THE BATTLE OF THE HORSES--(_continued_)
First march with pack-horses -- Difficulties -- Friendship
among horses -- The melancholy Zaino -- Revolt of an old
philosopher -- Shifting cargoes -- Reach River Chico --
Guanaco-shooting -- A glimpse of a puma -- Pumas and sheep
-- Arrival at Colohuapi -- Hospitality of pioneers -- The
value of horse-brands.
Morning (19th) came to us very grey with a pallid sun, and ushered in
the first day of the new system. We found it necessary to use sixteen
horses as _cargueros_ or pack-horses. In the early dawn we caught the
chosen animals, and tied them up to the smashed waggon. It is one of
the inconveniences of pampa travel that bushes strong enough to hold a
horse which is at all restive are few and far between. In that
particular spot there was absolutely nothing in the way of a bush,
however small, which could by any chance have borne the strain.
[Illustration: READY TO BE CARGOED]
So we tied them up to the waggon and they immediately proceeded to tie
themselves and their headropes into still more complicated knots: they
made cats' cradles, reef-knots, sliding nooses, a dozen knots one knew
and a dozen one had never dreamed of. Of the sixteen horses, half had
never had a cargo on their backs until that day; we had meant to break
them in, but the waggon succumbed too soon to the hardships of the
way, and before we had had time to carry out our intentions.
During the three days we remained in camp among the strong-scented
yellow flowers where the waggon lay, all hands had been hard at work
sewing up stores into the skins of guanacos, which I had killed for
food on the march. The proper arranging of packs for horses is a very
difficult matter; shape, size and weight have all to be considered.
Each cargo should be divided into three portions, the balance of the
two sides being carefully adjusted, and the centre piece, that which
surmounts the pack-saddle, should not be more than twelve inches high.
There should be at least two rugs and a sheepskin underneath the
saddle. As we had not enough sheepskins, the pelts of guanaco were in
some cases made to serve our purpose. Several different forms of
pack-saddle have each of them points to recommend them, but to my mind
the form used on the cattle-plains of North America is preferable to
any other, and is more easily loaded, as the horse can be led between
the two side-packs, which are hung along upon hooks attached to the
wooden frame of the saddle. The whole cargo is best kept in place by
means of a couple of _cinches_ or girths. This form of pack is,
however, but little used in the Argentine Republic. With such
pack-saddles Hähansen and I, at a later date, travelled one hundred
and fifty miles, during which it was not necessary to stop more than
once or twice to readjust the cargoes.
During the whole of our subsequent wanderings, the horses entered so
much into our lives that some descriptive remarks having regard to the
peculiarities of each will perhaps not be out of place. Any one who
has been thrown very much into a close association with horses can
hardly have failed to notice the extraordinary friendships which these
animals not infrequently form between themselves.
Among our troop there was a pale bronze-coloured horse to which the
Spanish language assigns the term _Gateado_. This creature's whole
life was spent in close attendance upon the largest horse in the
_tropilla_, a piebald, called by us the Big Overo. The Big Overo was a
buck-jumper, and when we wanted to catch him, he and the Gateado, his
intimate, were wont to evade us together. If we could catch the Big
Overo by craft, the Gateado was as good as captured also; but if,
unluckily, our first attempt upon the Big Overo failed, both animals
made a point of charging about the camp and frightening all the other
horses. On one occasion, when it was judged well to give the Big Overo
a lesson, Hughes _bolassed_ him and after a gallop of a couple of
hundred yards he came to the ground in an inextricable tangle.[5] The
Gateado remained by his side and allowed himself to be caught without
any struggle. After a time the intimacy between these horses grew to
such a pitch that we gradually dispensed with a rope for the Gateado,
knowing that if the Big Overo was once tied up his friend would stand
beside him and allow us to put on his cargo quietly. This odd
friendship finally reached such an extreme that when the Big Overo was
_sogaed_ out for the night, the Gateado was in the habit of giving up
his hours of feeding in order to satisfy the claims of friendship. The
feeling was mutual, for the Big Overo manifested almost as many proofs
of his preference.
