If the horse was frightened he was not more so than I. To be horseless and on foot in an Indian plain and with the uncertain rumors of Aymará outbreaks that might have spread like a flame among that dull, hostile population was the most unpleasant situation I have ever faced. The little Indian towns where I expected to camp, Copencara and the tambo of Cocuta, were safe enough, but the thought of getting even to Achicachi—where I might be able to get a fresh horse—gave me five minutes of cold and clammy quivers of panic at the pit of my stomach. The horse stood with the blood dripping in a steady patter on the cold ground while a puddle slowly grew into a great red blot; he looked at me with what, to my understanding, appeared to be his final vision from dulling eyes; the straggling population of the scattering huts of Huaylata seemed to have become raised to the final power of sinister hostility; there was no doubt that I was frightened. I took a box of cartridges from my saddle bags and distributed them in my pockets so their weight bore evenly and waited. There was nothing else to do. There was no use in starting on foot till the horse was surely dead.
Presently the horse went back to the spring, took a little drink, and then turned to the cebada and began nibbling. I felt better for no seriously deranged animal would eat in its final moments. The trickling of blood grew less and the animal showed in better shape. If he could only last to Achicachi, that was all that I wanted.
I did not think it wise to start on foot and leading the horse—that would advertise the fact that I was crippled—while I could wait in Huaylata without betraying anything more than a sluggish and lazy disposition. I tried mounting at last and the horse grunted and then started slowly. How I nursed him those miles; out of sight of Huaylata I walked; the bleeding had stopped, but he seemed weak; I took his temperature with my hand, I petted him, I gave him a bite of chocolate, and when any Aymará huts or little parties hove in sight I mounted and rode by.
Steadily the horse improved and at times responded to a test trot without difficulty so that I rode through Achicachi without stopping. Only once had I had the sign of trouble and that was a little group of Aymarás near the beginning of an old Inca causeway that cuts across one arm of Lake Titicaca. They were drunk and I could hear snatches of their thin, wailing songs while they were still dots in the distance. As I rode by they were at one side of the trail where an old mud building held forth as a _chicharia_ and struggling in that aimless drunken fashion that seems so common to all topers and that divides all wassailing bands into those prudent souls who are already drunk enough and know it and those who won’t go home until morning or till daylight, or the day after, doth appear. They started for me uncertainly, one reached for a stone, but an Aymará rushed out of the house and knocked it from his hand. Some of the more sober came, too, and again the wrangling started, apparently as to whether they should rush me or not. And in the meantime I had ridden out of reach.
