There was nought of life to be seen anywhere, save that single horseman on his trusty steed who stopped for a moment on an upland ridge to gaze around him. Not a tree; hardly a bush; the very grass itself in stunted patches, with rough boulders lying here and there as if they had been rained from the heavens. No signs of house nor habitation, only the sharply undulating plain, wherever the eye might turn, and far away on the western horizon, hills or mountains snow-clad, glimmering white in the uncertain light of moon and stars.
The moon? Yes, and I have oftentimes thought, while on the Pampas, that if one could reach that orb, it would be just such a landscape as this he would see on every side; and if wind blows there at all, it would be just such a wind, as is now moaning and sighing over this dreary plain from the distant Cordilleras.
It was neither a wild nor a stormy night, however. Behind a huge bank of yellow clouds, that lay high over the mountains, the lightning was flickering and playing every moment; the breeze was not high nor was it extra cold, being early summer in this region. It is the desolation and the exceeding lonesomeness of the situation that strikes to the heart and feelings of one when he thinks of it.
And the deep silence!
Were there no sounds at all? Very few; only that moaning, sighing, whispering wind, rising at times into almost a shriek, then dying away again till it could scarce be heard. A wind in which, had you been at all nervous, you might have almost declared you heard voices, human or ghostly. Only the wind, and now and then the cry of some night-hawk or its victim; or the plaintive, peevish yap of the prairie fox.
Very marked indeed is the silence by night on the Patagonian Pampas. Not more so anywhere except on the broad, glittering snow-fields of the Arctic “pack,” or the highest plateaus of the Himalayan hills.
So tall and square is the figure of the horseman, whose rifle is slung across his shoulders, and so active, yet sturdy and strong, does his horse look, that standing there on the ridge, he has all the picturesqueness of a mounted Arab.
He shudders slightly now and draws his guanaco mantle closer about him, gazes once more around as if taking his bearings, then rides slowly on.
Presently he comes near a bush, a stunted barberia and draws rein speedily, for from under it fierce green eyes glare at him, and a sound, which is half yawn half yell of anger, makes him place a hand on his revolver.
He does not fire, however; he waits. Then a huge puma gathers itself up and edges off, drawing its graceful length along the ground, but making off still with head turned towards him, and breathing hoarse defiance, till, with bounds and leaps, he is soon out sight. When the puma has quite disappeared, he rides on again, but with a little more caution, avoiding the bushes. Where there is one puma there may be, and generally is, another.