Our Home in the Silver West: A Story of Struggle and Adventure

'But, capataz,' I said, with a shudder, 'did you make no attempt to save your brother chief?'

'Not much! You see, he all same as dead. Suppose I den shoot, p'r'aps I kill him for true; 'sides, I bad Gaucho den; not love anybody mooch. Next day I kill dat tiger proper, and his skin make good ponchos. Ha! ha!'

Many a time during the Gaucho's recital he had paused and looked uneasily around him, for ever and anon the woods re-echoed with strange cries. We white men had not lived long enough in beast-haunted wildernesses to distinguish what those sounds were, whether they proceeded from bird or beast.

As the capataz stopped speaking, and we all sat silent for a short time, the cries were redoubled. They certainly were not calculated to raise our spirits: some were wild and unearthly in the extreme, some were growls of evident anger, some mere groanings, as if they proceeded from creatures dying in pain and torment, while others again began in a low and most mournful moan, rising quickly into a hideous, frightened, broken, or gurgling yell, then dying away again in dreary cadence.

I could not help shuddering a little as I looked behind me into the darkness of the forest. The whole place had an uncanny, haunted sort of look, and I even began to wonder whether we might not possibly be the victims of enchantment. Would we awaken in the morning and find no trees, no wood, no water, only a green cañon, with cliffs and hills on every side?

'Look, look!' I cried, starting half up at last. 'Did none of you see that?'

'What is it? Speak, Murdoch!' cried Archie; 'your face is enough to frighten a fellow.'

I pressed my hand to my forehead.

'Surely,' I said, 'I am going to be ill, but I thought I could distinctly see a tall grey figure standing among the trees.'

We resumed talking, but in a lower, quieter key. The events of the evening, our strange surroundings, the whispering trees, the occasional strange cries, and the mournful beauty of the night, seemed to have cast a glamour over every heart that was here; and though it was now long past our usual hour for bed, no one appeared wishful to retire.

All at once Archie grasped me by the shoulder and glanced fearfully into the forest behind me. I dared scarcely turn my head till the click of Yambo's revolver reassured me.

Yes, there was the figure in grey moving silently towards us.

'Speak, quick, else I fire!' shouted our capataz.

'Ave Maria!'

Yambo lowered the revolver, and we all started to our feet to confront the figure in grey.

CHAPTER XX.
THE MOUNTAIN CRUSOE

The figure in grey – the grey was a garment of skin, cap, coat, breeches, and even boots, apparently all of the same material – approached with extended hand. We could see now it was no ghost who stood before us, but a man of flesh and blood. Very solid flesh, too, judging from the cheeks that surmounted the silvery beard. The moon shone full on his face, and a very pleasant one it was, with a bright, merry twinkle in the eye.

'Who are you?' said I.

'Nay, pardon me,' was the bold reply, 'but the question would come with greater propriety from my lips. I need not ask it, however. You are right welcome to my little kingdom. You are, I can see, a party of roving hunters. Few of your sort have ever come here before, I can tell you.'

'And you?' I said, smiling.

'I am – but there, what need to give myself a name? I have not heard my name for years. Call me Smith, Jones, Robinson; call me a hunter, a trapper, a madman, a fool – anything.'

'A hermit, anyhow,' said Dugald.

'Yes, boy, a hermit.'

'And an Englishman?'

'No; I am a Portuguese by birth, but I have lived in every country under the sun, and here I am at last. Have I introduced myself sufficiently?'

'No,' I said; 'but sit down. You have,' I continued, 'only introduced yourself sufficiently to excite our curiosity. Yours must be a strange story.'

'Oh, anybody and everybody who lives for over fifty years in the world as I have done has a strange story, if he cared to tell it. Mine is too long, and some of it too sad. I have been a soldier, a sailor, a traveller; I have been wealthy, I have been poor; I have been in love – my love left me. I forgot her. I have done everything except commit crime. I have not run away from anywhere, gentlemen. There is no blood on my hands. I can still pray. I still love. She whom I love is here.'

'Oh!' cried Dugald, 'won't you bring the lady?'

The hermit laughed.

'She is here, there, all around us. My mistress is Nature. Ah! boys,' he said, turning to us with such a kind look, 'Nature breaks no hearts; and the more you love her, the more she loves you, and leads you upwards – always upwards, never down.'

It was strange, but from the very moment he began to talk both my brothers and I began to like this hermit. His ways and his manners were quite irresistible, and before we separated we felt as if we had known him all our lives.

He was the last man my brothers and I saw that night, and he was the first we met in the morning. He had donned a light cloth poncho and a broad sombrero hat, and really looked both handsome and picturesque.

