104 Idle Days in Patagonta. 
had not hitherto made any display of this kind of 
talent. The Indians‘took him by the hands and 
drew him out of the water, then, surrounding him, 
walked him away to the corral, and from that 
moment Damian disappeared from the valley ; for 
ona search being made afterwards, not even his 
bones, picked clean by vultures and foxes, could be 
found. 
After seeing the last of their comrade, and keep- 
ing themselves afloat with the least possible exertion, 
Marcos and Ventura were carried down the stream 
by the swift current till they gained a small island 
in the middle of the river. With the drift-wood 
found on it they constructed a raft, binding the 
sticks together with long grass and rushes, and on 
it they floated down stream to the inhabited portion 
of the valley, and so eventually made their escape. 
The reason why my host told me this story 
instead of one of his usual love intrigues or gambling 
adventures was because that very day he had seen 
Damian once more, just returned to the settlement 
where he had so long been forgotten by everyone. 
Thirty years of exposure to the sun and wind of the 
desert had made him so brown, while in manner 
and speech he had grown so like an Indian, that 
the poor amateur savage found it hard at first to 
establish his identity. His relations had, however, 
been poor, and had long passed away, leaving 
nothing for him to inherit, so that there was no 
reason to discredit his strange story. He related 
that when the Indians drew him from the water and 
