Diego López, consequently, rode about haphazard, and resolved to employ the time granted him in making a reconnoissance of the banks of the Río del Norte. Great was his surprise on recognizing in a horseman fording the river, the man he was supposed to have gone to fetch. In two words, Don Melchior explained what he had attempted on behalf of the captives. On his side, the peon informed him of the expedition organized to proceed to their assistance. The young man's heart bounded with delight on hearing this, and, after agreeing with Diego that they should be silent, they proceeded to the encampment in all haste. By extraordinary good fortune. Don Melchior had succeeded in foiling the ever active vigilance of the Indians, and, after his interview with the ladies, left the teocali undisturbed; he had found his clothes and horse again at the spot where he stopped to disguise himself, after killing the sentinel; and then, mad with despair and grief, he dashed across the prairie for the purpose of joining Oliver and persuading him to fly with him to the rescue of the prisoners. At this moment it was that he met the peon. So soon as he entered the bivouac, the young gentleman leapt from his horse, pressed the counts hand, and then rushed toward Don Aníbal, while Diego López told Moonshine, in a low voice, all about this chance interview. The hacendero had risen on perceiving Don Melchior; they fell into each other's arms, and remained embraced for a long time, mingling their tears but not speaking, for great sorrows are dumb. "Courage!" Don Melchior at length murmured, "Courage, we shall find them again." "Do you think so?" Don Aníbal exclaimed eagerly. "Oh! could I but believe it. Oh, heaven! Have I not suffered enough?" He let his head droop on his chest again, and burst into tears. There was something affecting in the sight of this strong man, who was so utterly crushed by grief and cried like a child. His friends regarded him with the most earnest compassion; they did not dare offer him consolations whose inutility they recognized; but the sadness displayed on their features sufficiently proved the sympathy they felt with him. The sun had set a long time but the hunter did not appear, and the anxiety became general. No one spoke, but each mentally calculated the hours that had elapsed, and began to think that the Canadian's absence threatened to become indefinitely prolonged. Moonshine alone did not seem to feel any anxiety or surprise, because he alone of the persons who surrounded him knew what difficulties the hunter would have to surmount in procuring positive information, and discovering on the sand or in the grass the flying traces of a man who, with the diabolical prudence of his race, had doubtless tried to efface every mark of his passage.