Our Home in the Silver West: A Story of Struggle and Adventure

It was only too true. A glance upwards told us this. We got into the open air just in time, before, weighted down by tons of water, the great marquee came groundwards with a crash.

But though the rain still came down in torrents and the thunder roared and rattled over and around us, no further shock of earthquake was felt. Fear fled then, and we made a rush for the house once more. Moncrieff reached the casement window first, with a Gaucho carrying a huge lantern. This man entered, but staggered out again immediately.

'The ants! the ants!' he shouted in terror.

Moncrieff had one glance into the room, as if to satisfy himself. I took the lantern from the trembling hands of the Gaucho and held it up, and the sight that met my astonished gaze was one I shall never forget. The whole room was in possession of myriads of black ants of enormous size; they covered everything – walls, furniture, and floor – with one dense and awful pall.

The room looked strange and mysterious in its living, moving covering. Here was indeed the blackness of darkness. Yes, and it was a darkness too that could be felt. Of this I had a speedy proof of a most disagreeable nature. I was glad to hand the lantern back and seek for safety in the rain again.

Luckily the sitting-room door was shut, and this was the only room not taken possession of.

After lights had been lit in the drawing-room the storm did not appear quite so terrible; but no one thought of retiring that night. The vague fear that something more dreadful still might occur kept hanging in our minds, and was only dispelled when daylight began to stream in at the windows.

By breakfast-time there was no sign in the blue sky that so fearful a storm had recently raged there. Nor had any very great violence been done about the farmyards by the earthquake.

Many of the cattle that had sought shelter beneath the trees had been killed, however; and in one spot we found the mangled remains of over one hundred sheep. Here also a huge chestnut-tree had been struck and completely destroyed, pieces of the trunk weighing hundreds of pounds being scattered in every direction over the field.

Earthquakes are of common occurrence in the province of Mendoza, but seldom are they accompanied by such thunder, lightning, and rain as we had on this occasion. It was this demonstration, coupled with the warning words of the Indian seer, which had caused the panic among our worthy Gaucho servants. But the seer had been a false prophet for once, and as the Gauchos seized him on this same day and half drowned him in the lake, there was but little likelihood that he would prophesy the destruction of Mendoza again.

Mendoza had been almost totally destroyed already by an awful earthquake that occurred in 1861. Out of a population of nearly sixteen thousand souls no less than thirteen thousand, we are told, were killed – swallowed up by the yawning earth. Fire broke out afterwards, and, as if to increase the wretchedness and sad condition of the survivors, robbers from all directions – even from beyond the Andes – flocked to the place to loot and pillage it. But Mendoza is now built almost on the ashes of the destroyed city, and its population must be equal to, even if it does not exceed, its former aggregate.

With the exception of a few losses, trifling enough to one in Moncrieff's position, the whole year was a singularly successful one. Nor had my brothers nor I and the other settlers any occasion to complain, and our prospects began to be very bright indeed.

Nor did the future belie the present, for ere another year had rolled over our heads we found ourselves in a fair way to fortune. We felt by this time that we were indeed old residents. We were thoroughly acclimatized: healthy, hardy, and brown. In age we were, some would say, mere lads; in experience we were already men.

Our letters from home continued to be of the most cheering description, with the exception of Townley's to aunt. He had made little if any progress in his quest. Not that he despaired. Duncan M'Rae was still absent, but sooner or later – so Townley believed – poverty would bring him to bay, and then—

Nothing of this did my aunt tell me at the time. I remained in blissful ignorance of anything and everything that our old tutor had done or was doing.

True, the events of that unfortunate evening at the old ruin sometimes arose in my mind to haunt me. My greatest sorrow was my being bound down by oath to keep what seemed to me the secret of a villain – a secret that had deprived our family of the estates of Coila, had deprived my parents – yes, that was the hard and painful part. For, strange as it may appear, I cared nothing for myself. So enamoured had I become of our new home in the Silver West, that I felt but little longing to return to the comparative bleakness and desolation of even Scottish Highland scenery. I must not be considered unpatriotic on this account, or if there was a decay of patriotism in my heart, the fascinating climate of Mendoza was to blame for it. I could not help feeling at times that I had eaten the lotus-leaf. Had we not everything that the heart of young men could desire? On my own account, therefore, I felt no desire to turn the good soldier M'Rae away from Coila, and as for Irene – as for bringing a tear to the eyes of that beautiful and engaging girl, I would rather, I thought, that the dark waters of the laguna should close over my head for ever.

