THE last of the customers to leave the boliche that evening were going home when Robledo stopped in front of the house Elena occupied.

He went softly up the stairs and, after a few seconds of hesitation, knocked gently at the door. After a very brief interval it opened, and Sebastiana appeared, thoroughly surprised at being summoned in this fashion just as she was going to bed. Her coarse hair was arranged in numerous braids, each one of which was tied at the end with a knot of ribbon or string, and with her enormous arms she tried to conceal a part of her copper-colored and exuberant bosom, freed from the compression of her corset. Her wrathful eyes, which gave warning of the hailstorm of abusive words with which she was planning to receive the importunate disturber of her peace, softened at sight of Robledo, and before he had time to speak, she was saying in the most amiable tone in the world,

“The mistress is in her bedroom, and the seÑor marquÉs has gone out with his accursed pistol case. I thought he was at your house ... but come in, I’ll go call the seÑora.”

Robledo had good reason to know that Torre Bianca had gone to see him, but he felt it imperative to speak to the marquesa. However, he hesitated about stepping into the house. He had no desire to find himself alone with Elena. Besides, his interview with her must be of the briefest. Torre Bianca might return at any moment, and it would be awkward to explain his presence there when a few minutes earlier he had been talking with the marquÉs at his house.

“I want to see your mistress for just a second.... It would be better if she just leaned out of her bedroom window....”

The half-breed closed the door, and Robledo went along the outside balcony past several windows. One of them opened a few moments later and Elena, her hair hanging loose, and a dressing gown thrown negligently about her shoulders, but leaving much of her arms and breast exposed, leaned out.

She had gotten up quickly, and appeared startled. Even before Robledo spoke she asked anxiously,

“Has something happened to Watson? Why are you here at this hour?”

Robledo smiled ironically; then he answered,

“Watson is quite well. My being here at such an hour as this is on some other man’s account.”

He looked at her with severity and added slowly,

“Within a few hours’ time two men are going to kill one another. This is a horrible absurdity which makes it quite impossible for me to sleep tonight. So I have come to say to you, Elena, stop this frightful thing, for heaven’s sake!”

As soon as she felt certain that Robledo’s business in no wise concerned Watson, Elena replied, with little concealed ill-humor,

“What do you want me to do? They can fight if they choose. That’s what men are born for.”

Robledo heard these words with a gesture of astonishment. How cruel they sounded!

“Although I am a woman,” she continued, “these matters don’t alarm me. Federico fought a duel for me when we were first married. Several men in my country risked their lives in duels for me in the hope of making themselves agreeable in this way. I never interfered in any of them.”

An expression of contempt passed over her face as she added,

“Do you really think that I am going to ask these two gentlemen not to risk their precious lives on my account, just so afterwards they can ask me for something in return? Anyway, if I interfered, each one of them would believe that I was interested in him ... and I don’t care a snap for either of them. If it were some other man who was concerned, I might grant your request....”

Robledo raised his head slightly at the phrase “some other man,” and for a moment saw clearly before him the image of his partner. The expression in Elena’s eyes grew gentle.

“Go to bed and sleep peacefully, just as I shall, Robledo. Let those two vain male creatures announce all they like that they are going to kill one another. Nothing serious will happen, you’ll see!”

She made a motion as though to draw back into the bedroom, for a crowd of “jejenes” and other insects attracted by her fragrant flesh were beginning to swarm around her shoulders, and she had to ward them off by constant slaps while she spoke.

“If you see Watson tell him that I expected him all day. With all this commotion about the duel I suppose it was impossible for him to get away.... Till tomorrow then, and rest easy! There’s no need to worry....”

She closed the window, pretending a childish fear of the mosquitoes, and Robledo retired, defeated.

At the same hour Canterac, seated at his work table, was finishing a long letter with these words,

“ ...and this is my last request. I hope you will grant it. Good-by, my sons! Forgive me!”

