CHAPTER I.
THE BOMBEROS

Patagonia is as little known at the present day as it was when Juan Diaz de Solis and Vicente Yanez Pinzon landed there in 1508, sixteen years after the discovery of the New World.

The earliest navigators, whether involuntarily or not, threw over this country a mysterious veil, which science and frequent relations have not yet entirely removed. The celebrated Magalaës (Magellan) and his historian, the Chevalier Pigafetta, who touched at these coasts in 1520, were the first to invent these Patagonian giants so tall that Europeans scarce reached their girdle, who were upwards of nine feet high, and resembled Cyclops. These fables, like all fables, have been accepted as truths, and in the last century became the theme of a very lively dispute among learned men. Hence the name of Patagonians (great feet) was given to the inhabitants of this country, which extends from the western watershed of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Patagonia is watered, through its entire length, by the Rio Colorado in the north, and the Rio Negro in the east-south-east. These two rivers, through the windings of their course, agreeably break the uniformity of an arid, dry, sandy soil, on which prickly shrubs alone grow, or dispense life to the uninterrupted vegetation of their banks. They wind round a fertile valley overshadowed by willow trees, and trace two deep furrows through the midst of an almost level country.

The Rio Negro runs through a valley surrounded by precipitous cliffs, which the waters still wash at places; wherever they have retired, they have left alluvial soil covered with an eternal vegetation, and formed numerous islets covered with willows, and contrasting with the mournful aspect of the naked cliffs.

Monkeys, wild asses, foxes, and red wolves constantly traverse the desert in every direction, together with the cougar, or American lion, and the imbaracayas – those ferocious and formidable wild cats. The coasts are thronged with amphibious carnivora, such as sea lions and elephant seals. The guya, concealed in the marshes, utters its melancholy cry; the guacuti, or stag of the Pampas, runs lightly over the sand; while the guanaco, or American camel, sits pensively on the summit of the cliffs. The majestic condor soars amid the clouds, in the company of the disgusting cathartes. Urubús and auras which, like it, hover round the cliffs on the seaboard to dispute the remains of corpses with the voracious caracaras. Such are the plains of Patagonia, a monotonous solitude empty, horrible, and desolate!

One evening in the month of November, which the Aucas Indians call the "moon of the pruning," a traveller, mounted on a powerful horse of the Pampas of Buenos Aires, was following at a sharp trot one of the thousand paths traced by the Indians, in that inextricable labyrinth found on the banks of all American rivers. This traveller was a man of thirty years of age at the most, clothed in a semi-Indian, semi-European garb peculiar to the Gauchos. A poncho of Indian manufacture hung from his shoulders to his horse's flanks, and only left visible the long Chilian polenas that came above his knees. A lasso and bolas hung from either side of his saddle, and he carried a rifle in front of him.

His face, half concealed by the broad brim of his straw hat, had an expression of brute courage and spitefulness; his features were, so to say, modelled by hatred. His long hooked nose, surmounted by two quick threatening eyes, rather close together, gave him a distant resemblance to a bird of prey; his thin lips were contracted with an ironical air, and his prominent cheekbones suggested cunning. The Spaniard could be recognized by his olive tint. The effect of this face, surrounded as it was by long tangled black hair and a large beard, was to inspire fear and repulsion. His wide shoulders and well-knit limbs denoted far from common strength and agility in this man, who seemed above the average height.

On reaching a spot where several tracks crossed each other to form an inextricable network, the stranger stopped to look about him, and, after a moment's hesitation, turned to the right and struck a trail. Going further and further away from the banks of the Rio Colorado, which he had hitherto been following, he entered a plain, the soil of which, burned by the sun and covered with small pebbles or gravel, only offered a few stunted shrubs to the eye. The further the stranger advanced in this desert, the further solitude extended in its gloomy majesty, and the footfall of his horse alone disturbed the silence of the desert. The horseman, but slightly affected by this savage beauty of Nature, contented himself with carefully reconnoitering and counting the pozos, for in these countries utterly void of water, travellers have dug reservoirs in which the water collects during the rainy season.

