And it is a bola that lies before him; though one of a peculiar kind, as he sees after stooping and taking it up. A round stone covered with cow’s skin; this stretched and sewed over it tight as that on a tennis ball.
But to the bola there is no cord attached, nor mark of where one has ever been. For there never has been such, as Gaspar at a glance perceives. Well knows the gaucho that the ball he holds in his hand has not been one of a pair strung together—as with the ordinary bolas—nor of three in like manner united, as is sometimes the case; but a bola, for still it is a bola, of a sort different from either, both in its make and the mode of using it, as also the effect it is designed to produce.
“What is it, Gaspar?” simultaneously interrogate the two, as they see him so closely examining the thing he has picked up. At the same time they turn their horses’ heads towards him.
“Una bola perdida.”
“Ah! a ball the Indians have left behind—lost, you mean.”
“No, señoritos; I don’t mean that, exactly. Of course, the redskins have left it behind, and so lost it. But that isn’t the reason of my calling it a bola perdida.”
“Why, then, Caspar?” asks Ludwig, with the hereditary instincts of the savant, like his father, curious about all such things. “Why do you call it a lost ball?”
“Because that’s the name we gauchos give it, and the name by which it is known among those who make use of it—these Chaco Indians.”
“And pray, what do they use it for? I never heard of the thing. What is its purpose?”
“One for which, I hope, neither it nor any of its sort will ever be employed upon us. The Virgin forbid! For it is no child’s toy, I can assure you, señoritos; but a most murderous weapon. I’ve witnessed its effects more than once—seen it flung full thirty yards, and hit a spot not bigger than the breadth of my hand; the head of a horse, crushing in the animal’s skull as if done by a club of quebracha. Heaven protect me, and you too, muchachos, from ever getting struck by a bola perdida!”