I halted to let them get well away from me, and then, with rage and hatred in my heart, swearing vengeance all the while, I galloped as hard as ever I could to the estancia, to impatiently await the uprising of my boss.

“We must wire, or one of us must go to the Governor in Santa Fe at once,” I urged.  But what was my disgust to be met with but a quiet smile of amusement!

“Not if I know it,” said he.  “Why, good God, man, do you want to have all our throats cut?  This man is a personal friend of the Governor’s, and what satisfaction do you think we are likely to get out of that?”

“Then let us go to the Consul, the British Minister, or even to the President of the Republic?”

A quiet smile with a negatory shake of the head was the only answer.

A fortnight later I sought him in his private sitting-room and found the Chief of Police sitting in an easy-chair.

“Ha! ha! ha!  Don Ernesto.  So you caught us, did you?  Well, it was worth the fun.  I never laughed so much in all my life as when I awoke that morning and found that you had given me the slip!”

A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN CHACO.

After three years on an estancia in the vast monotonous, treeless, but most fertile plains of the Central Argentine, under scorching sun, driving rains, and biting wind, one feels that one would like to see a river sometimes, animal life and more congenial surroundings; and so I determined to visit the Northern Chaco, that enormous tract of land which lies North of Santa Fe and stretches right away for many hundreds of miles to North, East, and West.

Leaving Rosario by the night express, one crosses the great, slightly undulating plains, probably among the richest in the world for the growth of wheat, linseed, and maize, reaching Santa Fe early the following morning.  This town, the capital and Government centre of the province, is rather an uninteresting place; chiefly noticeable in it are the great number of fine churches and the magnificent sawmills owned by a large French company.  Santa Fe is supposed to be one of the most religious centres in the Republic.  More than once it has almost been washed away in an eddy of the giant Parana in flood, the water rising four feet in the houses on the highest level in the town.

After spending a day of sight-seeing in Santa Fe, we embarked at nightfall for Vera, the headquarters of the Santa Fe Land Company’s wood department, arriving there in the early morning.  The land around here from the train appears to be a dry, salty country, devoid of herbage, and only valuable on account of the excellent forest trees and timber.

Our morning meal was taken in the station waiting-room (the only restaurant in the town), and consisted of cold coffee and what the Argentine understands by boiled eggs, which have in reality been in boiling water half a minute, and which, in order to eat, one has to tip into a wine-glass and beat up with a fork, adding pepper and salt, etc.  This is the general way of eating eggs in South America; an egg cup is one of the few things one cannot get in the country without going to an English store in Buenos Aires.