I then moved to another room near the stable, with a newly arrived Italian who knew no Spanish nor English, also an Irishman just arrived. They could not speak to each other. The Irishman slept on the floor every night, and poured kerosene all over him to keep insects away. One day he poisoned five pigs, giving them the dip-water to drink. He had few clothes. He would turn them inside out, and often had three pairs of trousers and two shirts on.
One day the Boss was out: the men were taming some wild colts in the corral. I took French leave and went. I got on five. None had had a saddle on before or even been handled. We lassoed them, pulled them down and put on the bridle. Then five men held a long rope and one put on the native saddle, with stirrups big enough to get your toes in. Then they tied a red handkerchief round my head. I mounted gently but quickly. Then the rope was taken off and away the colt went as fast as possible, with one man on each side to shove you either way, all the time bucking and plunging. I did not fall, but one stirrup broke. One laid down and would not move. It tried to bite everyone. When they go fast and buck at the same time it is very hard to stick on.
On the 25th of May, the great holiday in this country, I went to an estancia to see some friends. On my way back we had to cross a deep river. The coachman drove across, but one wheel went into a big hole and the jerk sent me out on my head, where the wheel passed over my hair, missing my head by inches. I was senseless. A crowd of women came and began weeping—they thought I was dead—then I was taken in a procession to the chemist, who sent me to a hospital, where I found my collar bone broken. I did nothing for three weeks.
This estancia is a splendid one for learners, because there is a little of everything. Once I had a month with the threshing machine, sleeping out with the mosquitoes, and getting meat nearly raw for food; but a lot of money can be made from the harvest.
Then, after a few weeks' holiday to England, we came back, and I went down south with my brother to sow alfalfa seed. We had a caravan on wheels, and learned how to plough and sow. We went to a camp race-meeting, where every estancia has its own tent, there is racing all day and dancing at night.
I often look back upon these jolly times. Work was exacted with anything but kindness, but the life was simple and very healthy, and many pleasant reminiscences are talked over when it is my luck to join others around the camp fire before falling to sleep with nothing but a bullock's head as a pillow and a "recado" as a blanket and the glorious, starry sky above one.
