THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES 45 



where it winds through the marshes. In the night the dogs began 



to bark, for alion came into camp. We could hear it moving by 



the dead camp-fire among the pots and pans. Burbury fired" his 



revolver in its direction ; he was sleeping on the outside of the 



tent This morning we have found the lion's lair, twenty yards 



up in the rock above 



our camp. Fritz said 



last night, ' And if you 



hear me cry out, it is 



the lion, he zomp on 



me,' 



" Fritz is very jocu- 

 lar sometimes : ' Aha, 

 my little horse, he 

 zomp ! ' and ' Mine little 

 bitch, you go and catch 

 a guanaco.' To-night 



he was roasting an os- peus co^color puma 



trich ^^^ and it ex- 

 ploded and shot him all over with yellow yolk. He remarked, ' He 

 is goot, this ^^%, but he smell a bit of skunk.' 



" October 13. — Mending waggon, no wood. At ten o'clock 

 waggon mended but needed a rest in the sun till the hide of 

 guanaco we had bound it with should dry. So I decided to take 

 to-day as our Sunday and march to-morrow. Burbury is making 

 a plum-duff Served out tobacco this morning. 



" Mock Sunday and at rest, a time for dreaming. Away at 

 home the trees are browning. How one's heart turns to them and 

 dreams of them ! The men born out here wonder how we can 

 look forward to the happiness of going home, perhaps for the sight 

 of some village church hidden in English lanes and fields. Half 

 the charm of this life we are living out here lies in thinking 

 of our return to the land that gives us all comfort and a silent 

 welcome of green springs. Went out to-day after the lion and 

 found tracks, but the ground was too hard for following them 

 up. He lives in a valley of grey dead bush. As we went away 

 from the dead guanaco yesterday, a condor {Sarcorhamphus 



