"No. A deserter from the huinca army!"

"No. A huinca robber merchant!"

"Huinca! Huinca!"

"No, no, no!" Zepherin stamped his feet in protest. "Do not say, `Like a huinca.' Say, `Like a cacique.'"

"Huinca! Huinca!" Joining hands, the children danced around Zepherin who was standing in the center of the toldo. Although annoyed at being called a huinca, he wanted to find out what he looked like and kept twisting his body to get a complete view of himself. It was the first time in his life that he was trying on the garments of the huinca.

Not that the huinca garments were completely foreign to the Indians. Many of the caciques, from their increasing contacts with the whites, had slowly grown accustomed to dressing like them. Shirts appeared; so did leather boots; then came the wide trousers, belts, kerchiefs and sombreros. Some even went so far as to wear a sash -- the huinca symbol of authority! Long before their men, the women had learned to use the finery looted from the settlements.

Zepherin's attempt to dress like a white man, however, if it invited one kind of comment in the pampa, was sure to invite quite another in the capital. It began with a western-style sombrero and ended with horsehide boots. In between he wore a red shirt, and brown pants held up by a wide, black belt. Although tight-fitting and uncomfortable, it did give him a feeling of being more upright, and of looking, he thought, rather elegant and important. He could not help suspecting that the ridicule of the others harbored a touch of envy.

Clarisa made no bones about her feelings. All she could do was clasp her hands together and walk around him, taking in every detail of his dress with her great brown eyes. At last, she stopped in front of him and moved her head slowly from side to side. "Oh, Zepherin," she exclaimed, "you look wonderful! Just wonderful! I'm so proud of you!"

All chatter ceased when a deep voice boomed from the rear of the toldo: "Enough! Now he must say good-bye to his people."

Manuel rose heavily, and signaled to Zepherin. When the boy stepped outside, the scene before him made him catch his breath. The neighboring caciques and their people had assembled to bid him farewell. They filled not only the tolderia but poured out beyond the open ground.

When the people saw Zepherin dressed in huinca clothes and knew that he was about to leave them, they raised a great shout and waved their arms. As the crowd separated, Zepherin companions also fell back with a look on their faces he found difficult to understand. Father and son turned to the crowd, and Manuel held up his hand for silence.

"My people," he said, "show my son that he carries with him your good wishes, that you depend on him to help you, that his success is your success."

The applause which followed moved Zepherin strangely and for the first time he understood what it meant to be the son of the cacique. These people had always looked to his father to guide them, to help them in their difficulties. He felt that he was now sharing in that leadership. The people depended on him to bring them out of their hunger and poverty; to restore to them some of their former greatness. A surge of pride coursed through him. It was all he could do to preserve the self-control expected of a Cura.

Two horses were led into the center of the tolderia, Bernard leading a palomino for Zepherin. He gave a final hitch to the girth strap, tightened the calfskin saddlebags, and inspected the rolled-up blanket strapped across the horse's hips. Holding the stirrup while Zepherin hoisted himself into the saddle, he patted the boy's leg affectionately and proudly.

"Buena fortuna!" Bernard said in Spanish.

Before they left the tolderia, the two horsemen rode back to their own toldo where Zepherin's brothers and sisters were waiting. To each one in turn, starting with the oldest, Zepherin bowed and they bowed to him.

Clarisa prepared to follow their example. As Zepherin drew closer to her, however, she faltered; her courage began to fail. By the time her brother reached her it had completely drained away. Her lips quivered, her whole body started to tremble. Finally, unable to hold herself in any longer, she covered her face with her hands and burst into a fit of sobbing. Zepherin, embarrassed, felt uncertain of himself, wondering what he should do. A grunt from his father signaled him to dismount. Zepherin did so, and walking up to Clarisa, pressed her to him. This calmed her somewhat and she was finally able to raise her tear-stained face and smile at him.

"Just think, Clarisa," he consoled her, "when I come back you will have grown into a beautiful woman and you'll have a husband and children. So I'm saying a double good-bye to my little sister."

Clarisa could not grasp this. "Zepherin," she pleaded, "you will come back? You won't let those wicked huincas keep you?"

"Of course, I'll come back. To you, to my family, to my people." He struck his chest. "Have you forgotten that I am a Cura? That the Cura do not desert their people?"

Clarisa's eyes grew round with admiration. "Oh, Zepherin!" she whispered through her tears.

Zepherin's mother waited a little apart from the rest, concealing her face with her shawl. Only when he stood in front of her did she lower the shawl. For a moment neither moved, neither spoke. Then she stretched out her arms and taking him by the shoulders touched both her cheeks to his. Zepherin saw so much tenderness in her gaze that he felt if he delayed any longer tears must come to him. Wheeling round, he remounted and touched the horse's flanks with his heals. When he came alongside his father, he turned to wave farewell to his home and to his people.

Manuel's territory consisted of a long stretch of infertile pampa bordered on three sides by rising land and possessed neither lands nor ponds nor any worthwhile vegetation. Rows of tall poplars barely protected the soil against erosion from the constant winds.