Besides, dear father was happy. His letters told me that. He had even come to like his city life, and he never wrote a word about Coila.

Still, the oath – the oath that bound me! It was a dark spot in my existence.

Did it bind me? I remember thinking that question over one day. Could an oath forced upon any one be binding in the sight of Heaven? I ran off to consult my brother Moncrieff. I found him riding his great bay mare, an especial favourite, along the banks of the highest estancia canal – the canal that fed the whole system of irrigation. Here I joined him, myself on my pet brown mule.

'Planning more improvements, Moncrieff?' I asked.

He did not speak for a minute or two.

'I'm not planning improvements,' he said at last, 'but I was just thinking it would be well, in our orra11 moments, if we were to strengthen this embankment. There is a terrible power o' water here. Now supposing that during some awful storm, with maybe a bit shock of earthquake, it were to burst here or hereabouts, don't you see that the flood would pour right down upon the mansion-house, and clean it almost from its foundations?'

'I trust,' I said, 'so great a catastrophe will not occur in our day.'

'It would be a fearful accident, and a judgment maybe on my want of forethought.'

'I want to ask you a question,' I said, 'on another subject, Moncrieff.'

'You're lookin' scared, laddie. What's the matter?'

I told him as much as I could.

'It's a queer question, laddie – a queer question. Heaven give me help to answer you! I think, as the oath was to keep a secret, you had best keep the oath, and trust to Heaven to set things right in the end, if it be for the best.'

'Thanks, Moncrieff,' I said; 'thanks. I will take your advice.'

That very day Moncrieff set a party of men to strengthen the embankment; and it was probably well he did so, for soon after the work was finished another of those fearful storms, accompanied as usual by shocks of earthquake, swept over our valley, and the canal was filled to overflowing, but gave no signs of bursting. Moncrieff had assuredly taken time by the forelock.

One day a letter arrived, addressed to me, which bore the London post-mark.

It was from Archie, and a most spirited epistle it was. He wanted us to rejoice with him, and, better still, to expect him out by the very first packet. His parents had yielded to his request. It had been the voyage to Newcastle that had turned the scale. There was nothing like pluck, he said; 'But,' he added, 'between you and me, Murdoch, I would not take another voyage in a Newcastle collier, not to win all the honour and glory of Livingstone, Stanley, Gordon-Cumming, and Colonel Frederick Burnaby put in a bushel basket.'

I went tearing away over the estancia on my mule, to find my brothers and tell them the joyful tidings. And we rejoiced together. Then I went off to look for Moncrieff, and he rejoiced, to keep me company.

'And mind you,' he said, 'the very day after he arrives we'll have a dinner and a kick-up.'

'Of course we will,' I said. 'We'll have the dinner and fun at Coila Villa, which, remember, can now boast of two wings besides the tower.'

'Very well,' he assented, 'and after that we can give another dinner and rout at my diggings. Just a sort of return match, you see?'

'But I don't see,' I said; 'I don't see the use of two parties.'

'Oh, but I do, Murdoch. We must make more of a man than we do of a nowt12 beast. Now you mind that bull I had sent out from England – Towsy Jock that lives in the Easter field? – well, I gave a dinner when he came. £250 I paid for him too.'

'Yes, and I remember also you gave a dinner and fun when the prize ram came out. Oh, catch you not finding an excuse for a dinner! However, so be it: one dinner and fun for a bull, two for Archie.'

'That's agreed then,' said Moncrieff.

Now, my brothers and I and a party of Gauchos, with the warlike Bombazo and a Scot or two, had arranged a grand hunt into the guanaco country; but as dear old Archie was coming out so soon we agreed to postpone it, in order that he might join in the fun. Meanwhile we commenced to make all preparations.

They say that the principal joy in life lies in the anticipation of pleasure to come. I think there is a considerable amount of truth in this, and I am sure that not even bluff old King Hal setting out to hunt in the New Forest could have promised himself a greater treat than we did as we got ready for our tour in the land of the guanaco, and country of the condor.

