230 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



A bull, if you wound him and he charges, will charge but once, 

 and if he misses you, will pass on. But a cow is quite another 

 affair. She will return to the charge again and again, and will 

 kneel down in order to horn her antagonist. She is at least twice 

 as formidable an antagonist as a bull. 



The next time I saw wild cattle was once again upon Punta 

 Bandera, and upon this occasion I had my first shot. It was early 

 in the morning when I made out the point with the glasses, feeding 

 about half-way up a spur of the mountain-side. Determined this 

 time not to be disappointed, a whole day was spent in a series of 

 very careful manoeuvres. All went well until I entered a patch of 

 dry dead growth, so thick as to make it impossible to move with- 

 out giving audible indication of one's presence. While lying 

 among this stuff debating what course to pursue, to my delight a 

 black and white bull, evidently the leader of the herd, rose, grunted 

 once or twice, and, followed by the whole of his companions, began 

 to come towards me. He got to within 150 yards, and there 

 coming upon the edge of the dry stuff among which I lay hidden, 

 turned tail and moved slowly in the opposite direction. To shoot 

 through the undergrowth, which was about five feet high, was, of 

 course, impossible. Yet there was no chance of the animals, while 

 roving in search of pasture, reaching any better position with regard 

 to me, while any movement on my part to approach them must 

 have been through the dead bushes. There was nothing for it 

 then but to stand up and take the chance of a shot. A twig 

 snapped in my rising and the herd charged furiously away. A red 

 bull, which had travelled higher than his fellows upon the slope of 

 the mountain, gave very much the best chance as he raced along 

 nearly broadside on. 



He turned a complete somersault to the shot and lay so still 

 that I thought 1 had killed him. As I went towards him, however, 

 he scrambled to his feet and galloped after the retreating herd, and 

 although upon their tracks for the greater part of the evening, at no 

 point on the way, nor at the spot where he had fallen, did I find any 

 traces of blood. I therefore concluded that he had put his foot in a 

 hole, and that I had missed him clean Since my return I have 

 heard the end of the history. The red bull was found dead quite 



