Gaspar the Gaucho: A Story of the Gran Chaco

So far the elders in council; and the astute commissioner, recognising the difficulty, not to say danger, of touching on this delicate subject, said nothing to them about it.

For all, he has not left the matter in abeyance, instead, has spoken of it to other ears, where he knew he would be listened to with more safety to himself – the ears of Aguara. For he had not been long in the Tovas town without making himself acquainted with the character of the new cacique, as also his inclinings – especially those relating to Francesca Halberger. And that some private understanding has been established between him and the young Tovas chief is evident from the conversation they are now carrying on.

“You can keep the muchachita at your pleasure,” says Valdez, having, to all appearance, settled certain preliminaries. “All my master wants is, to vindicate the laws of our country, which this man Halberger has outraged. As you know yourself, Señor Aguara, one of our statutes is that no foreigner who marries a Paraguayan woman may take her out of the country without permission of the President – our executive chief. Now this man is not one of our people, but a stranger —a gringo– from far away over the big waters; while the Señora, his wife, is Paraguayan, bred and born. Besides, he stole her away in the night, like a thief, as he is.”

Naraguana would not tamely have listened to such discourse. Instead, the old chief, loyal to his friendship, would have indignantly repelled the allegations against his friend and protégé. As it is, they fall upon the ear of Naraguana’s son without his offering either rebuke or protest.

Still, he seems in doubt as to what answer he should make, or what course he ought to pursue in the business between them.

“What would you have me do, Señor Rufino?” he asks in a patois of Spanish, which many Chaco Indians can speak; himself better than common, from his long and frequent intercourse with Halberger’s family. “What want you?”

“I don’t want you to do anything,” rejoins the vaqueano. “If you’re so squeamish about giving offence to him you call your father’s friend, you needn’t take any part in the matter, or at all compromise yourself. Only stand aside, and allow the law I’ve just spoken of to have fulfilment.”

“But how?”

“Let our President send a party of his soldiers to arrest those runaways, and carry them back whence they came. Now that you’ve proposed to renew the treaty with us, and are hereafter to be our allies – and, I hope, fast friends – it is only just and right you should surrender up those who are our enemies. If you do, I can say, as his trusted representative, that El Supremo will heap favours, and bestow rich presents on the Tovas tribe; above all, on its young cacique – of whom I’ve heard him speak in terms of the highest praise.”

Aguara, a vain young fellow, eagerly drinks in the fulsome flattery, his eyes sparkling with delight at the prospect of the gifts thus promised. For he is as covetous of wealth as he is conceited about his personal appearance.

“But,” he says, thinking of a reservation, “would you want us to surrender them all? Father, mother – ”

“No, not all,” rejoins the ruffian, interrupting. “There is one,” he continues, looking askant at the Indian, with the leer of a demon, “one, I take it, whom the young Tovas chief would wish to retain as an ornament to his court. Pretty creature the niña was, when I last saw her; and I have no doubt still is, unless your Chaco sun has made havoc with her charms. She had a cousin about her own age, by name Cypriano, who was said to be very fond of her; and rumour had it around Assuncion, that they were being brought up for one another.”

Aguara’s brow blackens, and his dark Indian eyes seem to emit sparks of fire.

“Cypriano shall never have her!” he exclaims in a tone of angry determination.

“How can you help it, amigo?” interrogates his tempter. “That is, supposing the two are inclined for one another. As you know, her father is not only a paleface, but a gringo, with prejudices of blood far beyond us Paraguayans, who are half-Indian ourselves. Ah! and proud of it too. Being such, he would never consent to give his daughter in marriage to a red man – make a squaw of her, as he would scornfully call it. No, not even though it were the grandest cacique in the Chaco. He would see her dead first.”

“Indeed!” exclaims the Indian, with a disdainful toss of the head.

“Indeed, yes,” asseverates Valdez. “And whether they remain under your protection, or be taken back to Paraguay, ’twill be all the same as regards the señorita. There’s but one way I know of to hinder her from becoming the wife of her cousin Cypriano, and that is – ”

“What?” impatiently asks Aguara.

