Part 34 (1/2)

We began to get wealthy ere long with a weight of skins of birds and beasts Some of the most valuable of these were procured from a species of otter that lived in the blackest, deepest pools of a streas The Gauchos had a kind of superstitious dread of the huge beast, whoer

We had found our dogs of the greatest use in the hills, especially our monster bloodhound- qualities of the bloodhound, with more fierceness and speed than the e, too, and general hardiness were very great

A our spoils we could count the skins of no less than fifteen splendid puht Once, I re his way through a patch of bush on the plains, in pursuit of a young guanaco which he had wounded He was all alone: not even a dog with hirowl of a lion in that bit of scrub, and he at once started off three of his best dogs to the scene of Archie's adventure Not two hundred yards away h powerless to aid I could see Archie hurrying back through the bush I could see the pu, and le began It was fearful while it lasted, which was only the briefest possible tis were on the pu sounds were terrible I saw the puh in the air, two others on the wild beast's neck, and next moment Yambo hi along full tilt for the battle-field

Ya spear had done the work, and all the noise soon ceased

Though stunned and frightened, Archie was but little the worse One dog was killed It seemed to have been Ya rief Here was a man, once one of the cruellest and most remorseless of desert wanderers, whose spear and knife hadtears over the body of his poor dog! Nor would he leave the place until he had dug a grave, and, placing the bleeding remains therein, sadly and slowly covered theain in the happy hunting-grounds somewhere beyond the sky That, at least, was Yambo's creed, and who should dare deny his him!

It was now the sweetest season of all the year in the hills--the Indian summer The fierce heat had fled to the north, fled beyond the salt plains of San Juan, beyond the wild desert lands of Rioja and arid sands of Cataardens of Tucu the sun-kissed forests of leafy Brazil and Bolivia The autu shorter, the sky was nowafter evening the sun went down a that held us spellbound and silent to behold

A len! We could hardly believe it How quickly the time had flown! How quickly time always does fly when one is happy!

And now our tents are struck, our ood-bye to the solitary being who has o on our way

'Good-bye!'

'Good-bye!'

Little words, but soun to like--ay, even to love the hermit, and we had not found it out till now But I noticed tears in Dugald's eye, and I am not quite sure lanced back as we rode away to wave our hands once ainst a tree Just then the sun ca out from under a cloud, the shadow beneath the tree darkened and darkened, till it sed him up

And we never saw the hermit more

[15] The _Rhea Americana_

CHAPTER XXII

ADVENTURE WITH A TIGER

Two years more have passed away, four years in all, since we first set foot in the Silver West What happy, blithesoht its duties, every duty its pleasures as well During all this tiret to one unpleasant hour

Sometimes we had endured some crosses as well, but we brothers bore them, I believe, without aword

'Boys,' he would say, quietly, 'nobody gets it all his oay in this world We must just learn to take the thick wi' the thin'

Moncrieff was somewhat of a proverbial philosopher; but had he been entrusted with the task of selecting proverbs that should sood ones