After passing two of these pozos, the traveller saw in the distance horses hobbled in front of a wretched toldo. At once a shout was raised, and in less than a minute the horses were unfastened; three men leapt into the saddle, and dashed forward at full gallop to reconnoitre this man, who, careless of their movements, continued his journey without making the slightest attempt to put himself on his defence.

"Eh, compadre, whither are you bound?" one of them asked, as he barred the way for the stranger.

"Canario, Pepe," the latter answered; "have you been emptying a skin of aguardiente this evening? Do you not recognize me?"

"Why, 'tis the voice of Pedrito, if I am not mistaken."

"Unless someone has stolen my voice, my good fellow, it is I, the real Pedrito."

"Caray! You are welcome," the three men shouted.

"Deuce take me if I did not fancy you killed by one of those dogs of Aucas; ten minutes ago I was talking about it to Lopez."

"Yes," Lopez added in confirmation, "for you have disappeared for eight days."

"Eight days – yes; but I have not lost my time."

"You will tell us your exploits?"

"I should think so; but I and my horse are hungry after a two days' fast."

"That will be soon remedied," said Pepe, "for here we are."

The four friends, while conversing, had ridden on, and at this moment dismounted in front of the toldo, which they entered, after hobbling their horses and placing food before that of the newcomer. This toldo, as they are called in the country, was a cabin thirty feet long and the same in depth, covered with reeds, and formed of stakes driven into the ground, and fastened together with thongs. In one corner, four wooden and leather benches served as beds for the dwellers in this house, where it was difficult to shelter themselves against the wind and rain.

In the centre of the toldo each sat down on a large stone, in front of a fire whose dense smoke almost concealed objects. Lopez took up a piece of guanaco that was roasting, and planted the spit in the ground. The four comrades drew their long knives from their polenas, and began eating with good appetites.

These men were bomberos.

Ever since the foundation of the Spanish colonial fort of Carmen, it had been found necessary, in consequence of the vicinity of the Indians, to have scouts to watch over their movements, and give the alarm at the slightest danger. These scouts form a species of corps of the bravest men, thoroughly habituated to the privations of the Pampas. Although their services are voluntary and their profession perilous, bomberos are never wanting, for they are handsomely paid. They often go twenty or five and twenty leagues from the fort, as extreme outposts, ambushing on spots where the enemy – that is to say, the Indians – must necessarily pass. Day and night they ride across the plains, watching, listening, and hiding. Scattered during the day, they reassemble at sunset, though they rarely venture to light a fire, which would betray their presence; and they never all sleep together. Their bivouac is a flying camp, and they live on the produce of the chase. They have long been accustomed to this strange and nomadic life, and hence they acquire a fineness of perception almost equal to that of the Indians, and their practised eyes recognize the slightest trace on the lightly trodden grass or sand. Solitude has developed in them a marvellous sagacity, and a rare talent for observation.

The four bomberos collected in the toldo were the most renowned in Patagonia. These poor fellows were supping gaily while warming themselves at a good fire, a rare pleasure for men surrounded by dangers, and who hate a surprise to fear at any hour. But the bomberos did not appear to trouble themselves about anything, although aware that the Indians never give them any quarter.

The character of these men is singular: courageous to cruelty, they care not for the life of other persons or their own. If one of their comrades die, victim of an Indian or a wild beast, they content themselves with saying he has a mala suerte (ill luck). True savages, living without any affection or faith, they are a peculiar type in humanity.

These scouts were brothers, and their names were Lopez, Pepe, Juan, and Pedrito. Their home, twice plundered by the Aucas Indians, had been utterly destroyed by fire in the last invasion. Their father and mother had succumbed under atrocious torture; two of their sisters had been outraged and killed by the chiefs, and the youngest, Mercedes, a child scarce seven years of age, was carried off into slavery, and since then they had received no news of her, and were ignorant were she dead or alive.

The four brothers from this moment became bomberos, through hatred of the Indians and desire of vengeance, and had only one head and one heart. Their prodigies of courage, intelligence, and craft during the last seven years would take us too long to record, and, moreover, we shall find specimens in the course of this narrative.

