We hastened back to give Ritchie the news.
If we had expected he would exhibit any surprise we were mistaken.
“It’s no more’n I expected,” he said quietly.
“Perhaps,” I hazarded, “these are friendly Fuegians?”
“I never met ’em,” he replied. “Must be some new tribe. All that ever I saw could be friendly enough when driving a good bargain, and scraping the butter all to their own side of the dish. Their motto is, ‘Take all we can get, and take it anyhow.’ My dear lad,” he continued, “could anything be handier for these savages than to collar a white man. He is dressed, and has nick-nacks in his pocket; well, they want the dress and the nick-nacks, for you see they don’t have any clothes of their own worth mentioning; then the body of the white man comes in handy for a side-dish. They think no more of killing a white man than they do of sending an arrow through the heart of a guanaco. No, never trust a Fuegian farther than you can fling him, and that’d be over the cliff if I had all my will.”
Hark! There was a crashing sound among the bushes not far off. I ran to my gun. So did Jill. But Ritchie never moved step nor muscle, at which I was at first a little surprised. Not, however, when a guanaco appeared in the clearing not far off, and had a long-necked look at us.
“Don’t fire!” he cried. “We’re not ready for the niggers yet.”
“Didn’t you fancy,” I asked, “that the savages were on us when you heard the bushes crackling?”
“That I didn’t. They don’t come like that. You don’t see them, and you never hear them. No, they’re all from home. That fire was lit last night, and left burning. But they’ll come back. So now to get ready. You see, young gentlemen, the gentry very likely look upon the glen and woods round here as a kind of happy hunting-ground. There is fish in the river, too, and fish in the bay. So, though it may be days before they come, we may as well cook their dinner in time.”
“But surely we won’t be here for days?”