AN INDIAN HUNTER. 
37 
brown streak through the green. A few huts 
stood on a little knoll, rough shelters with a 
palm leaf thatch : and some brown children 
played about, whilst a thin spiral of blue smoke 
rose unwavering on the still air. We passed 
the huts as we went for an evening stroll up the 
clearing, and a pretty native girl smiled up at 
us as she bent over a cooking pot on the open 
fire. 
We had seen the figure of a man, evidently 
in charge of the woodcutters, watching our 
arrival, and something in his upright carriage 
and easy air had aroused our curiosity. As we 
got back to the little launch, which lay silently 
on the dark water of the bay, her restless heart¬ 
beat stilled for the night, he moved nearer. The 
one member of our party who could speak 
Spanish fluently, an Irishman who had been in 
Uruguay since he was a boy, overheard him say : 
4 Look at those foreign greenhorns : I shall go 
and make fools of them. 5 ’ On that he sauntered 
down the sandy slope to greet us, his hands in 
his pockets, his slouch hat well on one side. He 
was dressed poorly, in dungaree trousers and a 
loose shirt open at the throat, and was a grizzled 
man of about sixty. 
The conversation began, and we were amused 
to see interest and friendliness creep into his 
face, and soon he and the Irishman were deep 
in talk. He spoke in an educated voice, and it 
was strange to hear it in this corner of the 