So soon as Pedrito, who was the eldest, had finished his meal, Lopez put out the fire, and Juan mounted his horse to go the rounds; then the two brothers, curious about the news Pedrito brought them, drew closer to him.

"What news, brother?" Pepe asked.

"Before anything else," the eldest asked, "what have you been doing during the last week?"

"That will not take long," Lopez answered; "nothing."

"Nonsense."

"On my word it is true. The Aucas and Pehuenches are becoming absurdly timid; if this goes on, we shall have to send them petticoats like squaws."

"Oh! Set your minds at rest," Pedrito said, "they have not come to that yet."

"What do you know?" Lopez asked.

"What next?" Pedrito asked, instead of answering.

"That is all; we have seen nothing, heard nothing suspicious."

"Are you sure?"

"Hang it! Do you take us for asses?"

"No, but you are mistaken."

"What?"

"Search your memory carefully."

"No one has passed, I tell you," Pepe remarked confidently.

"No one."

"Unless you count as somebody the old Pehuenche squaw who crossed the plain this evening on a sorry horse, and asked us the road to El Carmen."

"That old squaw," Pedrito said, with a smile, "knows the road as well as I do. Canarios, your innocence amuses me."

"Our innocence!" Lopez exclaimed with a frown; "We are asses, then."

"You look very like it to me."

"Explain yourself."

"You shall understand."

"We shall be only too glad."

"May be so. The old Pehuenche squaw who crossed the plain this evening on a sorry horse, and asked you the road to El Carmen," Pedrito said, repeating Pepe's words, maliciously, "Do you know who she was?"

"Hang it all! A frightful old witch, whose face would terrify the fiend."

"Ah, you think so. Well, you are altogether wrong."

"Speak out, and do not play with us like a congonas with a mouse."

"My boy, this Pehuenche witch was – "

"Who?"

"Nocobotha!"

Nocobotha (the Hurricane) was the principal Ulmen of the Aucas. Pedrito might have gone on talking for a long time without his brothers noticing it, so greatly had the news startled them.

"Malediction!" Pepe at length shouted.

"But how do you know it?" Lopez asked.

"Do you suppose I have been amusing myself with sleeping away the last eight days, brothers? The Indians, to whom you want to send petticoats, are preparing, with the greatest secrecy, to deal you a furious blow. We must distrust silent waters and the calm that conceals a tempest. All the nations of Upper and Lower Patagonia, and even Araucania, have leagued together to attempt an invasion – massacre the whites, and destroy El Carmen. Two men have done it all – two men with whom you and I have been long acquainted – Nocobotha, and Pincheira, the chief of the Araucanos. This evening there will be a grand meeting of the delegates of the free nations, at which the day and hour for the attack will be definitely settled, and the final measures taken to insure the success of the expedition."

"¡Caray!" Pepe exclaimed, "There is not a moment to lose. One of us must go at full gallop to El Carmen to inform the governor of the danger menacing the colony."

"No, not yet; we must not be in such a hurry, but try to discover the intentions of the chiefs. The quipu has been sent round, and the chiefs who will be present at the meeting are twenty in number. You see that I am well informed."

"Where will they meet?"

"At the tree of Gualichu."

"¡Demonio! it will not be an easy thing to surprise them at such a place."

"Hang it, it is impossible," Lopez said.

"Where force fails, try cunning. Here is Juan returned. Well, have you any news?"

"All is quiet," he said, as he dismounted.

"All the better. In that case we can act," Pedrito continued. "Listen to me, brothers. I believe that you have confidence in me – "

"Oh!" the three men exclaimed.

"In that case you will follow me?"

"Anywhere."

"Quick to horse, for I too wish to be present at this Indian gathering."

"And you are going to take us – "

"To the tree of Gualichu."

The four bold comrades mounted their horses, and started at a gallop. Pedrito possessed a superiority over his brothers, which the latter recognized; nothing he did astonished them, so accustomed were they to see him perform marvels.

"Do you intend to mingle with the chiefs also?" Pepe asked.

"Yes, Pepe; instead of twenty there will be twenty-one, that is all," Pedrito added, with a careless smile.

The bomberos spurred their horses, and disappeared in the darkness.