the South American cities, and the killing of a condor is worth
something. All this will account for the shyness of this great bird,
while other vultures are usually so tame that you may approach within a
few paces of them.

As yet the half-dozen condors hovering about kept well off from the hut;
and Leon could not understand how any one of them was to be caught.

The vaquero, however, had a good many "dodges," and after the _ruse_ he
had just practised upon the vicunas, Leon suspected he would employ some
similar artifice with the condors. Leon was right. It was by a stratagem
the bird was to be taken.

The vaquero laid hold of a long rope, and lifting the bull's hide upon
his shoulders, asked Guapo to follow him with the two horses. When he
had got out some four or five hundred yards from the hut, he simply
spread himself flat upon the ground, and drew the skin over him, the
fleshy side turned upward. There was a hollow in the ground about as big
as his body--in fact, a trench he had himself made for a former
occasion--and when lying in this on his back, his breast was about on a
level with the surrounding turf.

His object in asking Guapo to accompany him with the horses was simply a
_ruse_ to deceive the condors, who from their high elevation were all
the while looking down upon the plain. But the vaquero covered himself
so adroitly with his red blanket, that even their keen eyes could
scarcely have noticed him; and as Guapo afterwards left the ground with
the led horses, the vultures supposed that nothing remained but the
skin, which from its sanguinary colour to them appeared to be flesh.

The birds had now nothing to fear from the propinquity of the hut. There
the party were all seated quietly eating their breakfast, and apparently
taking no notice of them. In a few minutes' time, therefore, they
descended lower, and lower,--and then one of the very largest dropped
upon the ground within a few feet of the hide. After surveying it for a
moment, he appeared to see nothing suspicious about it, and hopped a
little closer. Another at this moment came to the ground--which gave
courage to the first--and this at length stalked boldly on the hide, and
began to tear at it with his great beak.

A movement was now perceived on the part of the vaquero--the hide
"lumped" up, and at the same time the wings of the condor were seen to
play and flap about as if he wanted to rise into the air, but could not.
He was evidently