in hand. The first of these happened to be the Gateado. His load was flour and tinned beef. He allowed himself to be saddled up with no more than the usual accompaniment of blowing and snorting. He even suffered his cargo to be slung and the noose to be slipped along the cinch until it was in place.
Every horse needs two men to put on his cargo. One ties the knot and hauls while the other takes in the slack. The latter has to hold up his side of the cargo with his shoulder, and to do this must get pretty nearly under the animal.
In our case, although we jettisoned a portion of our belongings—including, I am sorry to say, a number of birds which I had spent my evenings in skinning, and which I truly grieved to leave behind—some of the packs were of necessity rather unwieldy. This, indeed, is almost always the case during the earlier stages of any expedition.
The behaviour of the Gateado was similar to that of many of the cargueros. He waited until his man was well under, and then he came into action with a series of diabolically well-aimed, one-legged kicks. Having after a little got rid of us by this means, he went on to buck all his cargo off, and then stood with his saddle cork-screwed round under his belly. Jones held on to the head-rope, or no doubt the Gateado would have completed his performance by clearing off into the low hills or hummocks which surrounded the place.
Most of the others were, in their separate ways, as bad as the Gateado. Some bucked, some reared, some would not be approached, but all agreed in one thing—all, when cargoed up and ready for the start, solemnly lay down and rolled on their cargoes. If they got them loose, the wretched animals rose again and bucked them within reach of their heels, after which they extricated themselves by kicking.
That morning was, indeed, a study of shifting cargoes. They came off all ways, bucked off, kicked off, rolled on. Some stuck out to port of the horse and some to starboard, a few hung disconsolately beneath the carguero's body. Again and again we did our part, and again and again the horses defeated us by their horrible tricks of lying down and rolling. Meantime the sun had risen, and heat and flies were added to the long tally of the day's disagreeable items. A very heavy wind was also blowing, which made it exceedingly difficult to place the saddle-cloths upon the horses' backs. I have often noticed that, when saddling up a colt or wild horse, it is well to make use each day of the same saddle-cloths, as he grows used to these, and does not fear them, especially if you allow him to bite and smell them.
At length, however, shortly after midday the horses began to get worn out. The cargoed ones ceased to struggle and lay still, tongues out, fat-barrelled, like a troop on a battle-field, humped with cargo and grotesquely dead. In the fighting-line, I remember, remained only a horse named Horqueta (the slit-eared), and the indefatigable Gateado. Horqueta's cargo consisted of a pair of tin boxes, for, bucking apart, he was a fairly steady pack-horse. He and the Gateado were the last to be finished, the others having yielded after the long struggle of the forenoon.
All would now have gone well had it not been for the fact that the handles of one of the tin boxes upon Horqueta were loose. The moment we let him go he began to buck and the unlucky handles to beat a devil's tattoo upon the body of the tin box. He made off into the troop of cargoed horses, and the noise he brought with him proved too much for their nerves. They scrambled up to their feet and four of them broke away in different directions. Five minutes later we surveyed once more a scene of scattered cartridges, flour, oatmeal, sacks of beans, clothes, skins bumped out with tinned provisions, and I don't know what else. They lay in confusion among the grass and bushes in the valley, and up and down the slopes of the conical mud hills. The Germans were reduced to inarticulate oaths, and the Welshmen looked out of heart.
But to camp upon a failure is the worst of business and of policy, and so the men were laughed into a good humour, and we all went at it once more, the ammunition and our other goods were collected and the cargoes were fixed up yet again.
It was ten minutes past three o'clock by my watch when we rode slowly up the cliff that lay between Waggon Camp and the River Chico of Chubut. We reached the top without mishap, chiefly, I think, because the horses were now fairly exhausted with their exertions. At the top of the rise we stopped and looked back; our broken waggon lay dark and low among the coarse yellow weeds, the afternoon sun, still warm, beat upon the bald hills, and that was the last we saw of our unlucky camp.
The procession moved slowly on, and we did not rest until twilight, by which time we had travelled between twelve and thirteen miles. Our march now lay along the banks of the Chico. The going was soft, and more bushes began to appear on the landscape. That night we celebrated our first carguero journey by serving out cocoa for all hands.
The night we struck the River Chico was a very cold one, the temperature falling 12° below freezing-point. These figures, however, give no idea of the cold, as one of the characteristics of Patagonia is the prevalence of tremendous winds. And when these blow from the direction of the Cordillera, they bring with them chilly memories of the snows over which they have passed. Wind, of course, increased the rigours of the cold, and I remember that during the night on which we felt the cold most severely the temperature did not fall below 35°.
The next morning we got off about 10.30, having less trouble with the cargueros. I went on in front to choose our way, which here passed over very bad ground.
At the midday halt it was found that only part of a haunch of guanaco had been brought on from the last camp. I therefore galloped on ahead with a shot-gun and shot thirteen ducks, of which only six came to hand, as several fell among the reeds in the marshes which fringe the river. Of these six ducks, four were brown pintails (Dafila spinicauda) and two were Chiloe widgeon (Mareca sibilatrix). In the afternoon I exchanged the shot-gun for the rifle, as a few more guanaco-skins would be very handy for various purposes and meat was wanted. About four o'clock, when riding behind the troop, I saw a guanaco among the hills to the east. I was fortunately mounted upon the Cruzado, who had by this time learned to stand to shot and to remain standing when his reins were dropped over his head. He was infinitely the best shooting-horse in the troop, and I used always to ride him when game was wanted, although, owing to his being a large horse, his canter was not suited to riding behind the tropilla. He had come to us with a very bad name for throwing himself back, which is one of the nastiest tricks a horse can possess. But this he soon gave up, and except that he always remained rather hard to catch in the mornings, was what an advertiser would call "a thoroughly confidential horse." I am glad to think that when I left Patagonia he became the property of Burbury.
THE AUTHOR'S TWO BEST HORSES, THE CRUZADO AND ALAZAN
The Cruzado seemed to enter into the spirit of the chase, and in the present instance went off at a fast canter towards the hills. The guanaco had moved from his point of vantage upon the top of a conical hill of mud, and had probably, according to the custom of these animals, sought another eminence. I thought he had seen me, in which case he would at once have made for the highest point within reach, but, as I came into the throat of the gorge where there were some mud hills, I saw him again upon the side of a large hummock one hundred feet or so in height. I immediately tied up my horse.
The guanacos of the valley of the Chico were very wild owing to the fact that the Tehuelche Indians hunt them there during the months of October and November. This valley was once celebrated for the abundance of its game, but of recent years the herds seem to have moved westwards and northwards. This guanaco was the first we had seen that day.
I crawled up the hill, sinking to my knees at every step into the dry mud. When half-way up I saw the ears of the guanaco appear against the sky-line. I lay down, and he remained still and utterly unconscious of my presence for some minutes. He was watching my companions, who, with the horses, were moving off into dimness down the valley. Presently he ran forward one or two steps and gave out his high-pitched neighing laugh in a sort of strange defiance at our retreating troop. He was a very