We went away together, and bathed, and I told him of Dugald's adventure. He looked interested, patted my brother's shoulder, and said:

'Poor boy, what a narrow escape you have had!

'The stream,' he continued, 'that flows through this strange glen rises in the hills about five miles up. It rises from huge springs – you shall see them – flows through the woods, and is sucked into the earth in the middle of that lake. I have lived here for fifteen years. Walk with me up the glen. Leave your rifles in your tents; there is nothing to hurt.'

We obeyed, and soon joined him, and together we strolled up the path that led close by the banks of a beautiful stream. We were enchanted with the beauty displayed everywhere about us, and our guide seemed pleased.

'Almost all the trees and shrubs you see,' he said, 'I have planted, and many of the beautiful flowers – the orchids, the climbers, and creepers, all are my pets. Those I have not planted I have encouraged, and I believe they all know me.'

At this moment a huge puma came bounding along the path, but stopped when he saw us.

'Don't be afraid, boys,' said the hermit. 'This, too, is a pet. Do not be shy, Jacko. These are friends.'

The puma smelt us, then rubbed his great head against his master's leg, and trotted along by his side.

'I have several. You will not shoot while you live here? Thanks. I have a large family. The woods are filled with my family. I have brought them from far and near, birds and beasts of every kind. They see us now, but are shy.'

'I say, sir,' said Dugald, 'you are Adam, and this is Paradise.'

The hermit smiled in recognition of the compliment, and we now approached his house.

'I must confess,' I said, 'that a more Crusoe-looking establishment it has never been my luck to behold.'

'You are young yet,' replied the hermit, laughing, 'although you speak so like a book.

'Here we are, then, in my compound. The fence, you see, is a very open one, for I desire neither to exclude the sunshine nor the fresh air from my vegetables. Observe,' he continued, 'that my hut, which consists of one large room, stands in the centre of a gravel square.'

'It is strange-looking gravel!' said Dugald.

'It is nearly altogether composed of salt. My house is built of stone, but it is plastered with a kind of cement I can dig here in the hills. There is not a crevice nor hollow in all the wall, and it is four feet thick. The floor is also cemented, and so is the roof.'

'And this,' I remarked, 'is no doubt for coolness in summer.'

'Yes, and warmth in winter, if it comes to that, and also for cleanliness. Yonder is a ladder that leads to the roof. Up there I lounge and think, drink my maté and read. Oh yes, I have plenty of books, which I keep in a safe with bitter-herb powder – to save them, you know, from literary ants and other insects who possess an ambition to solve the infinite. Observe again, that I have neither porch nor verandah to my house, and that the windows are small. I object to a porch and to climbing things on the same principle that I do to creeping, crawling creatures. The world is wide enough for us all. But they must keep to their side of the house at night, and I to mine. And mine is the inside. This is also the reason why most of the gravel is composed of salt. As a rule, creepies don't like it.'

'Oh, I'm glad you told us that,' said Archie; 'I shall make my mule carry a bushel of it. I'm glad you don't like creepies, sir.'

'But, boy, I do. Only I object to them indoors. Walk in. Observe again, as a showman would say, how very few my articles of furniture are. Notice, however, that they are all scrupulously clean. Nevertheless, I have every convenience. That thong-bottomed sofa is my bed. My skins and rugs are kept in a bag all day, and hermetically sealed against the prying probosces of insectivora. Here is my stove, yonder my kitchen and scullery, and there hangs my armoury. Now I am going to call my servant. He is a Highlander like yourselves, boys; at any rate, he appears to be, for he never wears anything else except the kilt, and he talks a language which, though I have had him for ten years, I do not yet understand. Archie, Archie, where are you?'

'Another Archie!' said Dugald, 'and a countryman, too?'

'He is shy of strangers. Archie, boy! He is swinging in some tree-top, no doubt.'

'What a queer fellow he must be! Wears nothing but the kilt, speaks Gaelic, swings in tree-tops, and is shy! A rara avis indeed.'

'Ah! here he comes. Archie, spread the awning out of doors, lay the table, bring a jug of cold maté and the cigars.'

Truly Archie was a curious Highlander. He was quite as tall as our Archie, and though the hermit assured us he was only a baby when he bought him in Central Africa for about sevenpence halfpenny in Indian coin, he had now the wrinkled face of an old man of ninety – wrinkled, wizened, and weird. But his eye was singularly bright and young-looking. In his hand he carried a long pole from which he had bitten all the bark, and his only dress was a little petticoat of skunk skin, which the hermit called his kilt. He was, in fact, an African orang-outang.

