CRISTIANO : A HORSE 121 



until it would discharge itself in a resounding snort 

 — ^the warning or alarm note of the wild horse. 



One day I remarked to my gaucho friend that 

 his blue-eyed Cristiano amused me more than any 

 other horse I knew. He was just like a child, and 

 when tired of the monotony of standing tethered 

 to the palenque he would start playing sentinel. 

 He would imagine it was war - time or that an 

 invasion of Indians was expected, and every cry 

 of a lapwing or other alarm-giving bird, or the 

 sight of a horseman in the distance would cause 

 him to give a warning. But the other horses would 

 not join in the game ; they let him keep watch 

 and wheel about this way and that, spying or 

 pretending to spy something, and blowing his loud 

 trmnpet, without taking any notice. They simply 

 dozed with heads down, occasionally switching off 

 the flies with their tails or stamping a hoof to get 

 them off their legs, or rubbing their tongues over 

 the bits to make a rattling sound with the little 

 iron rollers on the bridle-bar. 



He laughed and said I was mistaken, that 

 Cristiano was not amusing himself with a game he 

 had invented. He was born wild and belonged to 

 a district not many leagues away but where there 

 was an extensive marshy area impracticable for 

 hunting on horseback. Here a band of wild horses, 

 a small remnant of an immense troop that had 

 formerly existed in that part, had been able to 

 keep their freedom down to recent years. As they 

 were frequently hunted in dry seasons when the 