[Illustration: MRS TRELEW]
Another case of friendship was struck up between two of the
_madrinas_, but this was an essentially feminine affection, all upon
one side. The Rosada would follow the Trelew mare, who was in foal,
and would hardly allow her to feed in peace. Mrs. Trelew, as the men
nicknamed the round-barrelled old black mare, objected very strongly
to the advances of her admirer, and once they had a regular quarrel
owing to Mrs. Trelew kicking the Rosada with such force as to nearly
break her ribs, which the latter rather resented. The Rosada was a
vicious unbacked brute within five yards of whose heels it was unsafe
to approach, and she, in common with the long-maned Little Zaino,
acquired the execrable habit of attempting to kick any one who on
horseback ventured to come near. This is a trick that is very rare
even among the most untamable and vicious horses, which, although they
will kick a man on foot, will seldom do so when he is mounted.
[Illustration: YEGUA ROSADA]
Then there was the Old Zaino, a melancholy animal of the sardonic
school. He was the worst of all the horses. I remember once Burbury
making me laugh very much by saying in a moment of indignation: "You
haven't been a colt these thirty years, you evergreen son of a
buckjumper!" This horse had a way of coming to standstill in the very
centre of the troop on the march, and, after regarding us with a
patient but baleful eye, he would solemnly buck all his cargo off and
attempt to kick it to pieces. At one time he was used as a
riding-horse, having, indeed, a turn for speed, but his paces were so
rough and his trick of rearing as one was mounting so uncomfortable
that we were compelled to make him one of the _cargueros_.
But perhaps the horse that caused us the most amusement was the
Asulejo. He was a sort of uncertain dapple-grey in colour, and to look
at him you would say that a more quiet, lazy, say-nothing-to-anybody
little bit of old age did not crop the grass in Patagonia. Often and
often did we feel sorry for that little animal and lighten his load.
One afternoon, as we came along with the waggon, he seemed to be
thinking more and more of the past, of the time when he had the power
to make his riders sit tight and used to be a creature of some
truculence. He had upon his back a light cargo of cooking-pots, and it
took the undivided attention of one man to keep him at a walk. We
fixed our camp upon an open plateau of coarse grass and thorn beside a
lagoon in a shallow hollow. The cargoes were pulled off and the cook
of the night made a grateful smoke ascend. I took a shot-gun and went
after some geese for the morrow's breakfast. It was, perhaps, an hour
and a half later, and a good league from camp, that I heard the
neighing of horses, and was surprised to see seventeen of our troop
hurrying off, as it were, upon some unknown errand. And well in front
of them--could I believe my eyes?--was the horse we knew as the
Asulejo, but his eye was brighter and he neighed in the joy of his
heart as he trotted friskily along! He was the obvious leader of the
revolt. No sooner did he see me than he fell behind, trying to look as
though one of the younger animals had lured him from the path of duty,
but that pretence did not serve, and after driving him back into camp
we put _maneas_ on him, upon which he recognised with the philosophy
of age that he could not fight against the inevitable, and so retired
into the lee of a thorn-bush, where he lay down to dream, no doubt, of
the days when things were different and he had been a scampering
three-year-old on the banks of the River Negro.
[Illustration: THE ASULEJO]
However, to return to our journey, and our earliest attempt at
marching without a waggon. It was first and last one of the most
trying days that we experienced. To begin with, the eight fairly
well-behaved horses were cargoed up, and then the wild ones were taken
in hand. The first of these happened to be the Gateado. His load was
flour and tinned beef. He allowed himself to be saddled up with no
more than the usual accompaniment of blowing and snorting. He even
suffered his cargo to be slung and the noose to be slipped along the
_cinch_ until it was in place.
Every horse needs two men to put on his cargo. One ties the knot and
hauls while the other takes in the slack. The latter has to hold up
his side of the cargo with his shoulder, and to do this must get
pretty nearly under the animal.
In our case, although we jettisoned a portion of our
belongings--including, I am sorry to say, a number of birds which I
had spent my evenings in skinning, and which I truly grieved to leave
behind--some of the packs were of necessity rather unwieldy. This,
indeed, is almost always the case during the earlier stages of any
expedition.
The behaviour of the Gateado was similar to that of many of the
_cargueros_. He waited until his man was well under, and then he came
into action with a series of diabolically well-aimed, one-legged
kicks. Having after a little got rid of us by this means, he went on
to buck all his cargo off, and then stood with his saddle cork-screwed
round under his belly. Jones held on to the head-rope, or no doubt the
Gateado would have completed his performance by clearing off into the
low hills or hummocks which surrounded the place.
