Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-06-04
Cattle.BOy and Jaguar.

One afternoon Ill March gaucho boy
named Facundo, vas sent out from u
puesfo, or sheep furm, hear Iiuti Guaxa,
in the Argentine country, to look up q
small herd of cattle, kept on the estate
for beef, which had st.ayed off into the
woods.
Astff pamper0, accompanied at length
by rain ami slect, hal beer. blowing up
to noon of that day, for many hours.
March is "a late autumn month In this
southt IN country ;and at this season the
pamperoS, or southwest winds, are very
severe. often rising to hurricanesvtili-
ing the air with dense clouds Of dust,
grass and thistle-seed. and ending at
length III driving rain.
During u ptmpeTo, it sometimes grows
dark as night at noonday /; the dust
pepetrates every crack and crevice
houses and huts not built i'll the strong
est manner are blown down; and sheep
and cattle out on the plains fir. gu. ntly
get to running at full gallop before the
wind and are utterly lost.
1t WAS thought that the cattle had
taken refuge in some puna aud miStJi
woods along small poruna (river) six or
eight miles to the northeast OF the p"esto,
Facundo was accordingly dispatched,
on horseback, i'll search Of them.
Now. this Facundo, or " GundY," as
he WAS familiaIly known at the Taesto,
was something Of Il character" las
the narrator we'll remembers). He
was somewhat OF q musician in his way
and his efforts on q French ACCORDION
were the delight of our leisure hours.
He was equally captivating, too, IL
dlsconrslng from marvellous fiddle
adapted f,om the shell of an armadillo
and moi nings he WAS wont to rouse us
from onr peaceful slumbers with car.
splitting screeches from a fife made oi
q tosfO,a stalk
"Gundy' had some Of the oft-pres
ent failings of genius; he was lazy, and
had grand appetite for anything and
erything sweet, in the way of food.
1t may have been from this circum-
stance that he was a very dulcet.tem.
Pered lad-for yaucho.
All sduchos are good horsemen, by
birth. 'Gundy" set off on horseback
with his Knife in his boot and his rec
ponehe wrapped about him, for though
the sun was out, the weather was still
far from warm.
Clspping spurs to the horse, he pro-
ceeded at q gallOp, over the ricks OF
thist les and tuna stalks blown down by
the pompero, and after fording number
of arroyOs reached the prana, which
he found greatly swollen by the rain.
Guessing thai the cattle could hardly
have crossed the river, "Gundy" now
went from one to another of the thick
cts and mistoi groves, along The bank.
How well he searched was better
shown next day.
But though he found no trace of the
cattle, he discovered something which
engaged his attention and evidently
occupied quite portion Of his time
that afternoon; to wit. honey, thing
"Gundy" never could resist.
Card ms, huge kind of cactus with
stalks or trunk two or three feet thick,
and odd, clumsy branches grow in var
ious places throughout this province.
A bird, similar to a woodpecker, often
makes holes in the trunks, which are
sometimes hollow.
Inside such hollow trunks, the wild.
bees, of which there are no less than
eight varieties in the Argentine country
make their hives, using the hole fol
their entrances.
Those building in the Gardens make
honey OF an exquisite flavor, which
some have thought due to some ar
omatic quality Of the cactus in which il
is stored.
As Gundy rode past one of the
thorny 1ami thickets, he tspied several
OF these edrdons one very large-grow.
ing III little hollow and now nearly
buried i'll the wreck of a clump of tanO
which the gale had torn down.
The sight Of one of these cactuses
at once suggested bees nest to our
puesio boy, who was AJnnoisSeur OF
carbon honey.
he discounted, and tying the aiata
10 carob sprout proceeded TO investi'
gaze; and 20 doubt it rejoiced his hear,
10 espy hole walled round with wax
IN the blg stalk Of the larger carbon.
1t Low hardly needed the presence O,
score Of halfdormant bees. crawling
sti1hy over the chunks of sweet tuna
pith scattered about, to assure "Gundy'
that there was rich store awaiting him
inside the carbon.
The storm and cold weather, too, had
made 1t an easy matter to secure the
prize without very hard fight.
There was hut one hole in the cactus
trunk, as Gundy" learned by Walking
around it at little distance and this
hole he now dexteyously plugged with q
piece of pi,h.
Then whipping out his knife, he chop
ped hole III the trunk, two or three
1eet above the bees hole, SO as to come
at the top OF the honey comb.
For experience 10 such hunting had
taught him that there would be no bees
above the comb.
With his large sharp knife he was
not many minutes getting through the
outer ri3d of the carbon stalks and
now his feast stood exposed before his
appreciaIive eyes, and it would be folly