MOGEEl FLEETNESS AND ENDURANCE 151* 



Rica) noted for his prowess in bunting. One hot afternoon he begged 

 relief from his tasks, saying the spirit of catcliing a deer had hold on 

 him; and he was excused on condition that the deer be brought entire 

 to the rancho. Two hours later he was seen driving in a full-grown 

 buck; ou approacliing the rancho the territied animal turned this way 

 and that, describing long arcs in wild efforts to avoid the human habi- 

 tation; yet the hunter kept beyond it, heading it off at every turn and 

 gradually working it nearer, until, at a sudden turn, he was able to rush 

 ou it; whereupon he caught it, threw it over his shoulders, and ran in to 

 the rancho with the animal still struggling and kicking off its over- 

 heated hoofs. 



Senor Encinas himself, with Don Andres Noriega and several other 

 attaches, vouch for the catching of a horse by a Seri hunter in still 

 more expeditious fashion: one of the horses belonging to the rancho 

 was exceptionally fat, and hence exceptionally tempting to the Seri 

 band (and at the same time worthless to the vaqueros); the chief 

 begged for it persistently until, wearieil by his importunities, the 

 ranchero offered the horse to the band ou condition that a single one 

 of them should catch it within a fixed distance (about 200 yards) from 

 the gateway of the corral — and the offer was promptly accepted. With 

 the view of making the test of tleetness fair, a vaquero was called iu to 

 frightcTi the horse and start him running around the interior of the 

 corral, while a boy stood by to drop the bars at the proper moment, the 

 Indian standing ready outside the gateway; when the animal had 

 gained its best speed the bars were dropped and it bolted for the open 

 plains — but before the L'00-yard limit was reached the hunter had over- 

 taken it, leaped on its withers, caught it by the jaw in one hand and 

 the foretop in the other, and thereby thrown it in such manner as to 

 break its neck. Knowing of these and other instances, L. K. Thompson, 

 of Hermosillo, undertook arrangements for publicly exhibiting Seri 

 runners as deer catchers at different expositions during the nineties; 

 but his arrangements failed, chiefly because of the anticipated (and 

 pi'obably underestimated) difficulty of taming the Seri sufficiently for 

 the purpose. 



About 1893, Senor Encinas and several attendants left Oosta Eiea 

 one morning for Hermosillo, leaving at the rancho, among others, a 

 Seri matron with ,a sick child nearly a year old; in the evening (as 

 they learned later) the child was worse, and the matron took the trail 

 about dusk, in the hope of finding a cure iu the white man's touch or 

 other medicine — and at dawn next morning she was at ]\Iolino del 

 Encinas, 17 leagues (nearly 45 miles) away, with her helpless child 

 and a peace offering in the form of a hare, which she had run down and 

 cauglit in the course of the journey. And the matrons, with children 

 astride their hips and water-filled ollas balanced on their heads, and 

 all their goods and chattels piled on their backs, habitually traverse 

 Desierto Encinas from the sea to Gosta Rica (some 30 miles), or from 

 Costa Rica to the sea, in a night. 



