THE BORDER VALLEYS OF THE EASTERN ANDES 85 



present and has never had a sick day in his life. Those outside 

 laugh uproariously. The contador throws down two soles and 

 the drunkard is pushed back into the sweating crowd, jostled 

 right and left, and jeered by all his neighbors as he slinks away 

 grumbling. 



Another Indian seems strangely shy. He scarcely raises his 

 voice above a whisper. He too is a faena Indian. The contador 

 finds fault. 



"Why didn't you come last month when I sent for you?" 



The Indian fumbles his cap, shuffles his feet, and changes his 

 coca cud from one bulging cheek to the other before he can an- 

 swer. Then huskily: 



"I started, Senor, but my woman overtook me an hour after- 

 ward and said that one of the ewes had dropped a lamb and 

 needed care." 



' ' But your woman could have tended it ! " 



"No, Senor, she is sick." 



"How, then, could she have overtaken you?" he is asked. 



' ' She ran only a little way and then shouted to me. ' ' 



"And what about the rest of the month?" persists the contador. 



"The other lambs came, Senor, and I should have lost them 

 all if I had left." 



The contador seems at the end of his complaint. The Indian 

 promises to work overtime. His difficulties seem at an end, but 

 the superintendent looks at his old record. 



"He always makes the same excuse. Last year he was three 

 weeks late." 



So the poor shepherd is fined a sol and admonished that his 

 lands will be given to some one else if he does not respond more 

 promptly to his patron's call for work. He leaves behind him a 

 promise and the rank mixed smell of coca and much unwashed 

 woolen clothing. 



It is not alone at the work that they grumble. There is ma- 

 laria in the lower valleys. Some of them return to their lofty 

 mountain homes prostrated with the unaccustomed heat and alter- 

 nately shaking with chills and burning with fever. Without aid 



