YEGUA ROSADA 



THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES 53 



ventured to come near. This is a trick that is very rare even 

 among the most untamable and vicious horses, which, althouah 

 they will kick a man on foot, will seldom do so when he\ 

 mounted. 



Then there was the Old Zaino, a melancholy animal of the 

 sardonic school. He was the worst of all the horses. I remember 

 once Burbury making me laugh very 

 much by saying in a moment of 

 indignation: "You haven't been a 

 colt these thirty years, you ever- 

 green son of a buckjumper ! " This 

 horse had a way of coming to stand- 

 still in the very centre of the troop 

 on the march, and, after regarding 

 us with a patient but baleful eye, he 

 would solemnly buck all his cargo 



off and attempt to kick it to pieces. At one time he was used as 

 a riding-horse, having, indeed, a turn for speed, but his paces 

 were so rough and his trick of rearing as one was mounting so 

 uncomfortable that we were compelled to make him one of the 

 cargueros. 



But perhaps the horse that caused us the most amusement was 

 the Asulejo. He was a sort of uncertain dapple-grey in colour, 

 and to look at him you would say that a more quiet, lazy, say- 

 nothing-to-anybody little bit of old age did not crop the grass in 

 Patagonia. Often and often did we feel sorry for that little animal 

 and lighten his load. One afternoon, as we came along with the 

 waggon, he seemed to be thinking more and more of the past, of 

 the time when he had the power to make his riders sit tight and 

 used to be a creature of some truculence. He had upon his back 

 a light cargo of cooking-pots, and it took the undivided attention 

 of one man to keep him at a walk. We fixed our camp upon an 

 open plateau of coarse grass and thorn beside a lagoon in a shallow 

 hollow. The cargoes were pulled off and the cook of the night 

 made a grateful smoke ascend. I took a shot-gun and went after 

 some geese for the morrow's breakfast. It was, perhaps, an hour 

 and a half later, and a good league from camp, that I heard the 



