Now go to sleep, and I will watch while you have a nap; it is too early yet for honest folks to be abroad, and we shall not be disturbed." In a few minutes poor little Chiquita was sound asleep.
Agostino sat on the front seat of the chariot, with his navaja open and lying beside him, watching the road and the fields all about, with the keen, practised eye of a man of his lawless profession.

All was still.
No sound or movement any where, save among the crows.

In spite of his iron will and constitution he began to feel an insidious drowsiness creeping over him, which he did not find it easy to shake off; several times his eyelids closed, and he lifted them resolutely, only to have them fall again in another instant.

In fact he was just dropping into a doze, when he felt, as in a dream, a hot breath on his face, and suddenly waked to see two gleaming eyeballs close to his.

With a movement more rapid than thought itself, he seized the wolf by the throat with his left hand, and picking up his navaja with the other, plunged it up to the hilt into the animal's breast.