56 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



for each skin, for they estimated that each one ate as 

 many as five sheep. Many were killed and a big pile of 

 skins sent up to Buenos Aires to sell, but they only realized 

 about 25 cents on a skin, so they had temporarily stopped 

 paying bounties. 



Next morning our horses acted like new ones, and we 

 proceeded rapidly, coming about noon opposite a large 

 laguna, where we stopped a day to collect plants, skins, 

 etc. After lunch each man took a different direction, 

 bent on getting some sort of game. Late in the afternoon 

 when all of us except Shumway had come in, we heard 

 him hallooing so vigorously, that we knew he had shot 

 himself or something. It proved to be a guanaco which 

 he had dropped a couple of miles out from the camp. 

 Taking a tent pole along, we all went out and saw a fine 

 young buck guanaco, looking slender and graceful even 

 as he lay. It did not take long to eviscerate him and tie 

 him on the tent pole. Then I went to catch the horses 

 and feed them before it grew dark. Finishing this I went 

 out to see what had become of the boys, and found they 

 were toiling along a few rods at a time, swearing that the 

 guanaco was not slender but "as big as an elephant." 

 Finally he was in camp, but it was too late to do more 

 with him, so he was put in the wagon for the night and 

 we got supper and turned in. Next morning we took 

 off the skin for a museum mount, and cut up the meat 

 which amounted to about one hundred and fifty pounds; 

 and by hanging it up to cool every night and wrapping 

 it in burlaps by day it lasted us for a fortnight, tasting 

 very much like venison. 



These animals, appearing much like antelopes except 

 for their long necks, are the South American representa- 

 tives of the camel family, and in herds of from ten to fifty 

 range all over the Patagonian pampa. The Spanish con- 

 quistadors found them domesticated among the native 

 tribes along the Andes; being used, under the name of 