Most of the others were, in their separate ways, as bad as the
Gateado. Some bucked, some reared, some would not be approached, but
all agreed in one thing--all, when cargoed up and ready for the start,
solemnly lay down and rolled on their cargoes. If they got them loose,
the wretched animals rose again and bucked them within reach of their
heels, after which they extricated themselves by kicking.
That morning was, indeed, a study of shifting cargoes. They came off
all ways, bucked off, kicked off, rolled on. Some stuck out to port of
the horse and some to starboard, a few hung disconsolately beneath the
_carguero's_ body. Again and again we did our part, and again and
again the horses defeated us by their horrible tricks of lying down
and rolling. Meantime the sun had risen, and heat and flies were added
to the long tally of the day's disagreeable items. A very heavy wind
was also blowing, which made it exceedingly difficult to place the
saddle-cloths upon the horses' backs. I have often noticed that, when
saddling up a colt or wild horse, it is well to make use each day of
the same saddle-cloths, as he grows used to these, and does not fear
them, especially if you allow him to bite and smell them.
[Illustration]
At length, however, shortly after midday the horses began to get worn
out. The cargoed ones ceased to struggle and lay still, tongues out,
fat-barrelled, like a troop on a battle-field, humped with cargo and
grotesquely dead. In the fighting-line, I remember, remained only a
horse named Horqueta (the slit-eared), and the indefatigable Gateado.
Horqueta's cargo consisted of a pair of tin boxes, for, bucking apart,
he was a fairly steady pack-horse. He and the Gateado were the last to
be finished, the others having yielded after the long struggle of the
forenoon.
All would now have gone well had it not been for the fact that the
handles of one of the tin boxes upon Horqueta were loose. The moment
we let him go he began to buck and the unlucky handles to beat a
devil's tattoo upon the body of the tin box. He made off into the
troop of cargoed horses, and the noise he brought with him proved too
much for their nerves. They scrambled up to their feet and four of
them broke away in different directions. Five minutes later we
surveyed once more a scene of scattered cartridges, flour, oatmeal,
sacks of beans, clothes, skins bumped out with tinned provisions, and
I don't know what else. They lay in confusion among the grass and
bushes in the valley, and up and down the slopes of the conical mud
hills. The Germans were reduced to inarticulate oaths, and the
Welshmen looked out of heart.
But to camp upon a failure is the worst of business and of policy, and
so the men were laughed into a good humour, and we all went at it once
more, the ammunition and our other goods were collected and the
cargoes were fixed up yet again.
It was ten minutes past three o'clock by my watch when we rode slowly
up the cliff that lay between Waggon Camp and the River Chico of
Chubut. We reached the top without mishap, chiefly, I think, because
the horses were now fairly exhausted with their exertions. At the top
of the rise we stopped and looked back; our broken waggon lay dark and
low among the coarse yellow weeds, the afternoon sun, still warm, beat
upon the bald hills, and that was the last we saw of our unlucky camp.
The procession moved slowly on, and we did not rest until twilight, by
which time we had travelled between twelve and thirteen miles. Our
march now lay along the banks of the Chico. The going was soft, and
more bushes began to appear on the landscape. That night we celebrated
our first _carguero_ journey by serving out cocoa for all hands.
The night we struck the River Chico was a very cold one, the
temperature falling 12° below freezing-point. These figures, however,
give no idea of the cold, as one of the characteristics of Patagonia
is the prevalence of tremendous winds. And when these blow from the
direction of the Cordillera, they bring with them chilly memories of
the snows over which they have passed. Wind, of course, increased the
rigours of the cold, and I remember that during the night on which we
felt the cold most severely the temperature did not fall below 35°.
The next morning we got off about 10.30, having less trouble with the
_cargueros_. I went on in front to choose our way, which here passed
over very bad ground.