He folded the sheet of paper and put it in an envelope which he placed methodically in the pocket of a coat hanging near him.

“If luck’s against me tomorrow,” he thought, “they’ll find this letter on my person. Before the duel I’ll ask Watson to send it to my family, in case....”

An hour later his opponent was entering Moreno’s lodgings.

The government employee had returned just a short time before from the meeting with Canterac’s seconds. Pirovani spoke haltingly, struggling hard to conceal his emotion.

He had just left two letters on Moreno’s table, one of them very bulky, with the envelope still unsealed, showing the contents to be a folio of close written sheets. The Italian had been writing most of the night, trying to condense his affairs into such form as could be jotted down on these sheets. He pointed to the less voluminous of the two letters.

“That is for my daughter,” he said gravely. “Send it to her if anything final happens to me....”

Moreno tried to laugh as though he couldn’t at all believe in the possibility of a fatality. But he stopped his feigned merriment abruptly when the contractor went on in a still graver voice,

“This thicker envelope contains an authorization duly made out, by means of which you will be able to collect the money the government owes me, and other sums at the bank. A man as competent as you ought to find it possible, by means of all that I have prepared for you in this packet, to take over my business. I am also leaving a will, appointing you my daughter’s guardian. You are the only man here, Moreno, in whom I place my confidence. Even though now and then you have been more on my enemy’s side than mine ... but that doesn’t matter! I know that you are honest, and I am entrusting my daughter and my fortune to you,—everything I have in the world.”

Moreno was so moved by this proof of confidence in him that he was forced to raise a hand to his eyes. Then he stood up to grasp the Italian’s hand, and with broken phrases expressed his intention of fulfilling with the utmost exactitude the obligation laid upon him. He vowed that he would devote himself to the care of his friend’s daughter and fortune, if the duel should result fatally for him.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sunrise; a meadow overgrown with fine grass, along the river bank; at the far end, some old willows, their roots half exposed to the air. Slowly dying, they lay across the stream, and it seemed as though at any moment they might fall into it.

A gloomy spot at best; and it was here that Elena’s friends had elected to fight their duel. The light striking horizontally and almost level with the surface of the ground, elongated the shadows of the human figures and the trees, making them seem fantastic and unreal.

Pirovani arrived first, escorted by Moreno and don Carlos, all of them dressed in black. But the contractor was distinguished from those who accompanied him by his coat, which was new and of a solemn cut. He had received it the preceding week from Buenos Aires. It was the creation of a well-known tailor there of whom he had ordered a complete outfit of clothes similar to those made for the most fastidious millionaires of the capital.

Behind this group came a tall, heavy old man, whose nose was purplish and bulbous, due to excessive use of alcohol through a long and prosperous life. He carried a surgeon’s instrument case. This was the doctor whom Rojas had gone to fetch the day before.

A few minutes later Canterac, Torre Bianca and Watson arrived. The captain and the marquÉs wore long frock coats, less striking than Pirovani’s, and black neckties, just as though they were officiating at a funeral. Watson alone wore a dark-colored business suit.

After ceremoniously saluting his antagonist and the latter’s seconds from afar, Canterac began to walk up and down along the river bank, pretending to amuse himself watching the birds who were displaying their customary morning animation, or throwing stones into the current. The contractor did not wish to make a less gallant showing; bent on imitating the captain in everything, he also walked up and down near the willows, and looked at the river. And thus both of them continued promenading up and down, like two automatons, each on that part of the bank he had selected.

Torre Bianca, who because of his experience in such matters, directed the arrangements, began to pace out distances. He asked Watson for the two canes that the latter had foresightedly brought with him, and stuck one into the ground. Then he looked toward the sun with one hand over his eyes in order to discover just how the light struck; and then once more he measured out twenty paces.

“Twenty,” he said, and stuck in the second cane.

Then he went up to the other seconds, drew out a coin, and after a word from Moreno, tossed it into the air. As it fell, the government employee said to Rojas,

“We have won, don Carlos. We can choose our ground.”

