Chief Mechanic 



He Can Repair Anythim 

 Just Climb Mountain 

 And Holler 'Sam' 



W. H, SHIPPEN, Jr., 

 Star Staff Correspondent. 



BARILOCHE.-It's an illusion, of 

 course, but I get the idea that 

 Patagonia is practically knee deep 

 m Texans. * 

 For instance, there's Samuel Wag- 

 ner, the Patagonian mechanic," a 

 jack of all trades— mule skinner 



Gaucho, fishing ,. v . 



guide, boleadora S^' -'^M 

 artist, truck "\/ : 

 driver and 

 rancher. 



"But my real ,, 

 profession is j§L v 

 Patagonian me- '^m^m- 

 c h a n i c," Sam ■," . 

 said. 



"What's a 

 Patagonian me- 

 chanic?" 



"Wal, a Pata- 

 gonian mechanic 

 carries his ma- 

 chine shop in his 



hip pocket — a W. H. Shippen, Jr. 



pair of pliers and 2 yards of baling 

 wire. He can make anything go, 

 from a sewing machine to a balky 

 mule. If you get stuck, call on Sam 

 Wagner." 

 4 "How?" 



"Just climb a mountain and holler 

 *Sam!' Somebody will pass the word 

 along!" 



Sam, 6 foot 2, raw, boned, homely 

 weather beaten, good natured and 

 keen on the scent of a joke, is one 

 of the most popular men in a wide 

 region where characters stand out 

 like landmarks. 



"Everybody likes Sam," an old ! 

 acquaintance said; "he has no ene- 

 mies— none to speak of, that is, and I 

 they're the sort any man should be 1 

 proud of!" 



Brothers Have Cleared Out. 



Sam arrived in Patagonia at the 

 age of 7. It's hard for him to speak 

 English, now that he's 40 and more 

 but the words he remembers betrav 

 his origin. Sam has nine brothers, 

 most of whom have returned to the 

 Western United States, and are 

 doing well, but Patagonia is good 

 enough for Sam. 



The big Texan knows every fish 

 in the Lake Nahuel Huapi region 

 -by first name; he knows the favor- 

 ite haunts of land-locked salmon 

 the swift water where rainbows lurk 

 and the riffles likeliest to produce 

 a speckled trout. He helped to in- 

 troduce the trout from North 

 America. 



The other day, when we called at 

 a local estancia, Sam offered to take 

 us to a nearby stream and show us 

 a fish "We'll just hook one and 1 

 throw him back," Sam said, "the 

 season's almost— but not quite— 

 over, especially for fishermen who 

 have come so far. The trout are 

 spawning now, but I know where a 

 few hang out which haven't changed 

 their spawning season yet " it 

 seems that the trout sometimes 

 confuse their spawning periods 

 when transported from the Northern 

 to the Southern Hemisphere. 



We drove across the grazing lands 

 to the banks of a limpid, swift-flow- 

 ing stream. Sam made one cast and 

 reeled m his spoon— nothing hap- 

 pened. On the second cast a 2- 

 pound speckled trout took the lure 

 Sam played the fish out of the rap- 

 ids, landed him, took the hook from I 

 ms mouth and held him up for a 



Then he tossed the 



photograph, 

 fish back. 

 "We use that size for bait!" Sam 

 ^ ,3 y 7 -^ar-old daughter 

 wouldn t fool with a small one like 

 that. I had to make her quit catch- 

 ing 14-pounders, though, after one 

 pulled her into the creek!" 

 Refuses Money as Guide. 

 Sam refused to take any money 

 for guiding us. He said he got fun 

 enough out of watching me cast a 

 light spoon to repay him for the 

 trouble, 



"Well, then, take something for 

 your daughter," I said, "put it in her 

 savings bank— she seems to be a 

 better fisherman than you are." 



"That will go into her educational 

 fund, ' Sam said. "I want her to be 

 able to tell fish stories in three lan- 

 guages!" 



I offered 1 Sam a cigar. He stuck 

 it into his pocket. 



"I have a thousand cigars," Sam 

 said. "Everybody I take fishing 

 gives me a cigar. Four ambassadors 

 have given me cigars!" 