At the midday halt it was found that only part of a haunch of guanaco
had been brought on from the last camp. I therefore galloped on ahead
with a shot-gun and shot thirteen ducks, of which only six came to
hand, as several fell among the reeds in the marshes which fringe the
river. Of these six ducks, four were brown pintails (_Dafila
spinicauda_) and two were Chiloe widgeon (_Mareca sibilatrix_). In the
afternoon I exchanged the shot-gun for the rifle, as a few more
guanaco-skins would be very handy for various purposes and meat was
wanted. About four o'clock, when riding behind the troop, I saw a
guanaco among the hills to the east. I was fortunately mounted upon
the Cruzado, who had by this time learned to stand to shot and to
remain standing when his reins were dropped over his head. He was
infinitely the best shooting-horse in the troop, and I used always to
ride him when game was wanted, although, owing to his being a large
horse, his canter was not suited to riding behind the _tropilla_. He
had come to us with a very bad name for throwing himself back, which
is one of the nastiest tricks a horse can possess. But this he soon
gave up, and except that he always remained rather hard to catch in
the mornings, was what an advertiser would call "a thoroughly
confidential horse." I am glad to think that when I left Patagonia he
became the property of Burbury.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S TWO BEST HORSES, THE CRUZADO AND ALAZAN]
The Cruzado seemed to enter into the spirit of the chase, and in the
present instance went off at a fast canter towards the hills. The
guanaco had moved from his point of vantage upon the top of a conical
hill of mud, and had probably, according to the custom of these
animals, sought another eminence. I thought he had seen me, in which
case he would at once have made for the highest point within reach,
but, as I came into the throat of the gorge where there were some mud
hills, I saw him again upon the side of a large hummock one hundred
feet or so in height. I immediately tied up my horse.
The guanacos of the valley of the Chico were very wild owing to the
fact that the Tehuelche Indians hunt them there during the months of
October and November. This valley was once celebrated for the
abundance of its game, but of recent years the herds seem to have
moved westwards and northwards. This guanaco was the first we had seen
that day.
I crawled up the hill, sinking to my knees at every step into the dry
mud. When half-way up I saw the ears of the guanaco appear against the
sky-line. I lay down, and he remained still and utterly unconscious of
my presence for some minutes. He was watching my companions, who, with
the horses, were moving off into dimness down the valley. Presently he
ran forward one or two steps and gave out his high-pitched neighing
laugh in a sort of strange defiance at our retreating troop. He was a
very old buck with dark markings on his face. He was about fifty yards
away, and when I fired he reared and fell backwards. I threw out the
cartridge, and at the same instant seven guanacos, startled by the
report, dashed across the valley and galloped along parallel to me on
the other side of the _cañadon_ at about one hundred yards distance. I
fired at the second one because it looked fat, and brought it to the
ground. The guanacos now turned in great affright and raced past me
again, when I dropped two more. This brought them to a standstill, as
they had not yet made out where the shots were coming from, and no
doubt I might have been able to shoot the entire herd, but we had now
enough skins. When I rose the remaining four sprang down into the
valley and disappeared up the opposite _barranca_.
I now went to the top of the hill, where I had fired at the old buck,
and found that the bullet had broken his neck. He was, as I had
surmised, a very old animal, and bore upon him traces of an encounter
with a puma. The skin of his neck was immensely thick and his teeth
were worn down. One of the other guanacos, which had fallen upon the
far side of the valley, proved to be a year-old doe, so it was
unnecessary to take any of the meat of the buck. I now signalled, and
Burbury soon joined me to help in cutting up.
When we overtook the horses we found that the hounds, Tom and Bian had
killed a cavy (_Dolichotis patagonica_), so that we had a good stock
of meat. The cavy is excellent eating, resembling English hare. I was
told that Tom had not covered himself with glory, for, although he
proved himself very fast, and turned the hare, it was Bian that killed
it. Bian was a rough, yellow lurcher, who stood the rough ground and
hard experiences of our journey very much better than Tom, although
the latter was a well-bred hound with a pedigree to back his
pretensions. Bian belonged to young Jones.
During the day we observed enormous flocks of Chilian widgeon (_Mareca
sibilatrix_) as well as some grey teal (_Querquedula versicolor_).
On October 22, as we had expected, we arrived at Colohuapi, the
farthest settlement in the heart of Patagonia. Near by lie twin lakes
Colhué and Musters. About one o'clock, coming over a rise, we saw the
Lake. As the sun was shining it was very blue, and upon the far side
rose the hills. The mournful whistle of waterfowl in countless flocks
was to be heard. A breeze from the north-west was blowing across the
lake, and there was that peculiar wet smell in the wind which can only
be derived from a passage across wide waters.