Despite its barren nature, nevertheless, Zepherin felt as never before that this was his home and that he was leaving it. When his family had moved from their first fertile reservation at Chimpay along the Rio Negro he had been too young to feel any emotion. Now something tugged at his heart, something painful, and with it a strange loneliness. With a touch of desperation he waved again to his people, and they waved back to him. He rode on beside his father and when they were some distance off, he threw a final glace behind him. The crowd already was dispersing, and there was a great deal of confused movement in the tolderia. One figure, however, stood motionless, and she held her shawl over her face.

Zepherin soon forgot the sadness of the parting, for the next two days were the happiest of his life. To begin with, his father was a wonderful companion to have in the pampas at any time and knew everything -- the names and habits of the wildlife and how to trap any member of it; the uses of rare plants; where the water was; and when it came to handling the bow and arrow and the boleadora, he proved himself superior even to such a master as Bernard. Above all, he went out of his way to make this trip a memorable one for Zepherin. Usually on a hunting trip the cacique made him fend for himself, and Zepherin understood. But on this trip he would let Zepherin do so little, the boy protested. To his protests Manual only grunted "Humph," and carried on. Delighted in this exciting experience, Zepherin quickly cast off the uncomfortable huinca garments. Then, naked and free, he raced to the first stream they met and plunged headlong into it.

One morning he awoke to find that his father had risen long before him and prepared a special breakfast of stew with large chunks of deer meat and hot mate. He had also laid out the huinca clothes. After breakfast and a final swim, Zepherin reluctantly once again donned the unfamiliar clothing, surprised to discover how difficult it was to dress up with neither his mother nor Clarisa to help him. Father and son mounted their horses for the last leg of the journey to Zapala, terminus of the railroad that would take them to the capital. "How far still to go, Papa?" Zepherin asked after an hour or so of travel.

Instead of answering, his father held up his hand for silence, and cocked his hears.

Obediently Zepherin listened, but could hear nothing. His horse fidgeted impatiently. Suddenly, without warning, Manuel dug his heels furiously into his horse's flanks, jerking at the reins; his horse dashed forward. Totally uncomprehending, Zepherin raced after him, veering to the side to avoid a choking cloud of dust. Only now and then could he make out the form of his father crouched so low that horse and rider were one, while the saddlebags on either side of the horse flapped up and down like the wings of some strange bird. At last, Manuel drew to an abrupt halt that forced his horse to rear on its hind legs. When Zepherin pulled up alongside, Manuel said nothing.

They had halted on a ridge overlooking a long shallow valley. Along the floor of the valley lay what appeared to be two parallel strands of wire reflecting the sun. It was to these wires that his father now pointed.

"What are they, Papa?" asked Zepherin.

Manuel merely beckoned Zepherin to follow him.

Completely mystified, the boy began a headlong decent down the ridge.

He was only halfway down when a piercing noise made the ears of his horse stick up. While he was wondering what it could be, away to his right a black speck appeared. The speck quickly grew and grew until it assumed enormous proportions. To his horror Zepherin saw that it was spewing fire and smoke from nostrils pointed straight into the air! He felt suddenly afraid for his father, instead of drawing away from this huge object hurtling across the desert, Manuel, on the contrary, seemed anxious to approach it. For a moment Zepherin thought his father intended to plant himself directly in the monster's path and challenge it.

"Papa!" he screamed. "Don't go near it! It will kill you!"

Manuel's horse, moreover, showed great reluctance to go any closer, and at last to Zepherin's relief, his father, instead of dashing toward the monster, wheeled and raced along the wires. Zepherin now felt less fear in following him. As the monster drew near, the thunder of its progress made the earth tremble. The rumbling, roaring chaos of the monster and the pounding of the horse's hoofs utterly deafened him. All he knew was that the enormous dragon-like creature was speedily drawing away from them despite their desperate attempts to keep abreast. He understood vaguely that this was the machine which was to take them to the capital; that it was absolutely necessary to latch themselves onto it. But how could they without being killed or mangled in the attempt? His heart sank, as he watched the monster suddenly round a bend in the valley and disappear, leaving behind it nothing but a trail of black smoke. Exhausted and covered with dust and sweat, Zepherin slowed down to a stop, slid off his horse and flung himself on the embankment. He was still regaining his breath when his father reappeared. Zepherin expected to see a look of dejection on his face, but to his surprise, he was merely breathing hard.

"That was the train, Papa?"

"Yes. That was the train for the huinca capital."

"We did not catch it. So we cannot go?"

The faintest of smiles creased his father's face. "We were not supposed to catch it. It will go to Zapala and wait for us. If you have rested we shall go, too."

As they urged their horses forward, Manuel again began to speak. This time a bitter note crept into his voice.

"Why," he asked himself more than Zepherin, "does the huinca always get these important things before us? First horses, then powerful muskets; then coaches to carry whole families across the pampa; and now trains which never tire and carry men and things at twice the speed of the fastest horse. Why? Is it perhaps their gods . . ?" Suddenly aware that Zepherin was staring at him, he stopped. "Bah!" he concluded in disgust. "Who knows?"