92 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



a much traveled road, where it was very hard to distinguish 

 our horses' tracks from those of others who had traveled 

 incidentally. After a couple of miles of this they turned 

 off and started across a big barren flat utterly destitute of 

 vegetation. Here we soon perceived that there were tracks 

 of a sixth or extra horse with those of our horses. We 

 trailed them three or four miles across this flat, then over 

 a hill into a narrow gulch, where we found them entirely 

 secluded and prevented from wandering by high walls 

 on two sides and vertical walled gulches on the other sides. 

 The extra horse was not there. Our horses were all tired 

 out and lying down instead of feeding as usual. It was 

 perfectly clear that they had been driven away and hidden. 

 Stealing is out of the question in Patagonia, for no one can 

 dispose of a stolen horse; as when a horse is traded, sold, 

 or given away, the possessor must go before the Justice of 

 the Peace and first prove his ownership by showing the 

 bill of sale, which is then O. K.ed, a stamp affixed, and 

 transferred along with the horse. 



The trick, however, is to hide the horses of "green- 

 horns" in the country, and then sit down and wait for a 

 reward to be offered for finding them. It usually works; 

 the traveler having to offer a higher and higher reward until 

 they think he has reached his limit, finally gets his animals 

 back after paying a third to a half of their value; so we 

 considered ourselves lucky to have been able to track our 

 horses and get them back without further delay. 



But it was noon when we got back into camp, and one 

 o'clock when the horses were fed and hitched into the 

 wagon, and there were still twenty-five miles to go over a 

 hilly road. Billy said to me "ride ahead and get a good 

 corral to put the horses in and have plenty of feed ready 

 for them. We will make Comodoro tonight." I pushed 

 ahead on a lope and soon was prepared for them. Then I 

 sat down to wait, expecting them to arrive about eight or 



