THE BIG OVERO, A BUCKJUMPER
"But to return to Barckhausen. The nag of the baleful eye would not be caught, and had to be chased about the pampa by Hughes and myself. Finally, Jones got a lasso on him, and he danced at the edge of the lagoon with four men at the other end of the lasso. We tied his legs in slip-knots and pulled him over, and when quieter saddled him. He bucked around with the saddle. At length Barckhausen got up and rode him the whole afternoon. It was a terrible job driving the horses, and that even though we were in the cañadon.
"On each side of us were bare, bald grass hills, rolling in hummocks and their sides sprinkled with thorn-scrub. In the centre, winding in sharp bends, a dry river bed. Towards evening, after travelling all the afternoon down the cañadon since one o'clock, I rode on and found the bed of the river held water in four places. Near the third of these we camped. Saw an ostrich and a few sentinel guanaco. Caught an armadillo. The scenery here consists of alternations of pampa and cañadon, cañadon and pampa, and over all the tearing wind, which seldom drops.
"I have given out two tins of jam and one of Swiss milk, one of coffee and milk and some vegetables. Sometimes we soak our biscuit and bake it. It is very good treated so. I am writing this by the fire at seven o'clock. Coldish.
"Jones has not turned up yet, and must have had to sleep out in nothing save a blanket, poor chap! He was to have cut our tracks and followed them up.
"October 11.—All our tropillas right this morning, and at 8.30 I rode out of the camp and met Jones, who had found the three strayed horses about a league from the old camp.
"We started and made our way down the empty river-bed, which now broadened and was pebbly, like a Scotch trout-stream. Before we left Mal Espina estancia the foreman told us the road down the cañadon was very clear—'muy limpio,' and only four and a half leagues in length, but we have been in it two days and are in it still. About 5, as I was riding ahead with the troop of horses, I came upon the track of wheels in deep scrub. I went back to the waggon and found it on the left bank of the river-bed. Upon one side were thorn-bush and sand, and upon the other a swampy vega of wet grass. Through this the track led, and into this the waggon lumbered, then two of the horses foundered in the black mud and the waggon sank. Of course that put an end to our day's journey, and I sent on Jones to bring back Burbury and the troop. We were in a land of many flies, chiefly sand-flies, which buzzed and stung horribly. Jones had tied up the horses on the Rio Chico and we could not reach them to-night. Fritz found sixteen eggs in an ostrich's nest and Hollesen found one. The one was fine but the sixteen were chickenny.
"We all turned to, unloaded the waggon and pulled it out with some toil from the marsh, and before dinner loaded it up again.
"By evening we reached the cañadon of the Rio Chico and camped upon the banks.