But let us adventure by all means.

Our horses are fresh, and we can either return to the sierra or spend the night on the llanos, as may be most expedient." Ten minutes later we were mounted, and an hour's easy riding brought us to the plain.

It was as pathless as the ocean, yet Carmen, guided by the sun, went on as confidently as if he had been following a beaten track.

The grass was brown and the soil yellow; particles of yellow dust floated in the air; the few trees we passed were covered with it, and we and our horses were soon in a like condition.

Nothing altered as we advanced; sky and earth were ever the same; the only thing that moved was a cloud, sailing slowly between us and the sun, and when Carmen called a halt on the bank of a nearly dried-up stream, it required an effort to realize that since we left our bivouac in the hills we had ridden twenty miles in a direct line.