Then he grew better, thanks to the care of the capataz, and recovered; but with his recovery arrived the most terrible day of his journey, the day on which he was to be left to his own devices. They had been on the way for more than two weeks; when they arrived at the point where the road to Tucuman parted from that which leads to Santiago dell' Estero, the capataz told him that they must separate. He gave him some instructions with regard to the road, tied his bag on his shoulders in a manner which would not annoy him as he walked, and, breaking off short, as though he feared that he should be affected, he bade him farewell. The boy had barely time to kiss him on one arm. The other men, too, who had treated him so harshly, seemed to feel a little pity at the sight of him left thus alone, and they made signs of farewell to him as they moved away. And he returned the salute with his hand, stood watching the convoy until it was lost to sight in the red dust of the plain, and then set out sadly on his road.
One thing, on the other hand, comforted him a little from the first. After all those days of travel across that endless plain, which was forever the same, he saw before him a chain of mountains very high and blue, with white summits, which reminded him of the Alps, and gave him the feeling of having drawn near to his own country once more. They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of the American continent, that immense chain which extends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial sea of the Arctic pole, through a hundred and ten degrees of latitude. And he was also comforted by the fact that the air seemed to him