"Wait a minute," said Zoo Direc- 

 tor William M. Mann, "if you're ac- 

 customed to the cigars of ambassa- 

 dors, be careful of one a newspaper- 

 man gives you!" 



"That's all right," said Sam, "I 

 don't smoke!" 



Peaks Seen Far Away 

 As Waves Foam on Beach; 

 Water Keeps Its Dead 



By W. H. SHIPPEN, Jr., 



Star Staff Correspondent. 



BARILOCHE. — "Switzerland be- 

 fore the tourists moved in!" 



That's what travelers say of Lake 

 Nahuel Huapi and the surrounding 

 Andes, especially 

 during the off 

 season. 



Glittering pin- 

 nacles erne rged 

 from the morn- 

 ing mist today, 

 whitened to the 

 timber line by 

 last night's 

 snow. Across the 

 lake white caps 

 slashed at the 

 granite base of 

 the Andes. 



Just under the 

 windows of our 

 little Alpine ho- w - h. shippen, Jr. 

 tel waves come foaming on a rock- 

 strewn beach. The crests of moun- 

 tains 50, 60, 70 miles away, far over 

 the border in Chile, were etched 

 clean against the blue sky, or blotted 

 out by snow clouds. 



The lake, with its shifting moods 

 of color, was a study in itself — blue, 

 green, violet and 111 the clear shades 

 between, subject to the whim of 

 scudding cloud banks and the depth 

 of the sparkling water. The lake 

 can be cruel as well as beautiful. 

 Its ice-cold waters are reluctant to 

 give up the bodies of its victims. 



Bodies Suspended in Lake. 



Fisherman drowned in sudden 

 storms, bathers caught by cramps, 

 or persons unable to swim who have 

 fallen into deep water from time 

 to time — their bodies are still in the 

 lake; not many of them, it's true, 

 since they represent the usual casu- 

 alties of a sparcely-settled water- 

 front community, but enough to im- 

 part a certain eerie quality to the 

 water. The body of a drowned 

 person finds a level 30 or 40 feet 

 below the surface and the icy water 

 prevents decomposition — the chem- 

 ical process which ordinarily brings 

 a corpse to the surface. But who 

 brought this subject up, anyhow? 



Last night a moon approaching j 

 the full imparted an unearthly radi- 

 ance to the snow-clad heights. A 

 storm blew over the lake, shutting 

 off the white light as suddenly as 

 the closing of a door. The wind 

 struck hard against a grove of old 

 cedars already bent and torturously 

 growing away from the prevailing 

 gales. 



On stormy nights in spring and 

 fall one hears faint detonations, 

 like distant blasts of dynamite, from 

 far-off Cerro Tronador— Thunder 

 Mountain. The echoes can reach 

 70 miles after wind and thaws send 

 avalanches roaring down into 

 glacier-filled ravines. The early 

 Jesuits believed the thundering was 

 caused by volcanic action within the 

 mountain. 



Crevasses Buried Climbers. 



Crevasses in Cerro Tronador are 

 the tombs of three famous Italian- 

 Alpine climbers who failed sev-^ 

 eral years ago in an attempt to ; 

 scale the heights. Only three men' 

 have won to the top of the moun- 

 tain, one an Argentine and the 

 other two from Europe. The granite 

 mountains rise sheer some 12,000 

 feet above the surface of the lake. 



Crowned by cathedral-like spires 

 and rock castles, the peaks trail 

 plumes of snow in a gale. Low 

 clouds flow at the mountain facades 

 and stream up like inverted cata- 

 racts 



The timber line begins at our 

 hotel on the lake. In one direction 

 stretch dun-colored hills, crowned 

 by rim rock— typical "Texas Pan- 

 handle country," where sheep graze 

 in the valleys and outcroppings of 

 basalt are weird freaks of erosion. 

 In the other direction, toward the 

 Andes and Chile, natural forests 

 cluster at the base of high granite 

 peaks. Just at this season a native 

 tree called "niri" is turning russet 

 and gold in the autumn frosts. It 

 grows in great quantity and forms 

 a vivid border between the white 

 above and the green below. 



The tourist trade is growing here. 

 Hotelkeepers mine gold from "them 

 thar hills!" 



