Chapter Twenty Two.
A Blinding Summer-Snowstorm—Peter as a Horseman—Peter in a Fix.
Such is the exhilarating and toning power of the air on the Pampas, that though we had all lain down tired enough, we felt as fresh next morning as mountain trouts.
The only feeling that remained from our exertions of yesterday was a kind of gentle and not unpleasant languor. We were therefore in no great hurry to depart. But as towards ten o’clock the clouds began to bank up and obscure the sun in the north and east, and our present camp was not one of the best-positioned, Castizo gave the order for departure.
We had not gone far till up started an ostrich right from under Jill’s horse’s nose, and lo! and behold, our first find of a nest—if nest it could be called.
As there were but fifteen eggs in it, we were sure they would be fresh, so we quickly appropriated them, the poor bird himself and his mate, who was not far away, both falling victims to the bolas of the Indians.
Perhaps it was just as well; it took them away from sorrow.
A most exemplary parent and husband is the ostrich. The hen bird lays over a score of eggs, and the cock considers it his duty to do the greater part of the hatching. At all events, he sits on the nest for about eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, and before he leaves the nest carefully turns every egg over. Then he goes away to stretch his legs and scratch a bit for his breakfast, which it must be allowed he has fairly earned. While he is gone it is the hen’s turn to brood, so that between them, in about a month’s time, they usually succeed in raising a very large family of the most idiotic-looking chickens it has ever been my good fortune to cast eyes upon.
There is no close time for the ostrich on the Pampas of Patagonia, and it will probably be a very long time indeed before there is one. Meanwhile, despite hunters, white and brown, wild cats, pumas, and foxes, the birds thrive and abound in such quantities, that the wonder is that more sportsmen from this country do not go to Patagonia to try their luck.
As we advanced on our journey to-day the weather seemed to grow colder and colder. The wind went down at last. It had not been high all the morning. Then little morsels of snow began to fall. They were no bigger than millet-seeds, but Jeeka shook his head when he saw them, pointed upwards, then around him, and said something to our cacique in Patagonian.