"_¿Qué gente?_" "Texas." The Jaguar emerged from the jacal. "To arms!" he shouted to his men, we must not let ourselves be surprised. "Come, come," the voice continued, "I see that I have not diverged from the track, since I can hear the Jaguar." "Halloh!" the latter said in surprise, "who are you, that you know me so well?" "By Jove! A friend whose voice should be familiar to you, at any rate." "John Davis!" the young man exclaimed with a joy he did not attempt to conceal. "All right!" the American continued gaily. "I thought that we should understand one another presently." "Come, come; let him pass, men, he is a friend." Five or six horsemen entered the camp and dismounted. At this moment the storm burst forth furiously, passing like a whirlwind over the plain, the twisted trees on which were in a second uprooted and borne away by the hurricane. The Texans had made their horses lie down, and were themselves lying down by their side on the Wet soil, in the hope of offering a smaller surface to the gusts that passed with a mournful howl above their heads. It was a spectacle full of wild grandeur, presented by this ravaged plain, incessantly crossed by flashes which illuminated the landscape with fantastic hues, while the thunder rolled hoarsely in the depths of the Heavens, and the clouds scudded along like a routed army, dashing against each other with electric collisions. For nearly three hours the hurricane raged, levelling everything in its passage; at length, at about one in the morning, the rain became less dense, the wind gradually calmed, the thunder rolled at longer intervals, and the sky, swept clean by a final effort of the tempest, appeared again blue and star-spangled; the hurricane had gone away to vent its fury in other regions. The men and horses rose; all breathed again, and tried to restore a little order in the camp. This was no easy task, for the jacal had been carried away, the fires extinguished, and the logs dispersed in all directions; but the Texans were tried men, long accustomed to the dangers and fatigues of desert life. The tempest, instead of crushing them, had, on the contrary, restored their strength and patience, though not their courage, for that had never failed them. They set gaily to work, and in two hours all the injury caused by the tempest was repaired as well as the precarious resources they had at their disposal permitted; the fires were lighted again, and the jacal reconstructed. Any stranger who had entered the camp at this moment would not have supposed that so short a time previously they had been assailed by so fearful a hurricane. The Jaguar was anxious to talk with John Davis, whom he had only seen since his arrival, and had found it impossible to exchange a syllable. When order was restored, therefore, he went up to him and begged him to enter the jacal. "Permit me," the American said, "to bring with me three of my comrades whom I am convinced you will be delighted to meet."