“Hum-m-m. So. So. So!” he cried. “The same thing I have seen.”
“You, Jeeka?”
“So, so. Big stone. Terrible fire, much smoke and t’under. Big stone fall eberywhere. So, so.”
As he spoke Jeeka waved his arm away towards the west, and I at once understood him to refer to an eruption of some great volcano of the Cordilleras, for there are several such.
What pleased Nadi more than anything else was the singing of hymns. She used to join with us, but it was more of a child’s voice than anything else.
However, Nadi was very young, not more than sixteen perhaps, wife and mother though she was.
Our route lay even more to the north than the west now, and it was soon evident that we were on the great border-line betwixt the wild bleak Pampas and the forest-clad mountains, which are but a continuation of the great Andes chain.
The way was now a winding one, for we often had to make long détours to get round a lake or the spur of a mountain, although the lower hills we still continued to face and cross.
Sport, and plenty of it, still fell to our lot, though the gun and revolver and spear came in now more handy than the bolas and lasso.
Even here, however, in the midst of the wildest mountain and sylvan scenery, there were vast stretches of level valleys and plateaus between the hills. Most of these were the feeding-grounds for vast herds of guanacos and of wild horses.