But now it was time for bed, and we returned to the tents and lit our lamps.
Our beds were the hard ground, with a rug and guanaco robe, our saddles turned upside down making as good a pillow as any one could wish.
We had now the satisfaction of knowing something concerning the contents of that mysterious grip-sack of Archie's. So judge of our surprise when this wonderful London cousin of ours first produced a large jar of what he called mosquito cream, and proceeded to smear his face and hands with the odorous compound.
'This cream,' he said, 'I bought at Buenos Ayres, and it is warranted to keep all pampas creepies away, or anything with two wings or four, six legs or sixty. Have a rub, Dugald?'
'Not I,' cried Dugald. 'Why, man, the smell is enough to kill bees.'
Archie proceeded with his preparations. Before enshrouding himself in his guanaco mantle he drew on a huge waterproof canvas sack and fastened it tightly round his chest. He next produced a hooped head-dress. I know no other name for it.
'It is an invention of my own,' said Archie, proudly, 'and is, as you see, composed of hoops of wire--'
'Well, yes, if you choose to call it so, and is covered with mosquito muslin. This is how it goes on, and I'm sure it will form a perfect protection.'
He then inserted his head into the wondrous muslin bladder, and the appearance he now presented was comical in the extreme. His body in a sack, his head in a white muslin bag, nothing human-looking about him except his arms, that, encased in huge leather gloves, dangled from his shoulders like an immense pair of flippers.
We three brothers looked at him just for a moment, then simultaneously exploded into a perfect roar of laughter. Sandie Donaldson, who with the _capataz_ occupied the next tent, came rushing in, then all the Gauchos and even the dogs. The latter bolted barking when they saw the apparition, but the rest joined the laughing chorus.
And the more we looked at Archie the more we laughed, till the very sand dunes near us must have been shaken to their foundations by the manifestation of our mirth.
'Laugh away, boys,' said our cousin. 'Laugh and grow fat. I don't care how I look, so long as my dress and my cream keep the creepies away.'