Manuelita ignored the advice. She was putting the last touches to her preparations. In a bright cotton handkerchief she tied a comb, several baked plantains, some round thick _arepas_ made of mashed corn, and her cigarettes; she swung her straw hat over one arm and dropped the _lanza_ into a sheath of inlaid leather at her belt. Then, without a glance at mother, child, or neighbour, she went rapidly up the street and entered the _cacao_ under low-hanging branches. But soon she paused to consider a moment. What if she were travelling the wrong way! Suppose they had gone in an easterly direction, toward Rio Chico. Yet, no, for Juan was there. Besides, since the _hacienda_ of San Jacinto, a portion of the northern half of the plain of Barlovento, curves in to meet the Rio Tuy, the couple would have had to cross the swollen stream at the very start. They would go north, to Tacarigua. She was sure of that. And, taking off her _alpargatas_, she walked in a great semicircle, looking for fresh footprints. Across ditch after ditch she went, through black water and blacker ooze. Sometimes her steps were sure, more often she sank to the knees, or fell, her hands flattening against a ditch side. She found fresh footprints in countless numbers, and leading toward every point of the compass. Some had been made by naked feet, some by _alpargatas_. Some were long and wide, some were short and more narrow. She was bewildered by them. “Ah! _Madre de Dios!_” she faltered. Presently, pointing northward, she found two sets, the one plainly a man’s, the other smaller. They were new, too, for the ooze still stood in them. Instantly her attention fixed upon these. She floundered after them, rod upon rod, as certain that she was upon the right trail as if she could see Ricardo and the woman ahead of her. Here the footprints were close together--she ground her teeth. Here they were farther apart. And here someone had stumbled, for there was the mark of a naked palm on the soft earth. She laughed, and stroked the handle of the _lanza_. When the tracks left the _hacienda_ of San Jacinto they entered that of its northern neighbour--Guevara. Here they made a detour to avoid the _cacao_ court and huts of the plantation’s workers. Then on again, through mud and mire, keeping always straight toward Tacarigua. Farther still, when this _hacienda_ was crossed, they entered the rough path leading northward through the forest, and were lost. At midday Manuelita stopped at a deep-shadowed spot on the road to eat a meal of baked plantain and _arepa_. The monkeys jabbered down at her. Now and then she heard strange movements close by in the jungle. But she felt no fear. A few moments for food, a pull at a water-filled gourd flask, a few crumbs to a lizard, blinking--head downward--from a tree trunk at her elbow, and she trotted on.