Part 9 (1/2)
The dinner dragged on and on, until I thought he meant us to sit there all night. Ten o'clock came, half-past, and then eleven. Then I began to smell a rat. I kept on urging the necessity for action, but it became more and more evident that the Chief was fooling. He pressed wine upon all and upon me in particular, while he drank little himself, although he pretended otherwise. At last, I could stand it no longer, and got up in no very good humour to go.
”No, but stop, Don Ernesto! Where are you going? Sit down again. The horses are not saddled yet: not even caught up. Sit down and have patience and we'll all go with you in good time.”
It was after twelve when at last we made a start. There were the Chief, the sergeant, a corporal, four men, and myself. We rode slowly in a northerly direction until we came to a small gate in the fence, of which I had the key. All the way thither the Chief, while commending me for my forethought in bringing arms, had been impressing upon me the importance of not using them, no matter what happened, ”Because, you see, you are not an arm of the law, and if you were to shoot anyone, I should be obliged to arrest you and send you to Santa Fe.”
When we got through the fence, what was my surprise when the Chief said, ”Bueno, Don Ernesto, you and I have had a long day. What I propose is that you and I off-saddle and doss down here, while the sergeant and men patrol with m.u.f.fled bits and spurs at a short distance from the fence.
Then the moment they hear anything they can come and let us know!”
In vain I protested that this was not my idea at all, and that I too wanted to do the patrolling, but when he told a man to take the saddle off my horse and shake down a bed for me, I thought it wiser to acquiesce, or, at least, appear to do so. I shall never forget that night. How we talked and talked and talked as we lay beneath the brilliant stars, I, boiling with rage and anxiety under my a.s.sumed tranquillity, while he, doubtless, was as much annoyed at having to keep me in conversation. It must have been nearly four o'clock when I told him that I really must sleep. ”Bueno,” said he, as he rolled over on his side, ”hasta manana.”
In five minutes he was snoring. Even so, I did not dare to move, for fear that he might be foxing. About an hour pa.s.sed, during which he moved, coughed, expectorated, and had other signs of conscious animation, much to my disgust, until at last I thought the snoring sounded too genuine to be shammed, so I crept towards him and whispered in his ear that I thought I heard sounds of movement. But his snoring was rhythmic and swinish, so I gathered up my saddle and gear and stole over to my horse, which was picketed some yards off, and proceeded to saddle him up. In doing so, my stirrups somehow clashed and thought it was all up, for what a fool I should look if he woke and discovered me.
But it was all right: the music continued.
I led the horse for some little distance, then mounting, I rode him down alongside the fence for about a mile until I came to a fresh gap in it.
Horror! Even though it was but what my suspicions had depicted, the realisation came as a shock to me. ”The--! The--!” To repeat my expressions would edify no one.
Guided by the signal-lights at the station, I moved along at a smart trot and soon recognised the quick tramping of animals ahead. Then I drew back, and as the day was just breaking, I drew round to the west side of the cavalcade, so that I might see without being seen. Yes, sure enough, there were six military chacots outlined against the great sky and a troop of animals ahead of them.
I halted to let them get well away from me, and then, with rage and hatred in my heart, swearing vengeance all the while, I galloped as hard as ever I could to the estancia, to impatiently await the uprising of my boss.
”We must wire, or one of us must go to the Governor in Santa Fe at once,” I urged. But what was my disgust to be met with but a quiet smile of amus.e.m.e.nt!
”Not if I know it,” said he. ”Why, good G.o.d, man, do you want to have all our throats cut? This man is a personal friend of the Governor's, and what satisfaction do you think we are likely to get out of that?”
”Then let us go to the Consul, the British Minister, or even to the President of the Republic?”
A quiet smile with a negatory shake of the head was the only answer.
A fortnight later I sought him in his private sitting-room and found the Chief of Police sitting in an easy-chair.
”Ha! ha! ha! Don Ernesto. So you caught us, did you? Well, it was worth the fun. I never laughed so much in all my life as when I awoke that morning and found that you had given me the slip!”
A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN CHACO.
After three years on an estancia in the vast monotonous, treeless, but most fertile plains of the Central Argentine, under scorching sun, driving rains, and biting wind, one feels that one would like to see a river sometimes, animal life and more congenial surroundings; and so I determined to visit the Northern Chaco, that enormous tract of land which lies North of Santa Fe and stretches right away for many hundreds of miles to North, East, and West.
Leaving Rosario by the night express, one crosses the great, slightly undulating plains, probably among the richest in the world for the growth of wheat, linseed, and maize, reaching Santa Fe early the following morning. This town, the capital and Government centre of the province, is rather an uninteresting place; chiefly noticeable in it are the great number of fine churches and the magnificent sawmills owned by a large French company. Santa Fe is supposed to be one of the most religious centres in the Republic. More than once it has almost been washed away in an eddy of the giant Parana in flood, the water rising four feet in the houses on the highest level in the town.
After spending a day of sight-seeing in Santa Fe, we embarked at nightfall for Vera, the headquarters of the Santa Fe Land Company's wood department, arriving there in the early morning. The land around here from the train appears to be a dry, salty country, devoid of herbage, and only valuable on account of the excellent forest trees and timber.
Our morning meal was taken in the station waiting-room (the only restaurant in the town), and consisted of cold coffee and what the Argentine understands by boiled eggs, which have in reality been in boiling water half a minute, and which, in order to eat, one has to tip into a wine-gla.s.s and beat up with a fork, adding pepper and salt, etc.
This is the general way of eating eggs in South America; an egg cup is one of the few things one cannot get in the country without going to an English store in Buenos Aires.
Leaving Vera at 8 a.m. the train goes at a snail's pace along the branch line to Reconquista, covering the distance of about thirty leagues in five hours. Arriving there in the sweltering midday heat, we were met by an English friend and his capataz, the latter dressed in his enormous slouch hat, deerskin ap.r.o.n, and silver spurs weighing probably a full kilo.
One cannot help noticing at once the different type of natives; from the slow, slouching, don't-care kind of men, which one sees in Cordoba and Southern Santa Fe, to the quick, straight, hawk-eyed half-Indian Chaquenos.