LITMIR.BIZ

      THE BIG OVERO, A BUCKJUMPER

      "But to return to Barckhausen. The nag of the baleful eye would not be caught, and had to be chased about the pampa by Hughes and myself. Finally, Jones got a lasso on him, and he danced at the edge of the lagoon with four men at the other end of the lasso. We tied his legs in slip-knots and pulled him over, and when quieter saddled him. He bucked around with the saddle. At length Barckhausen got up and rode him the whole afternoon. It was a terrible job driving the horses, and that even though we were in the cañadon.

      "On each side of us were bare, bald grass hills, rolling in hummocks and their sides sprinkled with thorn-scrub. In the centre, winding in sharp bends, a dry river bed. Towards evening, after travelling all the afternoon down the cañadon since one o'clock, I rode on and found the bed of the river held water in four places. Near the third of these we camped. Saw an ostrich and a few sentinel guanaco. Caught an armadillo. The scenery here consists of alternations of pampa and cañadon, cañadon and pampa, and over all the tearing wind, which seldom drops.

      "I have given out two tins of jam and one of Swiss milk, one of coffee and milk and some vegetables. Sometimes we soak our biscuit and bake it. It is very good treated so. I am writing this by the fire at seven o'clock. Coldish.

      "Jones has not turned up yet, and must have had to sleep out in nothing save a blanket, poor chap! He was to have cut our tracks and followed them up.

      "October 11.—All our tropillas right this morning, and at 8.30 I rode out of the camp and met Jones, who had found the three strayed horses about a league from the old camp.

      "We started and made our way down the empty river-bed, which now broadened and was pebbly, like a Scotch trout-stream. Before we left Mal Espina estancia the foreman told us the road down the cañadon was very clear—'muy limpio,' and only four and a half leagues in length, but we have been in it two days and are in it still. About 5, as I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I came upon the track of wheels in deep scrub. I went back to the waggon and found it on the left bank of the river-bed. Upon one side were thorn-bush and sand, and upon the other a swampy vega of wet grass. Through this the track led, and into this the waggon lumbered, then two of the horses foundered in the black mud and the waggon sank. Of course that put an end to our day's journey, and I sent on Jones to bring back Burbury and the troop. We were in a land of many flies, chiefly sand-flies, which buzzed and stung horribly. Jones had tied up the horses on the Rio Chico and we could not reach them to-night. Fritz found sixteen eggs in an ostrich's nest and Hollesen found one. The one was fine but the sixteen were chickenny.

      "We all turned to, unloaded the waggon and pulled it out with some toil from the marsh, and before dinner loaded it up again.

      "By evening we reached the cañadon of the Rio Chico and camped upon the banks.

      "October 12.—With an effort got away by nine o'clock. I rode on down the cañadon, as we had no meat and some was wanted. We appear to be now entering a good game country. Saw five ostriches. I rode the big Tostado. He loped lazily across stony ridges, which crawl to the foot of the purple hills that are on the other side of the Chico. Two herds of guanaco fled while I was on the horizon. I cantered a long way, it seemed very far, over the rolling ridges of pebble and thorn-bush. Mirages smoked and danced on the horizon. I came at length to the waggon-track which runs through the wild gorge of the Chico, and is only used about once or twice a year. I rode down this track, and at the side found a single ostrich egg. Shortly after I sighted the horses, which Jones had tied up here and there. I left my belt and the egg, and went back into the scrub to seek for that game which I could not find. Saw one guanaco, but it had seen me first, and would not let me approach within a quarter of a mile. Sighted the horses and waggon far away on the high ground and rode to meet them. Put them in a new troop and got away again at one o'clock. Found that if I could not shoot a guanaco we must open our reserve of tinned meat, and I did not wish to begin upon it so soon. Rode on ahead of the troop revolving these matters. My horse was extra lazy. I was thinking of the ostriches I had observed when I saw over a ridge to the left the ears of a guanaco. There was a dry nullah-bed which curved in beneath the ridge. It was pebbly and sparsely set with thorn. I lay down and crawled until I came to some water, and then I looked again. I could see the first guanaco, an old buck, peering with his long neck swaying, and looking at the Tostado which I had tied up. To tie up your horse in view is the most successful thing you can do in this country of long-necked game, and of game which is so often pursued with dogs and on horseback. Sometimes the most ordinary game takes, from the circumstances surrounding its pursuit, a reflected interest not its own. So it was in this case; nor, indeed, is the guanaco always an easy quarry, in fact it is a shy animal in the districts where it is hunted by Indians.[3] I crawled along, just a thorn-bush, and that a lean one, between me and detection. I had set my hopes on a low green belt of poison-scrub, and this I attained at last. From it I saw a foot of the big buck's neck and the heads and ears of six more. I had made up my mind to take a fine bead shot, but he gave me no chance of doing so. I had only time to snap him as he saw me. The bullet smashed his neck. As the others ran away I put two shots out of four into one, and killed it as it entered the scrub of thick, thorny, califate bushes that lived hardily there in the valley. I went on after shooting the guanaco and left Fritz and Hughes to cut up the meat. We made a league and a half through the gorge of the Chico when up came Fritz and said the waggon was broken down by, so he explained, a "horse falling on the pole" within a hundred yards of where I had shot the guanaco. This was a disaster indeed. Here were we just doing a good march when this wretched breakdown occurred. We turned the troop and went back only to find the waggon, a league away, coming merrily towards us. They said it could go no farther, but after repairs it achieved a league and a half more.

      THE HUNTER'S RETURN

      "Passing along we agreed it was a good country for lions (F. c. puma, locally called lions). We encamped beneath a high cliff, sixty feet of moss-grown basaltic rock beside the muddy river, where it winds through the marshes. In the night the dogs began to bark, for a lion came into camp. We could hear it moving by the dead camp-fire among the pots and pans. Burbury fired his revolver in its direction; he was sleeping on the outside of the tent. This morning we have found the lion's lair, twenty yards up in the rock above our camp. Fritz said last night, 'And if you hear me cry out, it is the lion, he zomp on me.'

      FELIS CONCOLOR PUMA

      "Fritz is very jocular

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