Aniwee; or, the Warrior Queen / A tale of the Araucanian Indians and the mythical Trauco people

by Lady Florence Dixie

His quick eye had swept the gorge, and ascertained that the pass was clear, and for this outlet, therefore, he made as straight as a die. In a few minutes it was reached, entered, and traversed at the same headlong pace, and the hunter and hunted passed out of sight of the circular plain where the Indians and the others were engaged with the baguales.

And now Topsie was able to gauge for the first time the enormity of the task which she had set herself to accomplish. It was perfectly clear that the wild horse had no intention of giving in, and that his powers of endurance were unlimited. Then, too, the country they had entered was rough and hillocky, and some five or six miles ahead a dense, impenetrable forest appeared to intervene and to bar all further progress. It would be extremely awkward if the stallion took to the woods at this headlong pace, and nothing she could do, could apparently induce him to alter his course in any way.

As they galloped along, Topsie had an opportunity of testing the speed and stamina of the horse which she bestrode. Putting spurs to it, she endeavoured to get it to race up close alongside the wild one, when she thought by luck she might be able to put a bullet from her revolver through the sensitive part of his crest, and so bring him to the ground and stun him, in the same way as she had done to the two baguales, which she and Harry had captured at the outset of their wanderings in Patagonia two years before. Her horse was a game one and a good one, and he made a brave effort to obey his rider’s wishes. Gradually he crept up alongside the angry bagual, and Topsie, drawing her revolver, took as careful an aim as possible, and fired.

But the pace at which they were going made it impossible to fire true. The bullet just grazed the stallion’s crest, terrifying him more than ever, and infusing into him a new strength and an accelerated speed.

Thus they flew along. The thick forest ahead was growing nearer and nearer, and the position was becoming perilous in the extreme; so perilous indeed, that much as she hated doing so, Topsie was perforce obliged to acknowledge herself beaten, and to make up her mind to cast the stallion loose, and give up the struggle as hopeless.

But when she came to slacken and cast off the lasso, she found that the knot had become so tight in consequence of the enormous strain put upon it, that she was utterly unable to free the saddle from the line that now held her horse coupled to the wild one. What was she to do? The pace at which they were going was breakneck, and yet she had but two choices before her. One was to stick to her horse, and take her chance of being dashed to pieces as they entered the forest; the other was to throw herself off the animal. This latter alternative probably meant death, or a multiplicity of broken bones. She chose the former.

Grasping the lasso with both hands, she endeavoured, by a supreme effort, to draw the noose so tightly round the stallion’s neck as to choke him; but the running loop refused to do its work, and the wild horse went faster than ever.

I wonder what poor Shag thought of it all? He was straining his utmost to keep up with the racing animals, by no means an easy task, for Shag was a big, heavy dog, and not bred for racing. However, he did his best, and with his great red tongue lolling out of his mouth, struggled along.

They were within about two hundred yards of the forest, and Topsie had slipped her feet out of the stirrups, so as to be free for a spill, when a loud neigh sounded ahead. To this the stallion replied briskly, though chokingly; for the heavy strain on his neck was beginning to tell, and he was decidedly short of wind. The next moment a troop of wild horses swept into the open from a nook in the forest, where they had been seeking shelter from the hot sun, and stood staring wildly ahead. What they saw probably produced terrifying effects, for with loud neighs, screams, and whinnyings, they wheeled about and fled precipitately towards the forest, into which they quickly penetrated, and became lost to view.

Buoyed up with hope at the sight of his fellows, the stallion put on a tremendous spurt. After this everything was confused in Topsie’s memory. She had a faint recollection of entering the forest, then of hearing a loud crack, after that a crash and a bang, a whizzing in the brain, and then no more.