An old woman, with a light in her hand, opened the door.
"Whom do you want?" demanded the dame in Spanish.
The old woman made a motion to cross her arms on her breast, and replied, with a shake of the head: "So you, too, have dealings with the engineer Mequinez! It strikes me that it is time to stop this. We have been worried for the last three months. It is not enough that the newspapers have said it. We shall have to have it printed on the corner of the street, that Signor Mequinez has gone to live at Tucuman!"
The boy gave way to a gesture of despair. Then he gave way to an outburst of passion.
"So there is a curse upon me! I am doomed to die on the road, without having found my mother! I shall go mad! I shall kill myself! My God! what is the name of that country? Where is it? At what distance is it situated?"
"Eh, poor boy," replied the old woman, moved to pity; "a mere trifle! We are four or five hundred miles from there, at least."
The boy covered his face with his hands; then he asked with a sob, "And now what am I to do!"
"What am I to say to you, my poor child?" responded the dame: "I don't know."
But suddenly an idea struck her, and she added hastily: "Listen, now that I think of it. There is one thing that you can do. Go down this street, to the right, and at the third house you will find a courtyard; there there is a _capataz_, a trader, who is setting out to-morrow for Tucuman, with his wagons and his oxen. Go and see if he will take you, and offer him your services; perhaps he will give you a place on his wagons: go at once."
The lad grasped his bag, thanked her as he ran, and two minutes later found himself in a vast courtyard, lighted by lanterns, where a number of men were engaged in loading sacks of grain on certain enormous carts which resembled the movable houses of mountebanks, with rounded tops, and very tall wheels; and a tall man with mustaches, enveloped in a sort of mantle of black and white check, and with big boots, was directing the work.
The lad approached this man, and timidly proffered his request, saying that he had come from Italy, and that he was in search of his mother.
The _capataz_, which signifies the head (the head conductor of this convoy of wagons), surveyed him from head to foot with a keen glance, and replied drily, "I have no place."