Tales of the Pampas | Page 8

I wore fine clothes and gold ornaments, and lived in a great
house where there were many servants to wait on me. But happy I have
never been. Every flower I plucked changed into a nettle to sting my
hand. Perhaps that maleficent one, who has pursued me all my days,
seeing me now so humbled and one with the poor, has left me and gone
away. Yes, I am poor, and this frayed garment that covers mc will I
press to my lips because it does not shine with silk and gold
embroidery. And this poverty which I have found will I cherish, and
bequeath it as a precious thing to my child when I die. For with it is
peace."
The peace did not last long; for when misfortune has singled out a man
for its prey, it will follow him to the end, and he shall not escape from
it though he mount up to the clouds like the falcon, or thrust himself
deep down into the earth like the armadillo.
Valerio had been two years at El Ombú when there came an Indian
invasion on the southern frontier. There was no force to oppose it; the
two hundred men stationed at the Guardia del Azul had been besieged
by a part of the invaders in the fort, while the larger number of the
savages were sweeping away the cattle and horses from the country all
round. An urgent order came to the commander at Chascomus to send a
contingent of forty men from the department; and I, then a young man
of twenty, who had seen no service, was cited to appear at the
Commandancia, in readiness to march. There I found that Valerio had
also been cited, and from that moment we were together. Two days
later we were at the Azul, the Indians having retired with their booty;
and when all the contingents from the various departments had come in,
the commander, one Colonel Barboza, set out with about six hundred
men in pursuit.
It was known that in their retreat the Indians had broken up their force
into several parties, and that these had taken different directions, and it
was thought that these bodies would reunite after a time, and that the

larger number would return to their territory by way of Trinqué
Lauquén, about seventy-five leagues west of Azul. Our Colonel's plan
was to go quickly to this point and wait the arrival of the Indians. It was
impossible that they, burdened with the thousands of cattle they had
collected, could move fast, while we were burdened with nothing, the
only animals we drove before us being our horses. These numbered
about five thousand, but many were unbroken mares, to be used as food.
Nothing but mare's flesh did we have to eat.
It was the depth of winter, and worse weather I have never known. In
this desert I first beheld that whiteness called snow, when the rain flies
like cotton-down before the wind, filling the air and whitening the
whole earth. All day and every day our clothes were wet, and there was
no shelter from the wind and rain at night, nor could we make fires
with the soaked grass and reeds, and wood there was none, so that we
were compelled to eat our mare s flesh uncooked.
Three weeks were passed in this misery, waiting for the Indians and
seeking for them, with the hills of Gaumini now before us in the south,
and now on our left hand; and still no sight and no sign of the enemy. It
seemed as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up. Our Colonel
was in despair, and we now began to hope that he would lead us back
to the Azul.
In these circumstances one of the men, who was thinly clad and had
been suffering from a cough, dropped from his horse, and it was then
seen that he was likely to die, and that in any case he would have to be
left behind. Finding that there was no hope for him, he begged that
those who were with him would remember, when they were at home
again, that he had perished in the desert and that his soul was suffering
in purgatory, and that they would give something to the priests to
procure him ease. When asked by his officer to say who his relations
were and where they lived, he replied that he had no one belonging to
him. He said that he had spent many years in captivity among the
Indians at the Salinas Grandes, and that on his return he had failed to
find any one of his relations living in the district where he had been
born. In answer to further