The marquÉs, who had brought his pistol case, spread it open on the grass. With elaborate care and deliberation he loaded the weapons, producing the same coin in order to consult chance once again. As the metal disc fell, Moreno leaned over to look at it and said to the rancher,

“Luck is with us. We can choose the revolver we prefer.”

Then Pirovani’s seconds went to bring him up to that one of the canes they had chosen. The marquÉs and Watson conducted their principal to the spot marked by the second cane.

Meanwhile the doctor somewhat confusedly set about his preparations. It was the first time that he had witnessed a duel. With one knee on the ground he opened his instrument case and began to unroll bandages, open medicine flasks, and examine the condition of his instruments.

The antagonists stood facing one another, Canterac rigid, his face grave but inexpressive, like a soldier awaiting the word of command. Pirovani’s eyes glowed like coals, he looked aggressive, furious. When Moreno came up to him to give him a revolver, he said, very low,

“You watch me kill him. I know I’m going to do it....”

But then he forgot his homicidal hopes to add,

“I wish they would explain clearly to me how much time I can have to take aim. I don’t want to make any mistake, and be taken for an ignoramus who doesn’t understand these affairs.”

The two opponents held their pistols aloft, the barrels point up. Moreno noticed that Pirovani’s coat was unbuttoned and carefully buttoned it. Then he turned up the Italian’s collar so that the white of his shirt could not be seen. Meanwhile, Torre Bianca was examining Canterac, who was correctly buttoned up, in military fashion, but he too needed to have his coat collar turned up. Both men, before taking their weapons, had removed their hats and given them to the seconds.

Taking a stand between them both, the marquÉs removed a paper from his pocket and read slowly:

“ ...Secondly, the director of the duel will clap his hands three times, whereupon the principals are to take aim and fire when they are ready, in the interval between the first and the third handclap.”

“Thirdly, if one of the two principals fires after the third handclap he will be disqualified, and declared an outlaw to the gentleman’s code.”

Pirovani, with his pistol held above him, thrust his head forward and looked toward the marquÉs so as to hear better, and he nodded at each word that came from Torre Bianca. Canterac remained impassive, as though listening to something that was perfectly familiar to him.

The marquÉs went on reading, and finally put away the sheet of paper and addressed both antagonists.

“It is my duty to ask those here present if they are able to come to terms without firing. Is it possible for you gentlemen to settle this difficulty without having recourse to the duel? Does either of you wish to offer excuses to the other?”

Pirovani violently shook his head. “No!” Canterac remained motionless. Not a line of his sombre expression softened.

The marquÉs spoke again, removing his hat with mournful solemnity,

“Then fate is to decide between you, and each of you is to comply with the requirements of the field of honor.”

He took a few steps backward, keeping the combatants in full view. Then he raised his hand. Were they ready? Pirovani nodded. His adversary continued motionless.

The marquÉs brought his hands to within a few inches of one another, indicating that he was ready to give the first handclap. Every motion that he made was so slow that it assumed a tragic solemnity.

The other seconds, at a considerable distance from him, were looking on with ill-dissimulated emotion. Still kneeling near his instrument case, the doctor was looking up with wide-open eyes.

The marquÉs brought his hands together, slowly uttering “Fire.... One....”

Both men brought their revolvers down simultaneously.

Pirovani, whose sole thought at that moment was that he must not shoot after the third handclap, fired at once. His opponent blinked one eye, and the muscles of his cheek on the same side contracted slightly, as though he had felt a projectile brush close by. But he at once recovered his impassivity and went on taking aim.

The marquÉs clapped his hands again. “Two!”

When Pirovani saw that he had not wounded his enemy, and that now he stood disarmed before him, there passed over his face like a swift cloud, an expression of pure fear. But it had gone in an instant. Then, looking at Canterac who was still taking aim, he crossed his arms, pointing his own useless revolver at his breast, and, as though defying death, presented himself full face to the shot.

