THE PAMPAS OF PATAGONIA. 21 



him. It seemed, as far as I could judge, to be deep. 

 As to the chances of approach, I now saw some large 

 blocks of glacial detritus which covered the ground that 

 lay between me and the guanaco. My only plan 

 seemed to be to bring the hounds up under cover of 

 these in fact, to manage a stalk, taking the hounds with 

 me ! By this means I hoped to get them within one 

 hundred and fifty yards, but in the meantime must leave 

 my horse, for which it would be necessary to return later. 



When I reached the dogs, I found that Chichi had 

 gnawed through the cabresto with which I had tied her 

 up, but had fortunately remained near the horse instead 

 of following me. Having led the zaino as far as the 

 cover would permit, I fastened the hide rope to the 

 dogs' collars and commenced my stalk. A crouching 

 position took me to the first and largest rock, but my 

 next objective was a stone not four feet high. More- 

 over, Tom and Chichi did not understand stalking at 

 all, and as soon as I went down on hands and knees 

 they began to pull away from me. At length, by 

 assuming the historical attitude of the great enemy of 

 mankind, I arrived at the flat stone and found myself 

 within two hundred yards of the buck, which continued to 

 rest entirely undisturbed. I now noticed for the first time 

 that the buck was lying about the centre of a narrow 

 peninsula that jutted out for some little distance into 

 the pond. It, therefore, seemed likely that if the water 

 was as deep as it looked to be the guanaco would be 

 forced to break back, in which case when the chase 

 fairly began the dogs would start within one hundred 

 and fifty yards of him. 



After a moment's rest, taken to relieve the cramps hi 

 my arms and legs, I slipped both dogs and ran out at 



