Fleming might have made further remarks on the subject, had not a faint shout, as if from a distance, reached our ears.  We listened.  Could it be from Indians or robbers?  Jerry put his hand to the top of his head. "Oh, my scalp!" said he; "it feels very uncomfortable already."  Again the shout reached us.  We shouted in return.  We had little doubt that it was raised by the doctor and his companions.  Soon they emerged out of the darkness laden with all sorts of specimens of natural history. We crowed over them, however, for they had not killed either a guanaco or a puma.  They could not doubt our assertions, as they had proof in the slices of the former which we cooked for them.  Fleming and Old Surley, too, showed the marks of their encounter with the puma; and we got great credit for having killed him.  We were a very merry party as we drew round the fire recounting our adventures; and Surley sat up looking as wise as any of us, and if he could but have put his words together, he would have told as good a story as any of us.  At all events, he dogfully played his part at the feast, and ate up with evident relish all the scraps of guanaco flesh which we gave him.  Mr McRitchie was as satisfied as we were with the result of his day's excursion; and as we had an abundant supply of everything to make the inner man comfortable, and good cloaks to keep the outer warm, we were all very happy.  Our guide talked a good deal, though no one but Tom Carver understood a word he said.  Tom and Fleming, however, spun the longest yarns, all about Lord Cochrane and all the wonders he had done, and how from his daring and bravery he made the people of the country believe that he was in league with the Evil One, if he was not rather the Evil One himself.  They gave him the name of the _Diabo_.