This day the Gateado bucked off his cargo of tinned meats and was
unfortunate enough to give himself a deep wound in the pastern. Jones
tied it up with his handkerchief, and the horse was so lame that we
thought it would be necessary to leave him behind at Colohuapi. As it
turned out, however, being of a very strong constitution, he improved
rapidly, and was with us to the very end of our journeyings.
Our march on this occasion was upwards of twenty-seven miles, and at
the end of it I rode ahead to choose a place for a camp. Earlier in
the day Burbury, who was riding the Colorado, a half-broken colt that
had had only a few gallops, got into difficulties, and I relieved him
of a bag which he was carrying. I had tied this bag to my saddle, but
just before we camped it came loose, and, thinking I was not going to
have any other chance of shooting, I slung it over my rifle, which I
was carrying across my shoulder as usual in a sling. I had chosen a
valley to camp in and turned round to jog quietly back to meet the
troop, when with the tail of my eye I caught sight of an animal which
I thought was Tom, but it looked too large, and I turned my head to
see it more fully. There, fifteen yards behind my horse, staring at
me, switching its tail slowly from side to side, and standing full up,
was a fine male puma (_F. concolor_). I rolled off my horse, which,
fortunately, had neither seen nor winded the puma, and began to
unsling my rifle. In the middle of the operation, when I already had
the hindering bag upon the ground, the puma, which up to that moment
had continued to lash its tail and stare at me, turned round and loped
off at the cumbrous and uncouth canter habitual to these animals. At
one hundred and fifty yards it stopped for an instant, but was off
again at once. I attempted to mount my horse with the idea of
galloping down the puma, an easy thing to do, as these animals never
run far, and are readily blown, but the horse, which happened to be a
mule-footed _oscuro_, known as Mula, became quite unmanageable. I at
once coo-ed and was joined by young Humphrey Jones, who in eighteen
years' residence in Patagonia had never seen a puma, and as he had
strong sporting instincts, was extremely anxious to encounter one. We
followed the track of the lion--as the puma is locally called--but
after topping the hill it led along a bare slope and was lost in a
clump of high dry bush, where it was quite hopeless to find the
creature. We rode back into camp very disappointed.
Just as Mr. Selous remarks that hunters sometimes spend years in
Africa before they come upon their first lion, so many a man is as
long in Patagonia before he comes across his first puma. The puma is a
very furtive and cowardly animal, and though we saw so few during our
months of travel, I have no doubt that many a puma watched our troop
passing across the pampa from the safe cover of rocks and bushes.
Seeing or not seeing pumas is purely a matter of luck, and the tales
concerning pumas having attacked men, which abound in the country, are
generally fabrications. A puma with young will attack man if he
stumbles upon her and her family, and my friend Mr. Waag told me that
on one occasion a puma in the Cordillera had shown evident signs of
attack. In the majority of cases, even when wounded, the puma will
only snarl and spit, and the Indians, as well as the Gauchos, despatch
it with the _bolas_.
The puma is a terrible foe to the sheep-farmer, levying heavy toll
upon flocks, and often enjoys a long career of sheep-killing before
strychnine or the bullet puts an end to its existence.
The snow is directly responsible for the death of a great many pumas,
for when it is lying on the ground the animals can easily be tracked.
At this season the shepherds of the _estancias_ near the coast attempt
to clear the ground of their very unwelcome visitors, the weapon most
commonly used being the .450 revolver, and the shot is often taken at
a distance of less than ten paces. The puma is very easy to kill,
especially if the first shot is well placed. It is the first shock
which tells in the case of these animals.
Great sport could, no doubt, be had with the puma were he hunted with
a pack of dogs that would bay him and distract his attention. The
average hound of the country is, however, far too wise to pit himself
against such an animal, and will often even refuse to acknowledge the
scent.
That night the lake, as seen from the camp, was wonderfully beautiful.
The waters were leaden-grey bounded by faint blue hills, with soft
mists of an unearthly green clinging about them. The only sounds to be
heard were the wash of the ripple on the shore and plashing of
wildfowl.
On October 23 we made as early a start as possible, and pursued our
way over very level pampa, which had not yet been hardened by the sun
of spring. We put up an ostrich (_Rhea darwini_) from _his_ nest, and
found three eggs. Presently there appeared in the centre of the pampa,
ahead of us, three little huts of earth and three black cattle. Save
for one gorge through which the River Senguerr flows, and through
which we afterwards took our way, a perfect circle of hills of greatly
varying heights surrounded the small settlement. The huts belonged to
a Welshman named William Jones, who, with his wife and six children,
had trekked out here some six or eight months previously.