'Come and shake hands with the good gentlemen, Archie.'

Archie knitted his brows, and looked at us without moving. The hermit laughingly handed him a pair of big horn-rimmed spectacles. These he put on with all the gravity of some ancient professor of Sanscrit, then looked us all over once again.

We could stand this no longer, and so burst into a chorus of laughing.

'Don't laugh longer than you can help, boys. See, Archie is angry.'

Archie was. He showed a mouth full of fearful-looking fangs, and fingered his club in a way that was not pleasant.

'Archie, you may have some peaches presently.'

Archie grew pleasant again in a moment, and advanced and shook hands with us all round, looking all the time, however, as if he had some silent sorrow somewhere. I confess he wrung our hands pretty hard. Neither my brother nor I made any remark, but when it came to Archie's turn —

'Honolulu!' he shouted, shaking his fingers, and blowing on them. 'I believe he has made the blood come!'

'I suppose,' said Dugald, laughing, 'he knows you are a namesake.'

Off went the great baboon, and to our intense astonishment spread the awning, placed table and camp-stools under it, and fetched the cold maté with all the gravity and decorum of the chief steward on a first-class liner.

I looked at my brothers, and they looked at me.

'You seem all surprised,' the hermit said, 'but remember that in olden times it was no rare thing to see baboons of this same species waiting at the tables of your English nobility. Well, I am not only a noble, but a king; why should not I also have an anthropoid as a butler and valet?'

'I confess,' I said, 'I for one am very much surprised at all I have seen and all that has happened since last night, and I really cannot help thinking that presently I shall awake and find, as the story-books say, it is all a dream.'

'You will find it all a very substantial dream, I do assure you, sir. But help yourself to the maté. You will find it better than any imported stuff.'

'Archie! Archie! Where are you?'

'Ah! ah! Yah, yah, yah!' cried Archie, hopping round behind his master.

'The sugar, Archie.'

'Ah, ah, ah! Yah, yah!'

'Is that Gaelic, Dugald?' said our Archie.

'Not quite, my cockney cousin.'

'I thought not.'

'Why?' said Dugald.

'It is much more intelligible.'

The hermit laughed.

'I think, Dugald,' he said, 'your cousin has the best of you.'

He then made us tell him all our strange though brief history, as the reader already knows it. If he asked us questions, however, it was evidently not for the sake of inquisitiveness, but to exchange experiences, and support the conversation. He was quite as ready to impart as to solicit information; but somehow we felt towards him as if he were an elder brother or uncle; and this only proves the hermit was a perfect gentleman.

'Shall you live much longer in this beautiful wilderness?' asked Donald.

'Well, I will tell you all about that,' replied the hermit. 'And the all is very brief. When I came here first I had no intention of making a long stay. I was a trapper and hunter then pure and simple, and sold my skins and other odds and ends which these hills yield – and what these are I must not even tell to you – journeying over the Andes with mules twice every year for that purpose. But gradually, as my trees and bushes and all the beauty of this wild garden-glen grew up around me, and so many of God's wild children came to keep me company, I got to love my strange life. So from playing at being a hermit, I dare say I have come to be one in reality. And now, though I have money – much more than one would imagine – in the Chilian banks, I do not seem to care to enter civilized life again. For some years back I have been promising myself a city holiday, but I keep putting it off and off. I should not wonder if it never comes, or, to speak more correctly, I should wonder if it ever came. Oh, I dare say I shall die in my own private wilderness here, with no one to close my eyes but old Archie.'

'Do you still go on journeys to Chili?'

'I still go twice a year. I have strong fleet mules. I go once in summer and once in winter.'

'Going in winter across the Andes! That must be a terribly dreary journey.'

'It is. Yet it has its advantages. I never have to flee from hostile Indians then. They do not like the hills in winter.'

'Are you not afraid of the pampas Indians?'

'No, not at all. They visit me occasionally here, but do not stay long. I trust them, I am kind to them, and I have nothing they could find to steal, even if they cared to be dishonest. But they are not. They are good-hearted fellows in their own way.'

'Yes,' I said, 'very much in their own way.'

'My dear boy,' said the hermit, 'you do not know all. A different policy would have made those Indians the sworn friends, the faithful allies and servants of the white man. They would have kept then to their own hunting-grounds, they would have brought to you wealth of skins, and wealth of gold and silver, too, for believe me, they (the Indians) have secrets that the white trader little wots of. No, it is the dishonest, blood-stained policy of the Republic that has made the Indian what he is – his hand against every man, every man's hand against him.'