“To separate them. Let father, mother, son, and nephew be taken back to where they belong; the niña to stay behind.”

“But how can that be done?”

“You mean without your showing your hand in it?” asks Valdez, in a confidential whisper.

“I do. For know, Señor Rufino, that, though I’m now chief of our tribe, and those we have with us here will do as I bid them – obey me in anything – still the elders have control, and might make trouble if I did aught to injure the friend of my late father. I am not free, and dare not act as you propose.”

“Carramba! you needn’t act at all, as I’ve already told you. Only stand aside, and let others do the acting. ’Twill be easy enough. But give your consent to my bringing a pack of our Paraguayan wolves to this fold your father has so carefully shepherded, and I’ll answer for sorting out the sheep we want to take, and leaving the lamb you wish left. Then you and yours can come opportunely up, too late for protecting the old ram and dam, but in time to rescue the bleating lambkin, and bear her away to a place of safety. Your own toldo, Señor Aguara; where, take my word for’t, no one will ever come to inquire after, much less reclaim her. You consent?”

“Speak low!” cautions the wily Indian, casting a glance over his shoulders as one willing to do a wicked deed, but without desiring it known. “Don’t let them hear us. You have my consent.”

Chapter Nine.

A Red-Handed Ruffian

Just as the young cacique has yielded to the tempter, surrendering his last scruple of conscience, his horse dips hoof in the stream, that of the Paraguayan plunging into it at the same time. Knowing the ford well, and that it is shallow, with a firm bottom, they ride boldly on; their followers straggled out behind, these innocent of the foul conspiracy being hatched so near; still keeping up their rollicky mirth, and flinging about jeux d’esprit as the spray drops are tossed from the fetlocks of their wading horses.

It is a popular though erroneous belief, that the red men of America are of austere and taciturn habit. The older ones may be at times, but even these not always. Instead, as a rule they are given to jocularity and fun; the youth brimful of it as the street boys of any European city. At least one half of their diurnal hours is spent by them in play and pastimes; for from those of the north we have borrowed both Polo and La Crosse; while horse-racing is as much their sport as ours; and archery more.

Not strange, then, that the jeunesse dorée of the Tovas, escorting their youthful cacique, and seeing him occupied with the paleface who has been on a visit to their town, take no heed of what passes between these two, but abandon themselves to merriment along the march. No more is it strange that Aguara, engrossed with the subject of conversation between him and the vaqueano, leaves them free to their frollicking.

Nothing occurs to change the behaviour either of the two who are in front, or those following, until the horses of the former have forded the stream, and stepped out on the bank beyond. Then the Paraguayan, as said, a skilled tracker and cunning as a fox, chancing to lower his eyes to the ground, observes upon it several hoof-marks of a horse. These at once fix his attention; for not only are they fresh – to all appearance made but the moment before – but the horse that made them must have been shod.

While in the act of verifying this observation, other hoof-prints come under his eye, also shod, but much smaller, being the tracks of a pony. Recent too, evidently made at the same time as the horse’s. He has no need to point them out to the young Indian, who, trained to such craft from infancy upward, has noted them soon as he, and with equally quick intuitiveness is endeavouring to interpret their significance.

Succeeding in this: for both the horse’s track and that of the pony are known to, and almost instantly recognised by him. He has not lived two years in proximity to the estancia of Ludwig Halberger, all the while in friendly intercourse with the naturalist and his family, without taking note of everything; and can tell the particular track of every horse in its stables. Above all is he familiar with the diminutive hoof-marks of Francesca’s pretty pony, which he has more than once trailed across the campo, in the hope of having a word with its rider. Perceiving them now, and so recently made, he gives out an ejaculation of pleased surprise; then looks around, as though expecting to see the pony itself, with its young mistress upon its back. There is no one in sight, however, save the vaqueano and his own followers; the latter behind, halted by command, some of them still in the water, so that they may not ride over the shod-tracks, and obliterate them.