One of the three huts, which was untenanted, Mr. Jones put at our
disposal, and after taking off the cargoes, Burbury and Scrivenor
accompanied me across to William Jones' home. Mrs. Jones received us
with hospitality and treated us to _maté_ with milk, tea and scones,
and we got a sight of ourselves in the looking-glass. The wind of the
pampas had removed all the skin from our faces, and we were a good
deal unlike the individuals who had started from Trelew some four or
five weeks before.
[Illustration: SETTLEMENT OF COLOHUAPI]
That night the men slept inside the hut, but it was too warm for my
sleeping-bag, so I took up my bed and went out, passing the night on
the lee side of the hut. Perhaps what delighted us most was the fact
that in the shelter of the hut we were able to smoke our pipes in
peace, safe from the buffeting of the wind.
At dawn Mrs. Jones kindly sent her children over with a pail of milk.
It would be impossible to imagine any more healthy specimens of the
Welsh race than these sun-kissed, clear-eyed youngsters. Ruddy and
brown and strong, the air of the wilderness had need of no better
proof of its splendid health-giving qualities. I gave the children
chocolate from our store, a luxury to which they were not accustomed,
and which they enjoyed immensely.
William Jones had brought his wife and family to Colohuapi in a
waggon, following the banks of the River Chico from Trelew. His
journey had, however, been made late in the year, when the marshes
were dry, and his waggon had been more suited to the hardships of the
way than was ours.
Two other Welshmen with their wives lived higher up the valley, and
the full strength of the colony was made up by a Swede named Oscar,
who acted as _comisario_, and an Argentine who had settled on the
other side of the river. To the last-named gentleman Burbury paid a
visit on the following day.
Now set in another era of preparation. We purchased sheepskins and
laid in a stock of mutton, and on the 25th once more made a start.
Before taking leave of Colohuapi I should like to record my
appreciation of the great kindness which the settlers there extended
to us especially Mr. and Mrs. William Jones, the latter of whom was
thoughtful enough to bake us a large loaf to speed us on our way. On
the eve of our departure we gave a small dinner, at which the _menu_
was as follows: Mutton _puchero_, made with desiccated potatoes and
cabbage; stewed apple-rings and milk; lime-juice tablets; chocolate
food; and two tins of sardines. I was very sorry not to be able to add
a bowl of punch to the feast, but the fact was I had with me but three
bottles of brandy, and those for purely medicinal purposes.
The country round about Colohuapi is very suited for cattle-breeding,
but, of course, the chief difficulty encountered by the colonists are
those connected with transporting their produce to the market, as the
district is not yet in any way opened up. But I hope and believe that
a prosperous future lies before the young settlement, and much of the
good to come should certainly fall to the lot of the Welshmen William
and Walter Jones, whose pioneer efforts deserve great reward. At
present it is a hard life that the colonists are obliged to lead,
divided as they are by more than a couple of hundred miles from their
nearest white neighbours. One could not help being struck by the
solitary aspect of the two or three small huts, set as they are at
present on the edge of the hill-encircled empty plain.
Just as we were off from Colohuapi, the _comisario_ rode up and
proceeded to make the necessary examination of our horses. In this
connection very strict laws obtain throughout the northern provinces
of the Argentine Republic. In a country where horse-breeding is
carried on upon so extensive a scale, and where, besides, the animals
are allowed to wander freely upon the wide spaces of the pampas, a
strong check must be placed upon any infringement of the law of
property. A strict system of registration and surveillance as to
brands upon horses must be kept in force, and is, in fact, one of the
first steps towards security.
The brand, which I had registered in Trelew, and which was invented by
Burbury, represented the rising sun. It was an excellent brand, as it
had not much "fire" about it, and was very different to any other mark
we came across. Another point to be considered in choosing it was that
it would be a difficult one to fake. Our branding took place at Bahia
Camerones, Mr. Greenshields being good enough to allow us to use his
corral for the purpose. Our half-wild horses did not permit us to
operate upon them without a struggle. A few days after the operation
the burns caused by the iron had quite healed.
[Illustration: OUR BRAND]
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Except in very rare cases the _boleadores_ should not be used to
catch horses. For a kicking animal they are, however, a good
corrective.