We determined to be quite prepared to start by the time Archie was due. Not that we meant to hurry our dear cockney cousin right away to the wilds as soon as he arrived. No; we would give him a whole week to 'shake down,' as Moncrieff called it, and study life on the estancia.

And, indeed, life on the estancia, now that we had become thoroughly used to it, was exceedingly pleasant altogether.

I cannot say that either my brothers or I were ever much given to lazing in bed of a morning in Scotland itself. To have done so we should have looked upon as bad form; but to encourage ourselves in matutinal sloth in a climate like this would have seemed a positive crime.

Even by seven in the morning we used to hear the great gong roaring hoarsely on Moncrieff's lawn, and this used to be the signal for us to start and draw aside our mosquito curtains. Our bedrooms adjoined, and all the time we were splashing in our tubs and dressing we kept up an incessant fire of banter and fun. The fact is, we used to feel in such glorious form after a night's rest. Our bedroom windows were very large casements, and were kept wide open all the year round, so that virtually we slept in the open air. We nearly always went to bed in the dark, or if we did have lights we had to shut the windows till we had put them out, else moths as big as one's hand, and all kinds and conditions of insect life, would have entered and speedily extinguished our candles. Even had the windows been protected by glass, this insect life would have been troublesome. In the drawing and dining rooms we had specially prepared blinds of wire to exclude these creatures, while admitting air enough.

The mosquito curtains round our beds effectually kept everything disagreeable at bay, and insured us wholesome rest.

But often we were out of bed and galloping over the country long before the gong sounded. This ride used to give us such appetites for breakfast, that sometimes we had to apologize to aunt and Aileen for our apparent greediness. We were out of doors nearly all day, and just as often as not had a snack of luncheon on the hills at some settler's house or at an outlying puesto.

Aunt was now our housekeeper, but nevertheless so accustomed had we and Moncrieff and Aileen become to each other's society that hardly a day passed without our dining together either at his house or ours.

The day, what with one thing and another, used to pass quickly enough, and the evening was most enjoyable, despite even the worry of flying and creeping insects. After dinner my brothers and I, with at times Moncrieff and Bombazo, used to lounge round to see what the servants were doing.

They had a concert, and as often as not some fun, every night with the exception of Sabbath, when Moncrieff insisted that they should retire early.

At many estancias wine is far too much in use – even to the extent of inebriety. Our places, however, owing to Moncrieff's strictness, were models of temperance, combined with innocent pleasures. The master, as he was called, encouraged all kinds of games, though he objected to gambling, and drinking he would not permit at any price.

One morning our post-runner came to Coila Villa in greater haste than usual, and from his beaming eyes and merry face I conjectured he had a letter for me.

I took it from him in the verandah, and sent him off round to the kitchen to refresh himself. No sooner had I glanced at its opening sentences than I rushed shouting into the breakfast-room.

'Hurrah!' I cried, waving the letter aloft. 'Archie's coming, and he'll be here to-day. Hurrah! for the hunt, lads, and hurrah! for the hills!'

CHAPTER XVIII.

OUR HUNTING EXPEDITION

If not quite so exuberant as the welcome that awaited us on our arrival in the valley, Archie's was a right hearty one, and assuredly left our cousin nothing to complain of.

He had come by diligence from Villa Mercedes, accomplishing the journey, therefore, in a few days, which had occupied us in our caravan about as many weeks.

We were delighted to see him looking so well. Why, he had even already commenced to get brown, and was altogether hardy and hearty and manlike.

We were old estancieros, however, and it gave us unalloyed delight to show him round our place and put him up to all the outs and ins of a settler's life.

Dugald even took him away to the hills with him, and the two of them did not get home until dinner was on the table.

Archie, however, although not without plenty of pluck and willingness to develop into an estanciero pure and simple, had not the stamina my brothers and I possessed, but this only made us all the more kind to him. In time, we told him, he would be quite as strong and wiry as any of us.

'There is one thing I don't think I shall ever be able to get over,' said Archie one day. It may be observed that he did not now talk with the London drawl; he had left both his cockney tongue and his tall hat at home.

'What is it you do not think you will ever get over, Arch?' I asked.

'Why, the abominable creepies,' he answered, looking almost miserable.