All this while Halberger and his child are within twenty paces of the spot, and seated in their saddles, as when they first drew up side by side. Screened by the trees, they see the Indians, themselves unobserved, while they can distinctly hear every word said. Only two of the party speak aloud, the young cacique and his paleface companion; their speech, of course, relating to the newly-discovered “sign.”

After dismounting, and for a few seconds examining it, Valdez leaps back into his saddle with a show of haste, as if he would at once start off upon the trail of horse and pony.

“There have been only the two here – that’s plain,” he says. “Father and daughter, you think? What a pity we didn’t get up in time to bid ‘good-day’ to them! ’Twould have simplified matters much. You’d then have had your young chick to carry to the cage you intend for it, without the mother bird to make any bother or fluttering in your face; while I might have executed my commission sooner than expected.”

“Carramba!” he continues after a short while spent in considering. “They can’t have gone very far as yet. You say it’s quite twenty miles to the place where the gringo has his headquarters. If so, and they’ve not been in a great hurry to get home – which like enough the girl would, since her dear Cypriano don’t appear to be along – we may come up with them by putting on speed. Let us after them at once! What say you?”

The young Indian, passive in the hands of the older and more hardened sinner, makes neither objection nor protest. Instead, stung by the allusion to “dear Cypriano,” he is anxious as the other to come up with the pony and its rider. So, without another word, he springs back upon his horse, declaring his readiness to ride on.

With eyes directed downward, they keep along the return tracks; having already observed that these come no farther than the ford, and turn back by the water’s edge —

“Aha!” exclaims the vaqueano, pulling up again ere he has proceeded three lengths of his horse; “they’ve left the trail here, and turned off up stream! That wouldn’t be their route home, would it?”

“No,” answers Aguara. “Their nearest way’s along the river, down as far as our old tolderia. After that – ”

“Sh!” interrupts the Paraguayan, leaning over, and speaking in a cautious whisper, “Did you not hear something? Like the chinking of a bitt curb? I shouldn’t wonder if they’re in among those bushes. Suppose you stay here and keep watch along the bank, while I go and beat up that bit of cover?”

“Just as it please you,” assents the young cacique, unresistingly.

“Give me two or three of your fellows along. Not that I have any fear to encounter the gringo alone – poor weak creature, still wearing his green spectacles, I suppose. Far from it. But still there’s no harm in having help, should he attempt to give trouble. Besides, I’ll want some one to look after the muchachita!”

“Take as many as you wish.”

“Oh! two will be sufficient; that pair nearest us.”

He points to the foremost file of the troop, two who are a little older than their friends, as also of more hardened and sinister aspect. For, short as has been his stay among them, the subtle emissary has taken the measure of many members of the tribe; and knows something of the two he thus designates. His gold has made them his friends and allies; in short, gained them over to him as good for anything he may call upon them to do.

Aguara having signified assent, a gesture brings them up; and, at a whispered word from the vaqueano himself, they fall in behind him.

Heading his horse for the sumac thicket he is soon at its edge, there seeing what rejoices him – the tracks of both horse and pony passing into it. He has reached the spot where Halberger turned in along the tapir path. Parting the leaves with a long spear – for he is so armed – he rides in also, the two Indians after. And just as the tails of their horses disappear among the leaves, Aguara, who has kept his place, hears another horse neighing within the thicket at a point farther off. Then there is a quick trampling of hooves, followed by a hurried rush, and the swishing of bent branches, as the vaqueano and his two aides dash on through the sumacs.

The young cacique and his followers continuing to listen, soon after hear shouts – the voices of men in angry exclamation – mingling with them the shriller treble of a girl’s. Then a shot, quick followed by a second, and a third; after which only the girl’s voice is heard, but now in lamentation. Soon, however, it is hushed, and all over – everything silent as before.

The young Tovas chief sits upon his horse with heart audibly beating. He has no doubt – cannot have – as to who were the pursued ones; no more, that they have been overtaken. But with what result? Has the vaqueano killed both father and daughter? Or were the shots fired by Halberger, killing Valdez himself and the two who went with him? No; that cannot be; else why should the girl’s lamenting cries be heard afterwards? But then again, why have they ceased so suddenly?

