Madariaga had never seen any sharks, but he imagined them, without knowing why, with round, glassy eyes, like the bottoms of bottles.

By the time he was eight years old, Julio was a famous little equestrian.  “To horse, peoncito,” his grandfather would cry, and away they would race, streaking like lightning across the fields, midst thousands and thousands of horned herds.  The “peoncito,” proud of his title, obeyed the master in everything, and so learned to whirl the lasso over the steers, leaving them bound and conquered.  Upon making his pony take a deep ditch or creep along the edge of the cliffs, he sometimes fell under his mount, but clambered up gamely.

“Ah, fine cowboy!” exclaimed the grandfather bursting with pride in his exploits.  “Here are five dollars for you to give a handkerchief to some china.”

The old man, in his increasing mental confusion, did not gauge his gifts exactly with the lad’s years; and the infantile horseman, while keeping the money, was wondering what china was referred to, and why he should make her a present.

Desnoyers finally had to drag his son away from the baleful teachings of his grandfather.  It was simply useless to have masters come to the house, or to send Julio to the country school.  Madariaga would always steal his grandson away, and then they would scour the plains together.  So when the boy was eleven years old, his father placed him in a big school in the Capital.

The grandfather then turned his attention to Julio’s three-year-old sister, exhibiting her before him as he had her brother, as he took her from ranch to ranch.  Everybody called Chicha’s little girl Chichi, but the grandfather bestowed on her the same nickname that he had given her brother, the “peoncito.”  And Chichi, who was growing up wild, vigorous and wilful, breakfasting on meat and talking in her sleep of roast beef, readily fell in with the old man’s tastes.  She was dressed like a boy, rode astride like a man, and in order to win her grandfather’s praises as “fine cowboy,” carried a knife in the back of her belt.  The two raced the fields from sun to sun, Madariaga following the flying pigtail of the little Amazon as though it were a flag.  When nine years old she, too, could lasso the cattle with much dexterity.

What most irritated the ranchman was that his family would remember his age.  He received as insults his son-in-law’s counsels to remain quietly at home, becoming more aggressive and reckless as he advanced in years, exaggerating his activity, as if he wished to drive Death away.  He accepted no help except from his harum-scarum “Peoncito.”  When Karl’s children, great hulking youngsters, hastened to his assistance and offered to hold his stirrup, he would repel them with snorts of indignation.

“So you think I am no longer able to help myself, eh! . . .  There’s still enough life in me to make those who are waiting for me to die, so as to grab my dollars, chew their disappointment a long while yet!”