When the “gringo” and his laboring mule pitched down the side of a very considerable barranca, their quarry was plainly visible four or five hundred yards up the opposite hill. The rest of the flock had long ago disappeared, and by now was miles away—for they run almost like antelope, these airy beauties of the Andes, the tiniest camels in the world, and the only graceful ones. But when mule and rider struggled up the farther bank, the wounded vicuña was nowhere to be seen.
“Plague! But I must not kill thee, in trying to be merciful to him,” muttered the rider, and he sprang to the ground. It was high time. The mule stood gasping in his tracks, head down, chin hanging and knees quaking violently. The traveler looked up and down him, remorsefully but critically.
“With a rest, thou’rt all right. But I ought to beg thy pardon for giving thee a fool for a rider! Now, my legs for it—and rest thou here.”
The involuntary object of all this trouble was certainly inconsiderate. Having been so foolish as to go and get wounded, he should have waited at least for the Samaritan to come up and give him the blow of mercy. But, instead, he hobbled bleating on in pursuit of his fellows, even long after they had vanished. It was astonishing how this delicate, fawn-like creature could run so far with a broken leg, and his well-meaning pursuer began to find it more than astonishing. Plague take the little imbecile—he was bound to make it as hard as possible to do him a good turn! It is odd how our minds can contradict themselves—how we sometimes start out on a thoroughly praiseworthy errand, and fall into very unamiable moods by the way.
The pursuer was by now decidedly angry—which is a very unwise luxury to be indulged in, at least among the Andes. His temper was by no means calculated to soothe the stampeding gallop of his heart; and to see him gasping up yonder cumbre, with a purpling face and protruding tongue, and a scowl on his brow, probably no stranger would have dreamed that he was really on a generous errand.
“Belike the condors will have to have thee!” he groaned inwardly—since not for his life, now, could he have articulated the words: “I’m done up! This one more ridge and it must end.”
But as he reached the top of that last ridge, there was a tremendous swoosh of wings past him, and then, from the hollow beyond, a scream almost human in its agony. At that he plucked new vigor, and went racing down the slope in a surprising spurt. The truth was that, once started, he had no longer the strength to stop on that stiff pitch, and must keep on till he should fall or fetch up against some obstacle. His sight was blurred, his head roaring, his legs numb, and where his heart should be, a strange, suffocating emptiness seemed to have come—and still he spun on. Then, in a reeling way, he swung the six-shooter thrice, firing as fast as finger could pull the trigger; in the same second, sprawling headlong in a confusion of bleats and silken fur and beating wings. A tremendous blow from one of the latter cut his scalp clear across the occiput. The revolver blazed again, and, after a wild thrashing, all was still.
It was some minutes before the hunter sat up, gazing about him in a dazed way. The rest and the chilly air and the loss of blood were beginning to counteract the effects of his imprudent chase.
“Well! The next time I shoot before I think, I won’t shoot!” he informed himself without expense of breath, and with the ghost of a smile. “Wonder I hadn’t killed myself with such a race, up here. But if you start, finish!” and he looked complacently down at the little dead vicuña against which he leaned; and not a rod away the huge vulture sprawled upon its back, its wings outstretched a full dozen feet, its feet clenched in the empty air.