While thus anxiously conjecturing, he again hears the trampling of horses among the trees; this time evidently in return towards him. And soon after sees the horses themselves, with their riders – four of them. Three are the same as late left him, but looking differently. The Paraguayan has one arm hanging down by his side, to all appearance broken, with blood dripping from the tips of his fingers; while the steel blade of his spear, borne in the other, is alike reddened. And there is blood elsewhere – streaming down the breast of one of the young Indians who seems to have difficulty in keeping upon his horse’s back. The fourth individual in the returning cavalcade is a young girl, with a cloth tied over her head, as if to hinder her from crying out; seated upon the back of a pony, this led by the Indian who is still unhurt.

At a glance, Aguara sees it is Francesca Halberger, though he needs not seeing her to know that. For he had already recognised her voice – well knew it, even in its wailing.

“Her father – what of him?” he asks, addressing Valdez, soon as the latter is up to him, and speaking in undertone.

“No matter what,” rejoins the ruffian, with a demoniac leer. “The father is my affair, and he has come very near making it an ugly one for me. Look at this!” he continues, indicating the left arm which hangs loose by his side. “And at that!” he adds, glancing up to the point of his spear.

“Blood on both, as you see. So, Señor Aguara, you may draw your deductions. Your affair is yonder,” he nods towards the muffled figure on the pony’s back; “and you can now choose between taking her home to her mother – her handsome cousin as well – or carrying her to your home, as the queen that is to be of the Tovas.”

The young cacique is not slow in deciding which course to pursue. The allusion to the “handsome cousin” again excites his jealousy and his ire. Its influence is irresistible, as sinister; and when he and his followers take departure from that spot – which they do almost on the instant – it is to recross the stream, and head their horses homeward – Francesca Halberger carried captive along with them.

Chapter Ten.

Gaspar, the Gaucho

Over the broad undulating plain which extends between Halberger’s house and the deserted tolderia of the Tovas, a horseman is seen proceeding in the direction of the latter. He is a man about middle age, of hale, active appearance, in no way past his prime. Of medium size, or rather above it, his figure though robust is well proportioned, with strong sinewy arms and limbs lithe as a panther’s, while his countenance, notwithstanding the somewhat embrowned skin, has a pleasant, honest expression, evincing good nature as a habitually amiable temper, at the same time that his features show firmness and decision. A keenly glancing eye, coal-black, bespeaks for him both courage and intelligence; while the way in which he sits his horse, tells that he is not new to the saddle; instead, seeming part of it. His garb is peculiar, though not to the country which claims him as a native. Draping down from his shoulders and spreading over the hips of his horse is a garment of woollen fabric, woven in stripes of gaudy colours, alternating white, yellow, and red, of no fit or fashion, but simply kept on by having his head thrust through a slit in its centre. It is a poncho– the universal wrap or cloak of every one who dwells upon the banks of the La Plata or Parana. Under is another garment, of white cotton stuff, somewhat resembling Zouave breeches, and called calzoneras, these reaching a little below his knees; while his feet and ankles are encased in boots of his own manufacture, seamless, since each was originally the skin of a horse’s leg, the hoof serving as heel, with the shank shortened and gathered into a pucker for the toe. Tanned and bleached to the whiteness of a wedding glove, with some ornamental stitching and broidery, it furnishes a foot gear, alike comfortable and becoming. Spurs, with grand rowels, several inches in diameter, attached to the heels of these horse-hide boots, give them some resemblance to the greaves and ankle armour of mediaeval times.

All this has he whose dress we are describing; while surmounting his head is a broad-brimmed hat with high-peaked crown and plume of rheas feathers – underneath all a kerchief of gaudy colour, which draping down over the nape of his neck protects it from the fervid rays of the Chaco sun. It is a costume imposing and picturesque; while the caparison of his horse is in keeping with it. The saddle, called recado, is furnished with several coverings, one upon another, the topmost, coronilla, being of bright-coloured cloth elaborately quilted; while the bridle of plaited horse-hair is studded with silver joints, from which depend rings and tassels, the same ornamenting the breast-piece and neck straps attaching the martingale, in short, the complete equipment of a gaucho. And a gaucho he is – Gaspar, the hero of our tale.

