One day, while standing in the doorway of the mill, attempting to get a glimpse of a dim line of the point of the Pié de palo, where I had been told that a beautiful region, called the “Fertile Valley,” lay embosomed in trees, my attention was attracted to a dark spot in the sierra, which seemed to be a hole in the rock. On the following day, at sunset, I again distinguished the same dark spot: each day it grew larger; and one morning an old miner came into the mill, and informed me that a company of Chilenos were opening a vein; the situation of the sierra, the peculiarities of the rock, &c., led him to doubt of the practicability of the undertaking. How the party succeeded in their search for gold I have not yet learned; but the antecedents of the mountain are bad, for when the sierra was discovered by the early adventurers, in expectation of finding gold, they named it Pié de Oro, or “Foot of Gold,” and afterwards, when they had been disappointed in searching for the ore, they dropped the first name, and called it that by which it is known at the present day—Pié de Palo, or “Wooden Foot.”
The llama and other animals are found in the sierra of this section, which are also known—for what reason I never could learn—as the mountains of Cordova. I had not time to visit the range when in Causete, though I much desired to do so, as the old guides and miners told many strange stories regarding it.
One evening, as I was in the mill at work, a servant came from the house, saying that Don Guillermo wished to see me, and give me an introduction to a guest who had just arrived. I repaired to the house, where I made the acquaintance of the celebrated gaucho, Diablo McGill. As he has quite a local notoriety, I will speak of him more fully here than I otherwise would.
McGill was celebrated above most gauchos for his skill in using the lasso, knife, and boliadores, and in the management of wild colts. He was the handsomest herdsman that I ever saw, and was so polite and easy in his intercourse with strangers that I at first doubted if he was really the wild gaucho of whom I had heard so much. McGill was the owner of a troop of mules, he left his native province to follow the wandering life of a pampa merchant, because he despised his own countrymen, and declared that they were all peons (laborers), and not gauchos; for the province in which he was born, being situated upon the desert, at the base of the Andes, contained very few cattle-farms, and consequently the inhabitants were mostly traders, laborers, and “loafers.”
He visited the province annually, and while in his native town invariably played some mad prank to astonish the natives, and keep his reputation as a diablo.
On feast days he dressed himself in the full habiliments of a herdsman, a showy chiropá, finely-wrought drawers, heavy silver spurs, &c. His horse was selected with care from his corral, and bedecked with silver ornaments from the head to the tail, and a costly recado, or country saddle, placed upon its back. Thus equipped, he would sally forth to visit the various pulperias, or drinking-shops, where the gauchos crowded to listen to his songs, and tales of mighty deeds transacted while accompanying his troop of mules across the lonely pampas.
All the señoritas felt happy when McGill asked them to accompany him through la samba cueca, el gato, or la mariquita, as the three principal dances are styled, and she who could keep the wild gaucho by her side for one half hour felt more gratified than if she had made a dozen ordinary conquests. But the wild gaucho could not love a fair señorita, though she might be the belle of the province. Horses, wild colts, wild bulls, and wild gauchos were his chosen companions, and the fair sex tried, but in vain, to find some uncovered spot upon which to make an impression: he was impenetrable to the shafts of Cupid.
The story is told that, during one of his last visits Don Antonio Moreno, who had always envied the success of McGill, challenged him to prove his skill in the use of the lasso. McGill accepted the challenge, and entered, lasso in hand, the corral of the jealous Don Antonio.
“I will do more than you challenge me to attempt,” said our hero, coolly. “Here are five hundred mules in this circular yard, and as you drive around the circle they run eight or ten abreast. Now, I will stand in the middle, and as they pass around me you are to call out which mule you wish lassoed, and upon what leg or part of the body the animal is to be noosed. This you must do when the particular beast is in front of me, so that I can throw the lasso when she is behind me. As fast as one is caught, you are to remove her from the corral. Thus will I catch each of the five hundred mules, without missing a single throw, and catch them while they pass BEHIND MY BACK. Will that satisfy you, Don Antonio Moreno?”
The other party looked incredulous. Don Antonio was himself a first-rate gaucho and rastreador; he had seen good lassoing, but this offer seemed preposterous.