It is possible to buy hospitality from the savage without fish-hooks, nails, and calico; but on this occasion I found myself without that impalpable medium of exchange which had been so great a help to me on my first journey to Parahuari.

Now I was weak and miserable and without cunning.

It is true that we could have exchanged the two dogs for cassava bread and corn, but we should then have been worse off than ever.

And in the end the dogs saved us by an occasional capture--an armadillo surprised in the open and seized before it could bury itself in the soil, or an iguana, opossum, or labba, traced by means of their keen sense of smell to its hiding-place.

Then Nuflo would rejoice and feast, rewarding them with the skin, bones, and entrails.
But at length one of the dogs fell lame, and Nuflo, who was very hungry, made its lameness an excuse for dispatching it, which he did apparently without compunction, notwithstanding that the poor brute had served him well in its way.