'Why,' he continued, 'it isn't so much that I mind being bitten by mosquitoes – of which it seems you have brutes that fly by day, and gangs that go on regular duty at night – but it is the other abominations that make my blood run positively cold. Now your cockroaches are all very well down in the coal-cellar, and centipedes are interesting creatures in glass cases with pins stuck through them; but to find cockroaches in your boots and centipedes in your bed is rather too much of a good thing.'

'Well,' said Dugald, laughing, 'you'll get used to even that. I don't really mind now what bites me or what crawls over me. Besides, you know all those creepie-creepies, as you call them, afford one so excellent an opportunity of studying natural history from the life.'

'Oh, bother such life, Dugald! My dear cousin, I would rather remain in blissful ignorance of natural history all my life than have even an earwig reposing under my pillow. Besides, I notice that even your Yahoo servants – '

'I beg your pardon, cousin; Gaucho, not Yahoo.'

'Well, well, Gaucho servants shudder, and even run from our common bedroom creepies.'

'Oh! they are nothing at all to go by, Archie. They think because a thing is not very pretty it is bound to be venomous.'

'But does not the bite of a centipede mean death?'

'Oh dear no. It isn't half as bad as London vermin.'

'Then there are scorpions. Do they kill you? Is not their bite highly dangerous?'

'Not so bad as a bee's sting.'

'Then there are so many flying beetles.'

'Beauties, Archie, beauties. Why, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like some of these.'

'Perhaps not. But then, Solomon or not Solomon, how am I to know which sting and which don't?'

'Experientia docet, Archie.'

Archie shuddered.

'Again, there are spiders. Oh, they do frighten me. They're as big as lobsters. Ugh!'

'Well, they won't hurt. They help to catch the other things!'

'Yes, and that's just the worst of it. First a lot of creepies come in to suck your blood and inject poison into your veins, to say nothing of half scaring a fellow to death; and then a whole lot of flying creepies, much worse than the former, come in to hunt them up; and bats come next, to say nothing of lizards; and what with the buzzing and singing and hopping and flapping and beating and thumping, poor me has to lie awake half the night, falling asleep towards morning to dream I'm in purgatory.'

'Poor you indeed!' said Dugald.

'You have told me, too, I must sleep in the dark, but I want to know what is the good of that when about one half of those flying creepies carry a lamp each, and some of them two. Only the night before last I awoke in a fright. I had been dreaming about the great sea-serpent, and the first thing I saw was a huge creature about as long as a yard stick wriggling along my mosquito curtains.'

'Ah! How could you see it in the dark?'

'Why, the beggar carried two lamps ahead of him, and he had a smaller chap with a light. Ugh!'

'These were some good specimens of the Lampyridæ, no doubt.'

'Well, perhaps; but having such a nice long name doesn't make them a bit less hideous to me. Then in the morning when I looked into the glass I didn't know myself from Adam. I had a black eye that some bug or other had given me – I dare say he also had a nice long name. I had a lump on my brow as large as a Spanish onion, and my nose was swollen and as big as a bladder of lard. From top to toe I was covered with hard knots, as if I'd been to Donnybrook Fair, and what with aching and itching it would have been a comfort to me to have jumped out of my skin.'

'Was that all?' I said, laughing.

'Not quite. I went to take up a book to fling at a monster spider in the corner, and put my hand on a scorpion. I cracked him and crushed the spider, and went to have my bath, only to find I had to fish out about twenty long-named indescribables that had committed suicide during the night. Other creepies had been drowned in the ewer. I found earwigs in my towels, grasshoppers in my clothes, and wicked-looking little beetles even in my hairbrushes. This may be a land flowing with milk and honey and all the rest of it, Murdoch, but it is also a land crawling with creepie-creepies.'

'Well, anyhow,' said Dugald, 'here comes your mule. Mount and have a ride, and we'll forget everything but the pleasures of the chase. Come, I think I know where there is a jaguar – an immense great brute. I saw him killing geese not three days ago.'

'Oh, that will be grand!' cried Archie, now all excitement.

And five minutes afterwards Dugald and he were off to the hills.

But in two days more we would be off to the hills in earnest.

For this tour we would not of our own free-will have made half the preparations Moncrieff insisted on, and perhaps would hardly have provided ourselves with tents. However, we gave in to his arrangements in every way, and certainly we had no cause to repent it.