Moreno clutched Rojas by the shoulder.

“Pucha! ... He is going to kill him,” he said between his teeth.

Torre Bianca gave the third clap. “Three!” But the instant before Canterac had fired.

There was a general rush in one direction. Only the captain remained motionless, one arm hanging by his side, the still smoking revolver in his left hand.

Pirovani lay stretched on the ground, an inert mass. The men who reached him first saw a thread of blood coming from the top of his head, and running out, a miniature stream, on the grass. Then his head was hidden from view, for every one was crowding around the fallen body, leaning over to hear what the doctor was saying.

In a few moments the latter looked up, and stammered,

“There’s nothing to be done ... he’s dead!”

Seeing that Canterac was approaching to learn what had been the effect of his shot, Torre Bianca went up to him, quickening his steps. His gesture told Canterac what had happened even before he spoke.

His second judged it necessary to get him away from the field and ordered him to follow. On the other side of the sand dunes a vehicle was waiting. It was the same one that had transported Elena to the garden party.

When this cart deposited them in front of the house that had once belonged to Pirovani, both men stood hesitant.... Torre Bianca could not ask the captain to enter the house of the man he had just shot; nor did Canterac dare move towards it.

So they were standing, unable to make a decision, when Robledo appeared. He had evidently been prowling about the vicinity to learn some news of the event. When he saw Canterac, he looked questioningly at him.

“And the other ...?”

Canterac bowed his head, and the marquÉs with a gesture told Robledo what had happened.

All three men stood silent. Finally the Frenchman said very low,

“My career is ended, my family lost to me.... And the most frightful part of it all is that I can feel no hate when I think of that poor man.... What is to become of me?”

Robledo was the only one of the three capable at that moment of coming to a determined decision.

“The first thing you must do, Canterac, is to get away. There’ll be a great stir about this affair. We won’t be able to hush it up as though it were a fist-fight in the boliche. You must get away to the Andes, at once. When you get into Chile you can wait there.... Everything in this world can be settled somehow ... perhaps well, perhaps badly, but settled somehow.”

The Frenchman, however, had lost his grip for the moment. What could he do? He had no money ... he had spent it all for that mad garden party.... How could he live in Chile? He knew no one there....

Robledo took his arm and pulled him gently away from the others.

“The first thing to do is to get away,” he repeated. “I’ll see that you have what you need to do that. Come!”

Canterac however hesitated to obey. He was looking back at Torre Bianca.

“Before I go,” he murmured, “I would like to say good-by to the marquesa.”

Robledo listened with a pitying smile to this plea. Then he took hold of him with paternal superiority.

“Let’s not lose time,” he said. “Look after yourself, and nobody else. The marquesa has other things to think about.”

And he took Canterac with him to his quarters.

All that day the town seethed with the news of the duel. Indeed some of the inhabitants treated the occasion as a holiday. In the main street thick groups of men and women gathered, talking, gesticulating, and casting hostile glances at the house that had once been the contractor’s. Torre Bianca’s name, and his wife’s, were bandied about even more frequently than those of the men who had fought the duel.

Some of the gauchos who were friends of Manos Duras passed in and out among the groups. Apparently the recent event had quite overshadowed the hostility existing between them and the people of the settlement.

In the middle of the afternoon Manos Duras himself came riding up the main street. He stared with profound interest at the dead man’s house. Some of the half-breed girls spoke to him. What did he think of that woman who made the men around her kill one another in cold blood?... But the notorious gaucho merely shrugged, and smiling contemptuously, passed on.

Three of his friends were waiting for him at the boliche. They were men who lived the greater part of the year in the foothills of the Andes. Recently they had been paying him a visit at his ranch. Under other circumstances don Roque would have been alarmed to learn of this fact. He would have suspected that these pals of the gaucho’s were preparing some shameless piece of cattle rustling. But at that particular moment the most important persons at the dam were giving the comisario far more to worry about than the thieving gauchos had ever done.

