On the farther side of the river was a deserted house, and we could distinctly trace the heavy footprints of a tapir leading up the path and through the open doorway. We entered with caution. Was the beast in then? No. He had gone out by a back way, probably made by himself, through the wattled wall. We could see the place was frequented very often by wild pigs, which had left hundreds of footprints in the three-inch depth of dust on the floor. There we lit a fire to again dry our clothes, and prepared to pass the night, expecting a visit from the hogs. Had they appeared when we were ready for them, the visit would not have been unwelcome. Food was hard to procure, and animals did not come very often to be shot. Had they found us asleep, however, the waking would have been terrible indeed, for they will eat human flesh just as ravenously as roots. After spreading our saddle-cloths on the dust and filth, Old Stabbed Arm and I were chatting about the Caingwas and their dirty habits, when Timoteo, heaving a sigh of relief, said: "Thank God, we are clean at last!" He was satisfied with the pigpen as he recalled the _hogá_ of the Sun-Worshippers. At last the village of Pegwaomi was reached, and, oh, we were not sorry, for the havoc of the jiggers in our feet was getting terrible! The keen-eyed inhabitants caught sight of us while we were still distant, and when we reined up, Timoteo's aged mother tremblingly said, "_Yoape_" ("Come here") to him, and she wept as she embraced her boy. Truly, there was no sight so sweet to "mother" as that of her ragged, travel-stained son; and Timoteo, the strong man, wept. The fatted calf was then killed a few yards from the doorstep, by having its throat cut. Offal littered up the doorway, and the children in their glee danced in the red blood. The dogs' tails and the women's tongues wagged merrily, making us feel that we were joined on to the world again. I was surprised to find that we were days out of reckoning; I had been keeping Sunday on Thursday! During this stay at Pegwaomi I nearly lost Old Stabbed Arm. The day after we returned our hostess very seriously asked me if he might marry her daughter. Thinking he had sent her to ask, I consented. It was a surprise to learn afterwards that he knew nothing at all of the matter. Although Pegwaomi gained no new inhabitant, I secured what proved to be one of the truest and most faithful friends of my life--a little monkey. His name was Mr. Pancho. With him it was love at first sight, and from that time onward, I believe, he had only two things in his mind--his food and his master. He would cry when I left him, and hug and kiss me on my return. Pancho rode the pack-mare into the village of Concepcion, and busied himself on the way catching butterflies and trying to grasp the multi-colored humming-birds hovering over the equally beautiful passion-flowers growing in the bushes on each side of the path.