THE KINGDOM OF THE WINDS 119 



attitude, his dogs were definitely good ones. He owned a big 

 brindled dog, a small black one and a couple of yellow pups. 

 Como No had a habit of riding far ahead of the general troop of 

 men and horses, his figure making a far-off outline etched in black 

 against the cold blue horizon of the pampa. Sometimes, when he 

 lost sight of us for any length of time, he would burn a bush to give 

 us our direction by the smoke, and we would follow on, driving 

 the pack-horses and those free ones which were not being used 

 either for riding or cargo at the time. Presently, perhaps, when 

 rounding a low thicket, we would come suddenly upon him, squatted 

 on his haunches beside a dead ostrich, from which he had stripped 

 the feathers. These feathers, though far inferior to those of the 

 African ostrich, or of Rhea americana, are worth anything from 

 two to four dollars. 



As he rode forward again, his dogs would range on either side 

 of him. By-and-by they would again start an ostrich or a 

 guanaco, and pull it down within 500 or 600 yards. Where- 

 upon Como No would ride up, drive them off, kill and cut up the 

 quarry, giving the hounds the liver, strip the feathers if it happened 

 to be an ostrich, and then mount and ride on once more. This 

 performance would be repeated over and over again during the 

 course of the march, until, before we saw the last of him, his 

 saddle had become an enormous bunch of feathers, from out of 

 which his body and shoulders protruded in a quaint manner. 



At night these dogs, however, were a terrible nuisance. They 

 would forage about the camp for food, and pull down the meat we 

 had placed on bushes and devour it. Such was eventually the 

 fate of the last remnants of the mutton we had with us, and the 

 loss was all the harder as we knew that the stolen mutton was the 

 last we were destined to taste for months. After that we lived on 

 lean guanaco. 



By this date we had gradually climbed to some 1200 feet 

 above the sea-level, and the temperature was extremely cold. Our 

 reindeer-beds became a great comfort. 



The 5th began with an hour of welcome sun, but it passed 

 only too soon, and the wind rose more piercingly cold than ever. 

 It penetrated to one's very bones. We, however, made seven 