It has been already said, that he is in the service of Ludwig Halberger. So is he, and has been ever since the hunter-naturalist settled in Paraguay; in the capacity of steward, or as there called mayor-domo; a term of very different signification from the major-domo or house-steward of European countries, with dress and duties differing as well. No black coat, or white cravat, wears he of Spanish America, no spotless stockings, or soft slipper shoes. Instead, a costume more resembling that of a Cavalier, or Freebooter; while the services he is called upon to perform require him to be not only a first-class horseman, but able to throw the lazo, catch a wild cow or colt, and tame the latter – in short, take a hand at anything. And at almost anything Gaspar can; for he is man-of-all-work to the hunter-naturalist, as well as his man of confidence.

Why he is riding away from the estancia at such an hour – for it is afternoon – may be guessed from what has gone before. For it is on that same day, when Halberger and his daughter started off to visit the Indian village; and as these had not returned soon as promised, the anxiety of the wife, rendered keen by the presentiment which had oppressed her at their parting, became at length unbearable; and to relieve it Gaspar has been despatched in quest of them.

No better man in all the pampas region, or South America itself, could have been sent on such an errand. His skill as a tracker is not excelled by any other gaucho in the Argentine States, from which he originally came; while in general intelligence, combined with courage, no one there, or elsewhere, could well be his superior. As the Señora said her last words to him at parting, and listened to his in return, she felt reassured. Gaspar was not the man to make delay, or come back without the missing one. On this day, however, he deviates from his usual habit, at the same time from the route he ought to take – that leading direct to the Indian village, whither he knows his master and young mistress to have gone. For while riding along going at a gentle canter, a cock “ostrich” starts up before his horse, and soon after the hen, the two trotting away over the plain to one side. It so chances that but the day before his master had given him instructions to catch a male ostrich for some purpose of natural history – the first he should come across. And here was one, a splendid bird, in full flowing plumage. This, with an observation made, that the ostriches seem less shy than is usual with these wary creatures, and are moving away but slowly, decides him to take after and have a try at capturing the cock. Unloosing his bolas from the saddle-bow, where he habitually carries this weapon, and spurring his horse to a gallop, off after them he goes.

Magnificently mounted, for a gaucho would not be otherwise, he succeeds in his intent, after a run of a mile or so, getting close enough to the birds to operate upon them with his bolas. Winding these around his head and launching them, he has the satisfaction of seeing the cock ostrich go down upon the grass, its legs lapped together tight as if he had hard spliced them.

Riding on up to the great bird, now hoppled and without any chance to get away from him, he makes things more sure by drawing out his knife and cutting the creature’s throat. Then releasing the bolas, he returns them to the place from which he had taken them – on the horn of his recado. This done, he stands over the dead rhea, thus reflecting: —

“I wonder what particular part of this beauty – it is a beauty, by the way, and I don’t remember ever having met with a finer bird of the breed – but if I only knew which one with identical parts the master wants, it would save me some trouble in the way of packing, and my horse no little of a load. Just possible the dueño only cares for the tail-feathers, or the head and beak, or it may be but the legs. Well, as I can’t tell which, there’s but one way to make sure about it – that is, to take the entire carcase along with me. So, go it must.”

Saying this, he lays hold of a leg, and drags the ostrich nearer to his horse, which all the time stands tranquilly by: for a gaucho’s steed is trained to keep its place, without need of any one having care of it.

“Carramba!” he exclaims, raising the bird from the ground, “what a weight the thing is! Heavy as a quarter of beef! Now I think on’t, it might have been better if I’d let the beast alone, and kept on without getting myself into all this bother. Nay, I’m sure it would have been wiser. What will the Señora say, when she knows of my thus dallying – trifling with the commands she gave me? Bah! she won’t know anything about it – and needn’t. She will, though, if I stand dallying here. I mustn’t a minute longer. So up, Señor Avertruz, and lie there.”