106 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



secretly hated. He joined a hunting-party going 

 towards the Atlantic coast, and after traveling 

 for some days with them his opportunity came, 

 when he secretly left them and made his way alone 

 to the Carmen. 



* ' And there he is, ' ' concluded Ventura, when he 

 had told the story, with undisguised contempt for 

 Damian in his tone, "an Indian and nothing less! 

 Does he imagine he can ever be like one of us 

 after living that life for thirty years? If Marcos 

 were alive, how he would laugh to see Damian 

 back again, sitting cross-legged on the floor, 

 solemn as a cacique, brown as old leather, and 

 calling himself a white man! Yet here he says 

 he will remain, and here amongst Christians he 

 will die. Fool, why did he not escape twenty 

 years ago, or, having remained so long in the 

 desert, why has he now come back where he is not 

 wanted ! ' ' 



Ventura was very unsympathetic, and appeared 

 to have no kindly feelings left for his old com- 

 panion-in-arms, but I was touched with the story 

 I had heard. There was something pathetic in 

 the life of that poor returned wanderer, an alien 

 now to his own fellow-townsmen, homeless amidst 

 the pleasant vineyards, poplar groves, and old 

 stone houses where he had first seen the light; 

 listening to the bells from the church tower as he 

 had listened to them in childhood, and perhaps for 

 the first time realizing in a dull vague kind of 

 way that it might never more be with him as it 



