“_Señora_, you are innocent, and Bernardo will learn it. You know him--how hotheaded he is, how quickly he is sorry. Go back. Take this old cattle road--here--and hurry. The sun has set. You must run. Have no fear for me!” “I’m not going back to Bernardo.” She straightened up, pale and composed, but as she stepped forward to pass the _vaquero_ in the trail she averted her eyes. “Take me to Micas!” With a passionate gesture Augustine stopped her. “But, _señora_, consider. Darkness is upon us. Micas is a long way. You’re only a girl. You can’t keep up. You’ve forgotten that Tigre is on my trail.” “I forget nothing,” she replied coldly. “I’ve begged you to hurry.” “Muella, go back at once. To-morrow--after a night in the jungle--with me--you can’t go. It’ll be too late!” “It’s too late now,” breathed the girl. “I can’t go back--now!” “Go first, then,” he said, whipping out the long machete. “I’ll wait here for Tigre.” “_Señor_, there are other _tigres_. There are panthers, too, and wild boars. I may lose the trail. Will you let me go alone?” III Augustine whispered the name of a saint, and turning his dark face toward where the trail led out of the clearing, he strode on without sheathing his machete. Muella kept close to him, and entered the enclosing walls of jungle verdure. She felt indeed that she was the untamed thing Bernardo had called her, and now she was hunted. Light as dropping leaves, her feet pattered in the trail. Augustine loomed beside her, striding swiftly, and now and then the naked blade he carried, striking against a twig or branch, broke the silence with a faint ring. The green walls became hovering shadows and turned to gray. Muella had an irresistible desire to look back. The darkening menace of the gloom before and on each side was nothing to that known peril behind. She saw nothing, however, but a dull, gray, wavering line fading into the obscurity of the jungle. She strained her hearing. Except for the soft swishing of her skirt on the brush, and the occasional low ring of Augustine’s machete, there was absolutely no sound. She noted that her companion never turned his head. Had he no fear? Quick flashes of memory recalled stories of this herder’s daring. How tall and powerful he was--how swiftly he strode--how dark and stern and silent he seemed! He must know full well the nature of Bernardo’s pet, the terrible blind brute that never failed on a trail. All at once the jungle grew into two ragged walls of black separated by a narrow strip of paler shade. Night had fallen; and with it came a blinking of stars through dense foliage overhead, and the lighting of fireflies. Insects began to hum. Rustlings in the brush augmented Muella’s sensitiveness. A strange call of a night bird startled her, and instinctively she shrank closer to Augustine. She wished to speak to him, to make the silence bearable; but stealthy steps off to the right made her heart leap and her tongue mute.