The guide – he was to be called our cacique for the time being – that Moncrieff appointed had been a Gaucho malo, a pampas Cain. No one ever knew half the crimes the fellow had committed, and I suppose he himself had forgotten. But he was a reformed man and really a Christian, and it is difficult to find such an anomaly among Gauchos. He knew the pampas well, and the Andes too, and was far more at home in the wilds than at the estancia. A man like this, Moncrieff told us, was worth ten times his weight in gold.

And so it turned out.

The summer had well-nigh gone when our caravan at length left Moncrieff's beautiful valley. The words 'caravan at length' in the last sentence may be understood in two ways, either as regards space or time. Ours was no caravan on wheels. Not a single wheeled waggon accompanied us, for we should cross deserts, and pass through glens where there would be no road, perhaps hardly even a bridle-path. So the word caravan is to be understood in the Arab sense of the word. And it certainly was a lengthy one. For we had a pack mule for every two men, including our five Gauchos.

Putting it in another way, there were five of us Europeans – Donald, Dugald, Archie Bateman, Sandie Donaldson, and myself; each European had a horse and a Gaucho servant, and each Gaucho had a mule.

Bombazo meant to have come; he said so to the very last, at all events, but an unfortunate attack of toothache confined him to bed. Archie, who had no very exalted idea of the little Spanish captain's courage, was rude enough to tell us in his hearing that he was 'foxing.' I do not pretend to understand what Archie meant, but I feel certain it was nothing very complimentary to Bombazo's bravery.

'Dear laddies,' old Jenny had said, 'if you think you want onybody to darn your hose on the road, I'll gang wi' ye mysel'. As for that feckless loon Bombazo, the peer13 body is best in bed.'

Our arms consisted of rifles, shot-guns, the bolas, and lasso. Each man carried a revolver as well, and we had also abundance of fishing tackle. Our tents were only three in all, but they were strong and waterproof, a great consideration when traversing a country like this.

We were certainly prepared to rough it, but had the good sense to take with us every contrivance which might add to our comfort, so long as it was fairly portable.

Archie had one particular valise of his own that he declared contained only a few nicknacks which no one ought to travel without. He would not gratify us by even a peep inside, however, so for a time we had to be content with guessing what the nicknacks were. Archie got pretty well chaffed about his Gladstone bag, as he called it.

'You surely haven't got the tall hat in it,' said Dugald.

'Of course you haven't forgotten your nightcap,' said Donald.

'Nor your slippers, Archie?' I added.

'And a dressing-gown would be indispensable in the desert,' said Sandie Donaldson.

Archie only smiled to himself, but kept his secret.

What a lovely morning it was when we set out! So blue was the sky, so green the fields of waving lucerne, so dense the foliage and flowers and hedgerows and trees, it really seemed that summer would last for many and many a month to come.

We were all fresh and happy, and full of buoyant anticipation of pleasures to come. Our very dogs went scampering on ahead, barking for very joy. Of these we had quite a pack – three pure Scotch collies, two huge bloodhound-mastiffs, and at least half a dozen animals belonging to our Gauchos, which really were nondescripts but probably stood by greyhounds. These dogs were on exceedingly good terms with themselves and with each other – the collies jumping up to kiss the horses every minute by way of encouragement, the mastiffs trotting steadily on ahead cheek-by-jowl, and the hounds everywhere – everywhere at once, so it appeared.

Being all so fresh, we determined to make a thorough long day's journey of it. So, as soon as we had left the glen entirely and disappeared among the sand dunes, we let our horses have their heads, the capataz Gaucho riding on ahead on a splendid mule as strong as a stallion and as lithe as a Scottish deerhound.

Not long before our start for the hunting grounds men had arrived from the Chilian markets to purchase cattle. The greatest dainty to my mind they had brought with them was a quantity of Yerba maté, as it is called. It is the dried leaves of a species of Patagonian ilex, which is used in this country as tea, and very delightful and soothing it is. This was to be our drink during all our tour. More refreshing than tea, less exciting than wine, it not only seems to calm the mind but to invigorate the body. Drunk warm, with or without sugar, all feeling of tiredness passes away, and one is disposed to look at the bright side of life, and that alone.