ice.

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!'

-----

[11] Orra = leisure, idle. An orra-man is one who does all
kinds of odd jobs about a farm.

[12] Nowt = cattle.

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