'But they even attack you at times, I think you gave us to understand?'

'Nay, not the pampas or pampean Indians: only prowling gipsy tribes from the far north. Even they will not when they know me better. My fame is spreading as a seer.'

'As a seer?'

'Yes, a kind of prophet. Do not imagine that I foster any such folly, only they will believe that, living here all alone in the wilds, I must have communication with – ha! ha! a worse world than this.'

As we rose to go the hermit held out his hand.

'Come and see me to-night,' he said; 'and let me advise you to make this glen your headquarters for a time. The hills and glens and bush for leagues around abound in game. Then your way back lies across a pampa north and east of here; not the road you have come.'

'By the by,' said Archie, 'before we go, I want to ask you the question which tramps always put in England: "Are the dogs all safe?"'

'Ah,' said the hermit, smiling, 'I know what you mean. Yes, the dogs are safe. My pet pumas will not come near you. I do not think that even my jaguars would object to your presence; but for safety's sake Archie shall go along with you, and he shall also come for you in the evening. Give him these peaches when you reach camp. They are our own growing, and Archie dotes upon them.'

So away back by the banks of the stream we went, our strange guide, club in hand, going hopping on before. It did really seem all like a scene of enchantment.

We gave Archie the peaches, and he looked delighted.

'Good-bye, old man,' said Dugald, as he presented him with his.

'Speak a word or two of Gaelic to him,' said our Archie.

Sandie Donaldson was indeed astonished at all we told him.

'I suppose it's all right,' he said, 'but dear me, that was an uncanny-looking creature you had hirpling on in front of you!'

In the evening, just as we had returned from a most successful guanaco hunt, we found Donaldson's uncanny creature coming along the path.

'I suppose he means us to dine with him,' I remarked.

'Ah, ah, ah! Yah, ah, yah!' cried the baboon.

'Well, will you come, Sandie?'

Sandie shook his head.

'Not to-night,' said Sandie. 'Take care of yourselves, boys. Mind what the old proverb says: "They need a lang spoon wha sup wi' the deil."'

We found the hermit at his gate, and glad he seemed to see us.

'I've been at home all the afternoon,' he said, 'cooking your dinner. Most enjoyable work, I can assure you. All the vegetables are fresh, and even the curry has been grown on the premises. I hope you are fond of armadillo; that is a favourite dish of mine. But here we have roast ducks, partridges, and something that perhaps you have never tasted before, roast or boiled. For bread we have biscuit; for wine we have maté and milk. My goats come every night to be milked. Archie does the milking as well as any man could. Ah, here come my dogs.'

Two deerhounds trotted up and made friends with us.

'I bought them from a roving Scot two years ago while on a visit to Chili.'

'How about the pumas? Don't they – '

'No, they come from the trees to sleep with Rob and Rory. Even the jaguars do not attempt to touch them. Sit down; you see I dine early. We will have time before dusk to visit some of my pets. I hope they did not keep you awake.'

'No, but the noise would have done so, had we not known what they were.'

Conversation never once flagged all the time we sat at table. The hermit himself had put most of the dishes down, but Archie duly waited behind his master's chair, and brought both the maté and the milk, as well as the fruit. This dessert was of the most tempting description; and not even at our own estancia had I tasted more delicious grapes. But there were many kinds of fruit here we had never even seen before. As soon as we were done the waiter had his repast, and the amount of fruit he got through surprised us beyond measure. He squatted on the ground to eat. Well, when he commenced his dinner he looked a little old gentleman of somewhat spare habit; when he rose up – by the aid of his pole – he was decidedly plump, not to say podgy. Even his cheeks were puffed out; and no wonder, they were stuffed with nuts to eat at his leisure.

'I dare say Archie eats at all odd hours,' I said.

'No, he does not,' replied the hermit. 'I never encouraged him to do so, and now he is quite of my way of thinking, and never eats between meals. But come, will you light a cigarette and stroll round with me?'

'We will stroll round without the cigarette,' I said.

'Then fill your pockets with nuts and raisins; you must do something.'

'Feed the birds, Archie.'

'Ah, ah, ah! Yah, ah! Yah, yah!'

'The birds need not come to be fed; there is enough and to spare for them in the woods, but they think whatever we eat must be extra nice. We have all kinds of birds except the British sparrow. I really hope you have not brought him. They say he follows Englishmen to the uttermost parts of the world.'

We waited for a moment, and wondered at the flocks of lovely bright-winged doves and pigeons and other birds that had alighted round the table to receive their daily dole, then followed our hermit guide, to feast our eyes on other wonders not a whit less wonderful than all we had seen.