his steps towards the Chaco!
Not so strange, though, his so neglecting this noted ground; since he had two sufficient reasons. The first, his fear of the Chaco savages, instinctive to every Paraguayan; the second, his want of faith, shared by Francia himself, that Halberger had fled thither. Neither could for a moment think of a white man seeking asylum in the Gran Chaco; for neither knew of the friendship existing between the hunter-naturalist and the Tovas chief.
It was only after a long period spent in fruitless inquiries, and while sojourning at Coimbra that the vaqueano first found traces of those searched for; there learning from some Chaco Indians on a visit to the fort – that a white man with his wife, children, and servants, had settled near a tolderia of the Tovas, on the banks of the Pilcomayo river. Their description, as given by these Indians – who were not Tovas, but of a kindred tribe – so exactly answered to the hunter-naturalist and his family, that Valdez had no doubt of its being they. And hastily returning to Paraguay, he communicated what he had been told to the man for whom he was acting.
“El Supremo,” overjoyed at the intelligence, promised to double the reward for securing the long-lost runaways. A delicate and difficult matter still; for there was yet the hostility of the Tovas to contend against. But just at this crisis, as if Satan had stepped in to assist his own sort, a rumour reaches Assuncion of Naraguana’s death; and as the rancour had arisen from a personal affront offered to the chief himself, Francia saw it would be a fine opportunity for effecting reconciliation, as did also his emissary. Armed with this confidence, his old enmity to Halberger and gaucho, ripe and keen as ever, Valdez declared himself willing to risk his life by paying a visit to the Tovas town, and, if possible, induce these Indians to enter into a new treaty – one of its terms to be their surrendering up the white man, who had been so long the guest of their deceased cacique.
Fully commissioned and furnished with sufficient funds – gold coin which passes current among the savages of the Chaco, as with civilised people – the plenipotentiary had started off, and made his way up the Pilcomayo, till reaching the old town of the Tovas. Had Halberger’s estancia stood on the river’s bank, the result might have been different. But situated at some distance back, Valdez saw it not in passing, and arrived at the Indian village to find it, as did the hunter-naturalist himself, deserted. An experienced traveller and skilled tracker, however, he had no difficulty in following the trail of the departed people, on to their other town; and it was the track of his