New-York tribune., 1908-06-21
FANCIFUL FOOTGEAR.

The fanciful taste of the guaso in footgear was
once responsible for giving me very apprenenslVe
quarter Of an hour with decided shock of surprise
at the end of il. I riding alone over sWarnpy
piece of trail along the margin of beautiful Villa
Rica Lake one morning, when, leading in from a
bvpath and heading off before me, appeared the
sharp and unmistakable prints Of what / felt sure
was as dainty woman's shoe as ever the eye or
man rested on A girl in French heels in the w1lds
of a Chilian forest in the heart OF the Andes and
fftv miles from a railroad certainly enough
to stir ones curiosity nothing more and it was
with no small degree of pleasurable anticipation
that I whipped up and hastened on to solve the
mystery.
AS nv nervous pony ploughed along through the
mud ! was perplexed to note that the footprints
were far apart and with the toe striking deep, as
tbough made by a woman running at the top of
her speed. The misgivngs aroused by this dlscov-
erv turned 10 a certainty when, topping a sllght
rise 1 beheld the figure of man just disappearing
around a bend below, running hard and steadily
with his eyes the ground like q hound
Foul play afoot," thought l. That devil OF a
guasos on the Iady's trail and for good. either.
I'll be bound But" muttered through my teeth,
he'll have TO reach her first or his games up. y
and with the image of that dainty footprint fut-
tering on my retina like his lady's coors on the
breast of a knight of old. I put spurs to my pony
and dashed on TO the rescue. Round the bend
galloped, only lifting my eyes from the pathetic
little line of footprints long enough to note my man
splashng through a little stream in the bottom Of
the sH-ale his eyes now eagerly raised TO some
thing he had apparently deserted in the dimming
vista OF the trail beyond. AS the pony toiled up
the next hill heard him shouting angry orders for
some 10 stop. and swung into straight
stretch of road again just I'm time TO see his sharp
ly flung RATA catch and bring up sharp object
that had taken refuge in the wild bamboo that
hedged in the trail.
My strained ears caught the sound of stifed
cry. which ended in gurgling cough as the RATA
tautened, and TO my eyes there was revealed for
an instant a CLINT of golden hair tossing against
the sornbre green Of the thick set bamboo. That
was all until my flying pony brought back
on TO his launches by the jerk I gave his Spanish
hit on discovering ar one and the same instant
that I was about 10 ride down a who had just
lassoed what was apparently a runaway pet
suanaco. and-oh. the humiliation Of it!-that my
little tracks ran right up where the astonished
gauso stood and stopped. And the worst Of it
was that they didn't stop beside him with sup
pcating French heeled girl in them. but ran
right under him and disappeared He was the
maiden whom 7 had galloped hard to save from
his own attack my misapprehensiOn having arisen
from the deceving tracks left by the enormously
high heeled botas he wearing. The guanaco
IS small animal of the llama family, with fur
richest yellow. and this particular specimen,
foundering in the coils of his owners RATA, had
furnished the gurgling cry and the CLINT of golden
hair that had put finishing touches my illu-
sion
The guaso high heeled boot partly In
vanity, perhaps, but principally because 1t gives
him splendid holding when he is roping from the
enormous spur from trailing he walks. These
spurs are seen anywhere from two to six inches in
diameter, and the savage affairs worn by many
members Of the cowboy tribe