A fox, a huge beast like a wolf, ran across our path.
“Hurrah!” Ossian seemed to cry, “Yowff, yowff. Come on, Bruce. Here’s a chance!”
Away went the two dogs like two birds. Away went Jill after his pets like a third bird, while I brought up the rear.
We heard Castizo order a halt, so we thought it would be all right, and rode heedlessly on after the dogs. We must have ridden fully two miles when we came up with Ossian. Poor Bruce was nowhere in it; near him lay the fox, dead. I speedily dismounted, and secured the tail, which I fastened to Jill’s saddle. Then Bruce came up panting, and complained to us that his legs were not long enough. Guanacos, he said, were more his form; and this proved to be true enough, for he afterwards proved invaluable at this form of hunting.
As we were returning, we noticed an ostrich at some distance to the right. Our bolas were handy, and so off we went at a tangent, in pursuit. Another and another sprang up, and to my intense delight and Jill’s glory he succeeded in entangling one I shot the bird with my revolver, but I think even now I see the wild and frightened look the poor creature had in its quaint, queer face. We did not stop to possess ourselves of any of the meat, but secured the feathers, tied them in a bundle, and prepared to return in triumph.
Well, to retrace our trail was easy enough. We reached the spot where we had left our companions.
They were gone.
But where, whither? We could see the plains all round us when we rode up to the top of a ridge for very many miles, but never a vestige of the cavalcade.
“Jill,” I said, “we’re left and lost.”
“But they cannot surely have gone out of sight in so short a time!”