When Manos Duras stepped into the “AlmacÉn del Gallego,” he noticed that there were many more customers there than on other workday afternoons. Everyone was talking about the contractor’s death.

“That woman did it all,” someone was shouting. “She’s to blame for the whole thing, the—!”

Manos Duras bethought him of the afternoon when he had first seen the marquesa; and the memory was enough to make him look as aggressively at the man who was talking as though the words contained an insult for him.

“If two men chose to fight with bullets for this lady, what have you got to say about it?... I’m just as ready as they were to draw a bead on anyone who insults her.... Come on now, let’s see if there’s one of you dares step on my poncho....”

This gaucho challenge was received in silence by the Gallego’s patrons. When the talk began again it was about subjects that Manos Duras could not take exception to.

At nightfall Torre Bianca from one of his windows looked wonderingly at the groups of people in the street. Their number had noticeably increased. Then he noticed that the comisario, who had just returned from Fuerte Sarmiento, was going about talking to different people in the crowd, urging them to go home. When he saw the marquÉs at the window the police commissioner raised his hat to him.

Men and women turned to stare at Elena’s husband. Many of the glances turned in his direction were hostile, but no one dared make any demonstration against him.

Torre Bianca could not conceal his amazement at having so many eyes fastened upon him. Then he took in the fact that there was something very unfriendly in the glances coming his way. Haughtily, but sadly, he closed the window. He did not understand.

A little later Sebastiana opened the house door and leaned over the railing of the balcony. She was irresistibly attracted by this crowd in which she spied many old friends. But when they saw her, the women who were in the street began to gesticulate and shriek out insults.

Annoyed by such an incomprehensible reception, she replied in the same fashion; but crushed finally by the strength of numbers of her enemies, and seeing that several of the men were joining in the attack on her, contributing loud guffaws and vile names, she retired defeated. Her meditations in the kitchen during the next few hours brought her to an alarming conclusion. Every woman of the region, even though she might formerly have been a friend, would now be against her because she was in the service of the marquesa!

At about the same time of the day, Watson returned to town. After the morning’s tragedy he had accompanied the seconds and the doctor while they transported the victim’s body to a dilapidated ranch house near the river. Then they determined to remove it to Fuerte Sarmiento, since Pirovani was to be buried there, in order to avoid the outbreaks that would be imminent if this ceremony were performed in La Presa.

As he was riding into town, just as he reached the first houses of the settlement he encountered Canterac.

The latter also was on horseback; and he wore a sombrero and a poncho just like the gauchos. From his saddle hung a sack of the kind used by the cow-punchers to carry clothing and various belongings.

As soon as Watson recognized him he stopped to say good-by, for Canterac had all the appearance of one prepared to cross the Patagonian desert.

Canterac, by way of replying to his question, pointed to that part of the horizon where the first stars were beginning to glitter over the invisible Andes. Then he told him that he counted on spending the night at a ranch near Fuerte Sarmiento, and that he would probably be under way again before dawn.

“Good-by, Watson,” he said. “It would have been a good thing for us if that woman had never come here. Strange, in what a different light I see things now. But ... it’s too late.”

For a few seconds he looked hesitatingly at the youth; then finally with decision, he said,

“I’ve earned at least the right to speak through my folly ... listen to what I am going to say, and don’t be offended if I give you advice that you don’t ask for.... Never let anything come between you and Robledo, boy.... There are few souls in this world like his. It’s thanks to him that I am getting away. Everything in this outfit belongs to him.... Don’t trust anyone who speaks ill of him....”

He eyed the boy sadly at these words; and before he rode away, he offered him still another bit of advice.

“And don’t on any account forget that young lady they call Flor de Rio Negro!” Then he shook Watson by the hand, waved him good-by, and leaning down, spurred his horse. In a moment he had vanished into the darkness of the new-born night.