It was dusk and the gauchos had called it a day's work. They had herded cattle for a good thirty miles that day. Only another morning would be enough to complete the journey. Campfires were springing up here and there. The legendary Martín Fierro was sitting alone at one, sipping mate while some skewered pieces of beef were roasting nearby. Don Segundo Sombra approached Martín Fierro, “Good evening, Fierro!” Without raising his gaze Fierro invited Sombra to join him. “Come closer Don Segundo, you may come closer.” Now at greater ease, Sombra walked more swiftly toward Fierro. “You know me, Fierro?” Drawling his words, Fierro would tease him, “I can tell a lazy one.”

“Ah, Fierro! You will never quit your defiant style!” Sombra scoffed at Fierro's provocation and Fierro invited him further, “Come closer, Don Segundo, unless it is to ask something from me.” Sitting down by Fierro's campfire, Sombra continued, “I am not here to ask, Fierro, but to invite you.”

The differences in the behavioral styles of both gauchos were well known: Fierro was a provocateur, quick to draw his deadly facón at half- a- chance, while Sombra was more Kiplinesque, known to have mentored the young Fabio, whose cattle they were now herding to a Buenos Aires slaughterhouse to be salted to produce jerked beef mostly for export. “Why would Don Segundo Sombra invite a humble gaucho like me?” asked Fierro, “if through Fabio you are closer to the buyers of the cattle we herd?”

Sombra pulled the stem of Pampa grass and placed it into his mouth to feel it's reassuring sour, earthy taste, on which gauchos had long relied for orientation, and explained his visit, “I came to invite you to a chat. This gaucho business is coming to an end. We can already see the lights of Buenos Aires. Tomorrow we will hand over the cattle, and we will get paid. What shall we do afterwards, Fierro?”

Fierro took his time to reply, he took his last three strong sips from his mate gourd until it made its characteristic noise announcing it was empty. He filled the gourd again and offered it to Sombra, speaking in a lower tone, “You are wiser than I am, Sombra.