We now prepared for rest. The sentries were set, and in a short time all was peace and silence within our camp. More than once during the night the collies—dogs brought out by Moncrieff's men—gave an uneasy bark or two, their slumbers being probably disturbed by the cry of some night bird, or the passing of a prowling fox.
So, wrapped in our guanaco robes—the benefit of which we felt now—my brothers and I slept sweetly and deeply till the sun once more rose in the east.
Soon all was bustle and stir again.
Thus were our days spent on the road, thus our evenings, and eke our nights. And at the end of some days we were still safe and sound, and happy. No one sick in the camp; no horse or mule even lame; while we were all hardening to travel already.
So far, hardly anything had happened to break the even tenour of our journey. Our progress, however, with so much goods and chattels, and over such roads, was necessarily slow; yet we never envied the lumbering diligence that now and then went rattling past us. 118
We saw many herds of wild horses. Some of these, led by beautiful stallions, came quite close to us. They appeared to pity our horses and mules, condemned to the shafts and harness, and compelled to work their weary lives away day after day. Our beasts were slaves. They were free—free as the breezes that blew over the pampas and played with their long manes, as they went thundering over the plains. We had seen several ostriches, and my brothers and I had enjoyed a wild ride or two after them. Once we encountered a puma, and once we saw an armadillo. We had never clapped eyes on a living specimen before, but there could be no mistaking the gentleman in armour. Not that he gave us much time for study, however. Probably the creature had been asleep as we rounded the corner of a gravel bank, but in one moment he became alive to his danger. Next moment we saw nothing but a rising cloud of dust and sand; lo! the armadillo was gone to the Antipodes, or somewhere in that direction—buried alive. Probably the speed with which an armadillo—there are several different species in the Silver West—disappears at the scent of any one belonging to the genus homo, is caused by the decided objection he has to be served up as a side-dish. He is excellent eating—tender as a chicken, juicy as a sucking-pig, but the honour of being roasted whole and garnished is one he does not crave.
Riding on ahead one day—I had soon got tired of the monotony of driving, and preferred the saddle—at a bend of the road I came suddenly upon two horsemen, who had dismounted and were lying on a patch of sward by the roadside. Their horses stood near. Both sprang up as I appeared, and quick as lightning their hands sought the handles of the ugly knives that depended in sheaths from their girdles. At this moment there was a look in the swarthy face of each that I can only describe as diabolical. Hatred, ferocity, and cunning were combined in that glance; but it vanished in a moment, 119 and the air assumed by them now was one of cringing humility.
'The Gaucho malo,' I said to myself as soon as I saw them. Their horses were there the nobler animals. Bitted, bridled, and saddled, the latter were in the manner usual to the country, the saddle looking like a huge hillock of skins and rags; but rifles were slung alongside, to say nothing of bolas and lasso. The dress of the men was a kind of nondescript garb. Shawls round the loins, tucked up between their legs and fastened with a girdle, did duty as breeches; their feet were encased in potro boots, made of the hock-skin of horses, while over their half-naked shoulders hung ponchos of skin, not without a certain amount of wild grace.
Something else as well as his rifle was lashed to the saddle of one of these desert gipsies, and being new to the country, I could not help wondering at this—namely, a guitar in a case of skin.
With smiles that I knew were false one now beckoned me to alight, while the other unslung the instrument and began to tune it. The caravan must have been fully two miles behind me, so that to some extent I was at the mercy of these Gauchos, had they meant mischief. This was not their plan of campaign, however.