i6o THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



Cordillera Into needles and peaks of red rock and virgin snow. The 

 plateau between the rivers we found to be an excellent game 

 country. Upon a fast horse the ground was good enough, though 

 rather too broken to admit of " running" young guanaco, one of 

 the finest and most exhilarating pastimes that I have ever enjoyed. 



There is an element in Patagonian hunting quite unique : so 

 much depends upon your horse. There were but two in all our 

 forty-seven which could be trusted to stand and not gallop off 

 when we fired. These two I trained myself on the way up from 

 Trelew to Colohuapi, and they were a great ease and comfort to 

 me. But to go shooting on a wild horse, then probably to find 

 your game in a bushless country, where you are quite unable to 

 shoot because you cannot tie up your mount, is a most disappointing- 

 affair. Also you have on many occasions to gallop down your 

 game — -if you hit it a little too far back, for instance. Wearier work 

 than chasing a wounded guanaco afoot over the bald and endless 

 ridges of the pampas, or up and down the steep unstable slides of a 

 bar7^anca, I do not know. 



With my trained horse the Cruzado, and the Little Zaino, all 

 that was necessary was just to drop to the ground — you could rein 

 up in the middle of a fast canter and slip off — the horse would stand 

 where you left him until you came for him again. There were 

 others, of course, who, if you loosed the cab^'esto, were off to camp 

 at a gallop, and where quickness is so important, they made sport 

 a little of a penance. 



But to return to our first visit to the Jeinemeni. In the cahadoii 

 we came upon a guanaco, and I stalked him. The bullet took 

 effect, and the poor beast plunged into the abyss below. W^e 

 followed him down a few hundred feet, but finding the way beset 

 with loose stones, and, consequently, on the raw bare cliff, rather 

 dangerous, we returned with much toil to our horses. It had taken 

 us one and three-quarter hours to climb five hundred feet. 



" Any horse, even that old P'ritz, is better than a man's own 

 legs," said Jones feelingly. Arrived in time — the fulness of time 

 — at the top of the cliff, we sat down and rested. As we were 

 doing so Jones perceived a cloud of dust uprising in the valley 

 and drew my attention to it. It was coming towards us, but we were 



