The house of Dr. Pazo, where we were most hospitably entertained, was similar to those that I have described. It was not his home, but what we would call a hunting-box or a ranch. While we were at luncheon he told a boy to see if there were any alligators in sight, in exactly the same tone with which he might have told a servant to find out if the lawn-tennis net were in place. The boy returned to say that there were five within a hundred yards of the house. So, after we had as usual patiently waited for Griscom to finish his coffee, we went out on the bank and fired at the unhappy alligators for the remainder of the afternoon. It did not seem to hurt them very much, and certainly did us a great deal of good. To kill an alligator it is necessary to hit it back of the fore-leg, or to break its spine where it joins the tail; and as it floats with only its eyes and a half-inch of its nose exposed, it is difficult to reach either of these vital spots. When the alligator is on a bank, and you attempt to crawl up on it along the opposite bank, the birds make such a noise, either on its account or on their own, that it takes alarm, and rolls over into the water with an abruptness you would hardly expect from so large a body.
On our second day at Dr. Pazo’s ranch we divided into two parties, and scoured the wilderness for ten miles around after game. One party was armed with shot-guns, and brought back macaws of wonderful plumage, wild turkeys, and quail in abundance; the others, scorning anything but big game, carried rifles, and, as a result, returned as they set forth, only with fewer cartridges. It was most unfortunate that the only thing worth shooting came to me. It was a wild-cat with a long tail, who patiently waited for us in an open place with a calm and curious expression of countenance. I think I was more surprised than he was, and even after I had thrown up the ground under his white belly he stopped and turned again to look at me in a hurt and reproachful manner before he bounded gracefully out of sight into the underbrush. We also saw a small bear, but he escaped in the same manner, without waiting to be fired upon, and as we had no dogs to send after him, we gave up looking for more, and went back to pot at alligators. There were some excellent hunting-dogs on the ranch, but the Pazo brothers had killed a steer the night we arrived, and had given most of it to the dogs, so that in the morning they were naturally in no mood for hunting.
There was an old grandfather of an alligator whom Somerset and I had repeatedly disturbed in his slumbers. He liked to take his siestas on a little island entirely surrounded by rapids, and we used to shoot at him from the opposite bank of the river. He was about thirteen feet long, and the agility with which he would flop over into the calm little bay, which stretched out from the point on which he slept, was as remarkable as it was disappointing. He was still asleep at his old stand when we returned from our unsuccessful shooting tour, so we decided to swim the rapids and crawl up on him across his little island and attack him from the flank and rear. It reminded me somewhat of the taking of Lungtenpen on a small scale. On that occasion, if I remember correctly, the raw recruits were uniformed only in Martinis and cartridge-belts; but we decided to carry our boots as well, because the alligator’s island was covered with sharp stones and briers, and the sand was very hot, and, moreover, we had but vague ideas about the customs of alligators, and were not sure as to whether he might not chase us. We thought we would look very silly running around a little island pursued by a long crocodile and treading on sharp hot stones in our bare feet.
ON THE TRAIL TO SANTA BARBARA
So each of us took his boots in one hand and a repeating-rifle in the other, and with his money-belt firmly wrapped around his neck, plunged into the rapids and started to ford the river. They were exceedingly swift rapids, and made you feel as though you were swinging round a sharp corner on a cable-car with no strap by which to take hold. The only times I could stop at all was when I jammed my feet in between two stones at the bed of the river, and was so held in a vise, while the rest of my body swayed about in the current and my boots scooped up the water. When I wanted to go farther I would stick my toes between two more rocks, and so gradually worked my way across, but I could see nothing of Somerset, and decided that he had been drowned, and went off to avenge him on the alligator. It took me some time to get my bruised and bleeding toes into the wet boots, during which time I kept continually looking over my shoulder to see if the alligator were going to make a land attack, and surprise me instead of my surprising him. I knew he was very near me, for the island smelled as strongly of musk as a cigar-shop smells of tobacco; but when I crawled up on him he was still on his point of sand, and sound asleep. I had a very good chance at seventy yards, but I was greedy, and wanted to come closer, and as I was crawling along, gathering thorns and briers by the way, I startled about fifty birds, and the alligator flopped over again, and left nothing behind him but a few tracks on the land and a muddy streak in the water. It was a great deal of trouble for a very little of alligator; but I was more or less consoled on my return to find that Somerset was still alive, and seated on the same bank from which we had both started, though at a point fifty yards farther down-stream. He was engaged in counting out damp Bank-of-England notes on his bare knee, and blowing occasional blasts down the barrel of his rifle, which had dragged him and itself to the bottom of the river before the current tossed them both back on the shore.
A HALT AT TRINIDAD
The two days of rest at the ranch of Dr. Pazo had an enervating effect upon our mules, and they moved along so slowly on the day following that we had to feel our way through the night for several hours before we came to the hut where we were to sleep. Griscom and I had lost ourselves on the mountain-side, and did not overtake the others until long after they had settled themselves in the compound. They had been too tired when they reached it to do anything more after falling off their mules, and we found them stretched on the ground in the light of a couple of fluttering pine torches, with cameras and saddle-bags and carbines scattered recklessly about, and the mules walking over them in the darkness. A fire in the oven shone through the chinks in the kitchen wall, and showed the woman of the house stirring something in a caldron with one hand and holding her sleeping child on her hip with the other, while the daughters moved in and out of the shadow, carrying jars on their heads and bundles of fodder for the animals. It looked like a gypsy encampment. We sent Emilio back with a bunch of pine torches to find the pack-mules, and we could see his lighted torch blazing far up the trail that we had just descended, and lighting the rocks and trees on either side of him.
There was only room for one of us to sleep inside the hut that night, and as Griscom had a cold, that privilege was given to him; but it availed him little, for when he seated himself on the edge of the bull-hide cot and began to pull off his boots, five ghostly feminine figures sat upright in their hammocks and studied his preparations with the most innocent but embarrassing curiosity. So, after waiting some little time for them to go to sleep again, he gave up any thought of making himself more comfortable, and slept in his boots and spurs.