“Good Shag, brave, dear, good Shag!” exclaimed the former, as she threw her arms round the splendid Labrador’s coal-black neck. “Ah, Shag! you are a hero; you have saved our dear old Harry’s life.”
But as of yore, the massive beast only wagged his tail gently, while modestly refusing to be proud or vain, and wearing his honours like the canine hero that he was.
“Well, now we’ve got him, we’ve got to cut him up, and skin him too,” remarked Harry complacently, as he seated himself on the bull’s huge side, and gently stroked the soft, white hide of his would-be destroyer.
“Chorlo and El Toro will skin the bull,” observed Aniwee. “They will do it quicker than the Caciques, and it is not the first by many which the latter has skinned. El Toro knows his work there well enough. Will not the Caciques rest on yonder bank and refresh themselves on the scarlet fruit that grows thereon? Aniwee knows the fruit; it is safe to eat, and refreshing to the thirsty.”
Looking in the direction pointed out by the young Queen, Harry and Topsie perceived beneath a crag-festooned rock, a bank, scarlet all over with the fruit alluded to, and on going up to examine it, they found that this fruit consisted of masses of splendid wild strawberries; large, luscious, and tempting in the extreme.
Being terribly hot, the spot looked inviting beyond measure, and brother and sister at once threw themselves down, prepared to enjoy a dolce far niente and strawberry feast.
The scene around them was certainly magnificent,—dark forests in the foreground, behind them the towering, unbroken wall of the Cordilleras, and around them emerald glades and fairy nooks, where splendid flowers, with unknown names, lit up the dark forest background into radiance and light. As they lay there peacefully resting and eating their strawberries, these children, who had learnt to love the glories of God’s great earth, surveyed the scene in silence and rapture. It was as Topsie afterwards described it, “like being in fairyland.”
The silence which reigned over this scene, was suddenly broken by two rifle shots, which sounded not far away from where they were sitting. At once the two young people opened their ears and listened attentively. They had not to listen long, however, before fresh shots broke the still air, followed by loud shouts and vigorous yells. What could they mean? Brother and sister looked inquiringly at each other, and Aniwee came running up. Already Chorlo and El Toro had forsaken the half-skinned bull, and had followed the young Queen.
“Let us haste to the rescue,” exclaimed Aniwee excitedly. “I know what those yells mean. It is the Araucanians’ signal of danger, and would never be uttered unless peril threatened some of the other parties. Haste, Señors, haste.”
She had grasped her rifle, which after the death of the bull she had stood against a tree, and only awaited her white friends’ companionship before setting off to the assistance of her other friends. And it may be imagined that neither Harry nor Topsie required much bidding. Leaving the dead bull to its fate, all five set off up one of the glades in the direction whence the sounds proceeded at a headlong pace, led by the fleetfooted Warrior Queen.