him just for a moment, then simultaneously
exploded into a perfect roar of laughter. Sandie Donaldson, who with the
_capataz_ occupied the next tent, came rushing in, then all the Gauchos
and even the dogs. The latter bolted barking when they saw the apparition,
but the rest joined the laughing chorus.

And the more we looked at Archie the more we laughed, till the very sand
dunes near us must have been shaken to their foundations by the
manifestation of our mirth.

'Laugh away, boys,' said our cousin. 'Laugh and grow fat. I don't care how
I look, so long as my dress and my cream keep the creepies away.'

-----

[13] Peer = poor.

[Illustration: Comical in the Extreme]

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE WILDERNESS.

Some days afterwards we found ourselves among the mountains in a region
whose rugged grandeur and semi-desolation, whose rock-filled glens, tall,
frowning precipices, with the stillness that reigned everywhere around,
imparted to it a character approaching even to sublimity.

The _capataz_ was still our guide, our foremost man in everything; but
close beside him rode our indefatigable hunter, Dugald.

We had already seen pumas, and even the terrible jaguar of the plains; we
had killed more than one rhea--the American ostrich--and deer in
abundance. Moreover, Dugald had secured about fifty skins of the most
lovely humming-birds, with many beetles, whose elytra, painted and adorned
by Nature, looked like radiant jewels. All these little skins and beetles
were destined to be sent home to Flora. As yet, however, we had not come
in contact with the guanaco, although some had been seen at a distance.

But to-day we were in the very country of the guanaco, and pressing
onwards and ever upwards, in the hopes of soon being able to draw trigger
on some of these strange inhabitants of the wilderness.

Only this morning Dugald and I had been bantering each other as to who
should shoot the first.

'I mean to send my first skin to Flora,' Dugald had said.

'And I my first skin to Irene,' I said.

On rounding the corner of a cliff we suddenly came in sight of a whole
herd of the creatures, but they were in full retreat up the glen, while
out against the sky stood in bold relief a tall buck. It was the trumpet
tones of his voice ringing out plaintively but musically on the still
mountain air that had warned the herd of our approach.

Another long ride of nearly two hours. And now we must have been many
thou