LITMIR.BIZ

      READY TO BE CARGOED

      So we tied them up to the waggon and they immediately proceeded to tie themselves and their headropes into still more complicated knots: they made cats' cradles, reef-knots, sliding nooses, a dozen knots one knew and a dozen one had never dreamed of. Of the sixteen horses, half had never had a cargo on their backs until that day; we had meant to break them in, but the waggon succumbed too soon to the hardships of the way, and before we had had time to carry out our intentions.

      During the three days we remained in camp among the strong-scented yellow flowers where the waggon lay, all hands had been hard at work sewing up stores into the skins of guanacos, which I had killed for food on the march. The proper arranging of packs for horses is a very difficult matter; shape, size and weight have all to be considered. Each cargo should be divided into three portions, the balance of the two sides being carefully adjusted, and the centre piece, that which surmounts the pack-saddle, should not be more than twelve inches high. There should be at least two rugs and a sheepskin underneath the saddle. As we had not enough sheepskins, the pelts of guanaco were in some cases made to serve our purpose. Several different forms of pack-saddle have each of them points to recommend them, but to my mind the form used on the cattle-plains of North America is preferable to any other, and is more easily loaded, as the horse can be led between the two side-packs, which are hung along upon hooks attached to the wooden frame of the saddle. The whole cargo is best kept in place by means of a couple of cinches or girths. This form of pack is, however, but little used in the Argentine Republic. With such pack-saddles Hähansen and I, at a later date, travelled one hundred and fifty miles, during which it was not necessary to stop more than once or twice to readjust the cargoes.

      During the whole of our subsequent wanderings, the horses entered so much into our lives that some descriptive remarks having regard to the peculiarities of each will perhaps not be out of place. Any one who has been thrown very much into a close association with horses can hardly have failed to notice the extraordinary friendships which these animals not infrequently form between themselves.

      Among our troop there was a pale bronze-coloured horse to which the Spanish language assigns the term Gateado. This creature's whole life was spent in close attendance upon the largest horse in the tropilla, a piebald, called by us the Big Overo. The Big Overo was a buck-jumper, and when we wanted to catch him, he and the Gateado, his intimate, were wont to evade us together. If we could catch the Big Overo by craft, the Gateado was as good as captured also; but if, unluckily, our first attempt upon the Big Overo failed, both animals made a point of charging about the camp and frightening all the other horses. On one occasion, when it was judged well to give the Big Overo a lesson, Hughes bolassed him and after a gallop of a couple of hundred yards he came to the ground in an inextricable tangle.[5] The Gateado remained by his side and allowed himself to be caught without any struggle. After a time the intimacy between these horses grew to such a pitch that we gradually dispensed with a rope for the Gateado, knowing that if the Big Overo was once tied up his friend would stand beside him and allow us to put on his cargo quietly. This odd friendship finally reached such an extreme that when the Big Overo was sogaed out for the night, the Gateado was in the habit of giving up his hours of feeding in order to satisfy the claims of friendship. The feeling was mutual, for the Big Overo manifested almost as many proofs of his preference.

      MRS TRELEW

      Another case of friendship was struck up between two of the madrinas, but this was an essentially feminine affection, all upon one side. The Rosada would follow the Trelew mare, who was in foal, and would hardly allow her to feed in peace. Mrs. Trelew, as the men nicknamed the round-barrelled old black mare, objected very strongly to the advances of her admirer, and once they had a regular quarrel owing to Mrs. Trelew kicking the Rosada with such force as to nearly break her ribs, which the latter rather resented. The Rosada was a vicious unbacked brute within five yards of whose heels it was unsafe to approach, and she, in common with the long-maned Little Zaino, acquired the execrable habit of attempting to kick any one who on horseback ventured to come near. This is a trick that is very rare even among the most untamable and vicious horses, which, although they will kick a man on foot, will seldom do so when he is mounted.

      YEGUA ROSADA

      Then there was the Old Zaino, a melancholy animal of the sardonic school. He was the worst of all the horses. I remember once Burbury making me laugh very much by saying in a moment of indignation: "You haven't been a colt these thirty years, you evergreen son of a buckjumper!" This horse had a way of coming to standstill in the very centre of the troop on the march, and, after regarding us with a patient but baleful eye, he would solemnly buck all his cargo off and attempt to kick it to pieces. At one time he was used as a riding-horse, having, indeed, a turn for speed, but his paces were so rough and his trick of rearing as one was mounting so uncomfortable that we were compelled to make him one of the cargueros.

      But perhaps the horse that caused us the most amusement was the Asulejo. He was a sort of uncertain dapple-grey in colour, and to look at him you would say that a more quiet, lazy, say-nothing-to-anybody little bit of old age did not crop the grass in Patagonia. Often and often did we feel sorry for that little animal and lighten his load. One afternoon, as we came along with the waggon, he seemed to be thinking more and more of the past, of the time when he had the power to make his riders sit tight and used to be a creature of some truculence. He had upon his back a light cargo of cooking-pots, and it took the undivided attention of one man to keep him at a walk. We fixed our camp upon an open plateau of coarse grass and thorn beside a lagoon in a shallow hollow. The cargoes were pulled off and the cook of the night made a grateful smoke ascend. I took a shot-gun and went after some geese for the morrow's breakfast. It was, perhaps, an hour and a half later, and a good league from camp, that I heard the neighing of horses, and was surprised to see seventeen of our troop hurrying off, as it were, upon some unknown errand. And well in front of them—could I believe my eyes?—was the horse we knew as the Asulejo, but his eye was brighter and he neighed in the joy of his heart as he trotted friskily along! He was the obvious leader of the revolt. No sooner did he see me than he fell behind, trying to look as though one of the younger animals had lured him from the path of duty, but that pretence did not serve, and after driving him back into camp we put maneas on him, upon which he recognised with the philosophy of age that he could not fight against the inevitable, and so retired into the lee of a thorn-bush, where he lay down to dream, no doubt, of the days when things were different and he had been a scampering three-year-old on the banks of the River Negro.

      THE ASULEJO

      However, to return to our journey, and our earliest attempt at marching without a waggon. It was first and last one of the most trying days that we experienced. To begin with, the eight fairly well-behaved horses were cargoed up, and then the wild ones

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