Our Home in the Silver West Part 27

'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 c.o.c.kroaches are all very well down in the coal-cellar, and centipedes are interesting creatures in gla.s.s cases with pins stuck through them; but to find c.o.c.kroaches 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 _Lampyridae_, 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 gla.s.s 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, gra.s.shoppers 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 s.p.a.ce or time. Ours was no caravan on wheels. Not a single wheeled waggon accompanied us, for we should cross deserts, and pa.s.s 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 f.e.c.kless loon Bombazo, the peer[13] body is best in bed.'

Our arms consisted of rifles, shot-guns, the bolas, and la.s.so. 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 antic.i.p.ation 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.