Evening star., 1925-02-15

We leaped upon the huge tussocks
that stood like beehives out OF the
water. Sometimes we landed fairly
upon them and kept our balance,
sometimes we slipped off again and
plunged into the water; and at last
there being little about US to be kept
dry, We waded through regardless of
the wet. Reaching the mountainside
at last, We threw our packs aside
built great fire, removed our soak
ing clothes and hung them up to
dry. stretched ourselves out In the
fires warmth, and rested.
The mates foot was giving him
great pain. It appeared to be the
arch that had been strained. I
whitfield a splint for II and bound II
up with sticking plaster: this afford
ed temporary relief.
But that day held surprises for us.
1t must be remembered that we jour-
neyed through an unknown region
toward the remote destination of
Ushuaia, which, so far as we knew,
was the most westerly inhabited spot
on the south shore of TERRA del
Fuego. OF the rate of our progress
we had no means of judging. We had
walked approximately 12 hours a day
but our route was tortuous and beset
with obstacles that impeded and de-
layed US.
WE came to rushing torrent
whose channel was heaped with
refuse of the forest. We built a
bridge and crossed II and were about
to enter the forest on the other side
when suddenly-like Crusoe discov-
ering the savage's footprints in the
saho-we saw on the smooth brown
Iorest turf the prints of horses' feet
We stared at them in bewlidered
JOY; yet hardly had a surmise Of their
signlncance entered our heads when
horses
There were four Of them. How and
whence they came concerned US later.
Our nrst thought was to capture one
or more OF them. But though we
practiced every lure with salt and
meal and stealthily crept near thee,
with the lasso. they were entirely
mstrustful. and soon galloped away
into the forest.
but there remained with US the
knowledge that we had reached the
frontier OF a settlement, and the Ella
tfon of having somehow neared our
journeys end. Yet we had many
weary miles to go and the dis
couragement to face that day of
being separated by deep streams and
impossible bog from the dry hillside
where we came to know our destina-
tion lay.
With dawn of the fourth day we
leapt to action. Gone was the whole
WEAKNESS Of the night before. There.
less than mile away-for the valley
narrowed at this runaround point
were the pasture hillsides that we
meant to reach ;and the mere streams
and bog that had deferred us now
were nothing. We felled a tree that
almost reached across the stream,
and with dead limbs we bridged the
rest of it.
We crossed dry-shod, and. recking
nothing. plunged into the bog. We
followed different tracks and it be-
came joke between US who should
sink the deeper. We wallowed, sink
ing deep at times and struggling out
again. One moment / went in above
my thighs; threw my pack of and
crawled out upon 1t. And we got
across
Now the river confronted US. 1t
was wide and deep. There was no
way to bridge it-and we didn't care
We were too wet-and eager. Choos-
ing the broadest spot to cross 1t we
StTOue III. II rose TO our knees, TO OUT
thighs, to our waists-a little higher
and the swift current would have
swept us off our feet; and then 1t
dropped. Thighs, knees appeared
ankle deep we raced out through the
gravelly shoals and gained dry land.
In little sheltered pasture clear
ing where the bars of q man-made
fence were in the view to gladden. us.
We lit a fire, doffed our clothes and
hung them up to dry.
There being no habitation in sight,
it was our plan to continue down the
valley in the knowledge that even
tually 1t must lead US to the sea- We
resumed our packs and were striding
merrily along, our eyes following the
curving rivers course, when suddenly
emerged moving form, horseman
galloping on the river bank.
y X kk
A T my sudden shout he stopped and
"A looked about as IL amazed; and
then he saw US on the pasture hill
side. He turned his horse and rode
devious way to meet US. At last
he reappeared and with astonishment
upon his face rode up and greeted US.
And when we told him whence we
had come, there came into his face
a wonder rs Il we had been angels
dropped from heaven.
We were, he told us, at an outlying
camp of the Estancia Austral Of