There was a stake driven near its summit with the initials, “L.  E. S. I.”  Tied halfway down was a curiously worked riata.  It was George’s.  It had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the loose gravelly soil of the mound was deeply dented with horses’ hoofs.  The stake was covered with horsehairs.  It was a record, but no clue.

The wind had grown more violent as we still fought our way forward, resting and rowing by turns, and oftener “poling” the shallower surface, but the old Valda, or bench, is still distant.  My recollection of the old survey enables me to guess the relative position of the meanderings of the creek, and an occasional simple professional experiment to determine the distance gives my crew the fullest faith in my ability.  Night overtakes us in our impeded progress.  Our condition looks more dangerous than it really is, but I urge the men, many of whom are still new in this mode of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of perfect safety and speedy relief ahead.  We go on in this way until about eight o’clock, and ground by the willows.  We have a muddy walk for a few hundred yards before we strike a dry trail, and simultaneously the white walls of Altascar’s appear like a snowbank before us.  Lights are moving in the courtyard; but otherwise the old tomblike repose characterizes the building.

One of the peons recognized me as I entered the court, and Altascar met me on the corridor.

I was too weak to do more than beg his hospitality for the men who had dragged wearily with me.  He looked at my hand, which still unconsciously held the broken riata.  I began, wearily, to tell him about George and my fears, but with a gentler courtesy than was even his wont, he gravely laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Poco A poco, senor—­not now.  You are tired, you have hunger, you have cold.  Necessary it is you should have peace.”

He took us into a small room and poured out some French cognac, which he gave to the men that had accompanied me.  They drank and threw themselves before the fire in the larger room.  The repose of the building was intensified that night, and I even fancied that the footsteps on the corridor were lighter and softer.  The old Spaniard’s habitual gravity was deeper; we might have been shut out from the world as well as the whistling storm, behind those ancient walls with their time-worn inheritor.

Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired.  In a few minutes two smoking dishes of CHUPA with coffee were placed before us, and my men ate ravenously.  I drank the coffee, but my excitement and weariness kept down the instincts of hunger.

I was sitting sadly by the fire when he reentered.

“You have eat?”

I said, “Yes,” to please him.

“Bueno, eat when you can—­food and appetite are not always.”

He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity with which most of his countrymen utter a proverb, as though it were an experience rather than a legend, and, taking the riata from the floor, held it almost tenderly before him.