When we speak of grievances, we know perfectly that neither had to reproach the other for any deed of a reprehensible nature in what concerned their mutual pledge to help each other; but if Leon involuntarily revolted against the implacable revenge which the half-breed had begun to exercise against the Soto-Mayors, while confessing to himself that, in spite of the friendship which united him to Diego, he could never lend a hand to excesses like the one which he had seen committed on the previous night by the Indians, Diego had not failed to comprehend that the love which Leon entertained for Maria would be an invincible obstacle to the support which the latter had sworn to give him. Without accusing him of treachery, he still taxed him with softness of heart and irresolution, or rather pitied him for having surrendered himself, bound hand and foot, to a wild passion which paralyzed all the goodwill which he might under other circumstances have expected from him.
As we see, the respective position of the two men toward each other had been too false for them not to feel in their hearts a lively desire to put an end to it; the difficulty was to manage it without injuring their self-esteem and interests.
Leon had hoped that Diego would at length inquire the motive which had brought him to his friend, but on seeing that the latter affected not to address a syllable to him, he resolved to break the silence.
"You are going to sleep, brother," he said to him.
"You tired!" Leon remarked, with a smile of incredulity, "tired by a ten leagues' ride, when I have seen you hunt on the Pampas for eight or ten days in succession without dreaming of resting for a moment; nonsense!"
"Tired or no, I wish to sleep: besides, what is there extraordinary in that? Has not everybody in camp lain down?"
"Then I invite you to do the same, unless love keeps you awake," he added, laconically. "In that case, the best thing you can do is to spend the night in walking round the hut in which your fair one is reposing, that her sleep may not be disturbed; and much good may it do you."
"Diego," Leon answered, sorrowfully, "what you are saying to me is not right. What have I done to you that you should address me so roughly?"