THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES 51 



scented yellow flowers where the waggon lay, all hands had been 

 hard at work sewing up stores into the skins of guanacos, which I 

 had killed for food on the march. The proper arranging of packs 

 for horses is a very difficult matter ; shape, size and weight have 

 all to be considered. Each cargo should be divided into three 

 portions, the balance of the two sides being carefully adjusted, and 

 the centre piece, that which surmounts the pack-saddle, should not 

 be more than twelve inches high. There should be at least two 

 rugs and a sheepskin underneath the saddle. As we had not 

 enough sheepskins, the pelts of guanaco were in some cases made 

 to serve our purpose. Several different forms of pack-saddle have 

 each of them points to recommend them, but to my mind the form 

 used on the cattle-plains of North America is preferable to any 

 other, and is more easily loaded, as the horse can be led between 

 the two side -packs, which are hung along upon hooks attached to 

 the wooden frame of the saddle. The whole cargo is best kept in 

 place by means of a couple of cinches or girths. This form of 

 pack is, however, but little used in the Ar-^entine Republic. With 

 such pack-saddles Hahansen and I, at a later date, travelled one 

 hundred and fifty miles, during which it was not necessary to stop 

 more than once or twice to readjust the cargoes. 



During the whole of our subsequent wanderings, the horses 

 entered so much into our lives that some descriptive remarks 

 having regard to the peculiarities of each will perhaps not be out 

 of place. Any one who has been thrown very much into a close 

 association with horses can hardly have failed to notice the 

 extraordinary friendships which these animals not infrequently 

 form between themselves. 



Among our troop there was a pale bronze-coloured horse to 

 which the Spanish language assigns the term Gateado. This 

 creature's whole life was spent in close attendance upon the largest 

 horse in the iropilla, a piebald, called by us the Big Overo. The 

 Big Overo was a buck-jumper, and when we wanted to catch him, 

 he and the Gateado, his intimate, were wont to evade us together. If 

 we could catch the Big Overo by craft, the Gateado was as good 

 as captured also ; but if, unluckily, our first attempt upon the Big 

 Overo failed, both animals made a point of charging about the 



