in this case Providence had miraculously interposed to prevent us from
gratifying our depraved appetites.

Eyebrows took it all very coolly.

"Do not notice them," he said to me. "The lasso was not ours, the horse
was not ours, what does it matter what they say?"

The owner of the lasso, who had good-naturedly lent it to us, roused
himself on hearing this. He was a very big, rough-looking man, his
face covered with an immense shaggy black beard. I had taken him for
a good-humoured specimen of the giant kind before, but I now changed
my opinion of him when his angry passions began to rise. Blas, or
Barbudo, as we called the giant, was seated on a log sipping _mate_.

"Perhaps you take me for a sheep, sirs, because you see me wrapped in
skins," he observed; "but let me tell you this, the lasso I lent you
must be returned to me."

"These words are not for us," remarked Eyebrows, addressing me, "but
for the cow that carried away his lasso on her horns--curse them for
being so sharp!"

"No, sir," returned Barbudo, "do not deceive yourself; they are not
for the cow, but for the fool that lassoed the cow. And I promise you,
Epifanio, that if it is not restored to me, this thatch over our heads
will not be broad enough to shelter us both."

"I am pleased to hear it," said the other, "for we are short of seats;
and when you leave us, the one you now encumber with your carcass will