Part 38 (1/2)

”Poor benighted heathens!” said Peter, glancing up at the lunar scimitar, which had just escaped from beneath a little cloud. ”Poor heathens! I quite feel for them.”

”But what are you doing,” said Jill, ”with your hands in your pockets?”

”Why, I'm turning my money of course. Don't you always do that when you see the new moon?”

”Poor benighted heathen!” cried Jill.

Peter now saw what was meant, and laughed as heartily as any one.

Presently we entered the toldo, and Peter sat down as usual to smooth his b.u.mps. I noticed Jill looking towards him with a half-subdued smile of mischief on his face. Soon he glanced towards me, and we went out together.

”I've thought of a little trick to play Peter,” said Jill.

”Well?” I said.

”Get Nadi to give him the baby again.”

”But how will you manage?”

”Come and see.”

Nadi's innocent face always lighted up with smiles when Jill and I went near her. My brother addressed her in broken Patagonian. It was very much broken, but it suited the purpose. Nevertheless, Nadi understood English well, though too shy to talk it.

”Peter,” he said, pointing to little copper-face. ”Peter ywotisk, Peter kekoosh, moyout win coquet talenque.” (Peter is weary and cold, and would like to have the baby for a little while.)

Up jumped Nadi, her eyes sparkling with delight, and went off to the tent. We followed. In she went, and without a word popped the baby down on Peter's knee, then retired most gracefully.

Everybody laughed at Peter, but, like a sensible young man, he made the best of it; and when we entered, looking as innocent as sucking guanacos, there he was talking away to the child, and making it laugh and crow more than ever its mother did.

”You see what it is to be a good-natured fellow,” Peter said to me.

”Now you'll live a long time before _you_ get baby to hold.”

Peter often got baby after this, and I really think he came to like it, only he told Jeeka to inform his wife, that the danger of handing him the child when on horseback was extreme. So this never occurred again.

I think, on the whole, then, that Peter had the best of Jill and his little joke.

The country now became changed in aspect, far more rugged and hilly and wild, but at times its beauty was almost awesome.

One day we came upon a patch of woodland, the first real trees we had seen. Then we knew we were within a measurable distance of Castizo's romantic home in the Cordilleran forests.

We encamped this night close to the wood.

The Indians did not, according to Jeeka, quite relish the propinquity.

The wood was haunted by evil spirits. There was a fox with two heads that had been frequently seen within its dark shades, and there was something in white which Jeeka could not well define. It might have two heads or it might have twenty, he could not say; but it was very terrible, and death soon visited the person whose track this something-in-white crossed.

There was no good could accrue from laughing at Jeeka. I could not help thinking, however, what a pity it was so n.o.ble a fellow--savage, if you choose to call him so--should remain in such mental darkness. Could we not do a little to help him, Jill and I?

We might try. One never does know what one can do till a trial is made.

”Jeeka,” I said that evening, ”will you go for a walk with Jill and me, and bring Nadi?”