by night. This arrangement answers
wonderfully well, and I have proved over and over again that they are
exceedingly fond of each other. The biscachas themselves are not very
demonstrative, either in their fun or affection, but if one of them be
killed, and is lying dead outside the burrow, the poor owl often exhibits
the most frantic grief for the murder of his little housekeeper, and will
even show signs of a desire to attack the animal--especially if a
dog--which has caused his affliction.

Donald and I, with our guide, now reached the land of the giant cacti. We
all at home here in Britain know something of the beauty of the common
prickly cactus that grows in window-gardens or in hot-houses, and
surprises us with the crimson glory of its flowers, which grow from such
odd parts of the plant; but here we were in the land of the cacti. Dugald
knew it well, and used to tell us all about them; so tall, so stately, so
strange and weird, that we felt as if in another planet. Already the bloom
was on some of them--for in this country flowers soon hear the voice of
spring--but in the proper season nothing that ever I beheld can surpass
the gorgeous beauty of these giant cacti.

The sun began to sink uncomfortably low down on the horizon, and my
anxiety increased every minute. Why did not Dugald meet us? Why did we not
even hear the sound of his gun, for the Gaucho told us we were close to
the laguna?

Presently the cacti disappeared behind us, and we found ourselves in open
ground, with here and there a tall, weird-looking tree. How those
trees--they were not natives--had come there we were at first at a loss to
understand, but when we reached the foot of a grass-grown hill or sand
dune, and came suddenly on the ruins of what appeared a Jesuit hermitage
or monastery, the mystery was explained.

On rounding a spur of this hill, lo! the lake; and not far from the foot
of a tree, behold! our truant brother. Beside him was Dash, and not a
great way off, tied to a dwarf algaroba tree, stood the mule. Dugald was
sitting on the ground, with his gun over his arm, gazing up into the
tree.

'Dugald! Dugald!' I cried.

But Dugald never moved his head. Was he dead, or were these green sand
dunes fairy hillocks, and my brother enchanted?

I leapt off my mule, and, rifle in hand, went on by myself, never taking
my eyes off my brother, and with my heart playing pit-a-pat against my
ribs.

'Dugald!' I said again.

He never move