86 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



and respected their fair dealing, which was not true of their 

 relations with the Argentine government: so these men 

 prophesied (and this I heard repeated several times) that 

 within ten years most of the Boers would be back in South 

 Africa. Then we had our supper and pledged the new 

 little Ventner, and our party broke up early, as no one 

 likes to ride this broken country after dark, but not until 

 I had accepted an invitation to ride next day to David 

 Ventner's to see some fossils there. 



In the morning we all went to the hill for three hours, 

 after which I took Colorado and rode to the home of Durk 

 Ventner arriving just as the wagon with Mrs. David Vent- 

 ner (who had been staying with her sister) was starting 

 home. Before they went, however, I had to stop for the tea 

 and a chat. I then started after the wagon, catching up 

 in time to take tea at three more houses before we left 

 the settlements, and went up on the pampa for some ten 

 miles, finally dropping into another canyon where the 

 David Ventners lived. 



Going down this hill the driver of the wagon and four 

 mules did some fancy driving, for the wagon brake gave 

 way and the mules went down the hill on the dead run to 

 keep out from under the wagon, and there was no chance 

 to turn off the trail. Finally he landed the whole outfit 

 in a mass of bushes at the bottom with nothing worse 

 than a good shaking up. It was half-past one when we 

 arrived and after a bite of lunch Mr. Ventner took me out 

 "a little way" (six or more miles) to a place where we found 

 another fossil forest, but on a very much smaller scale 

 than that at Port Visser. We collected some samples, 

 and he volunteered to haul a 400-pound section of a fine 

 tree trunk in to Comodoro Rivadavia to be shipped to the 

 College later. Then we went another "little way" to 

 the site of some Indian graves, where a burial of three or 

 four men had been made all in one grave on the brink of 

 a ledge, but it had been opened. There were also just under 



