But, wonderful to relate, what _men_ failed to do a _dog_ accomplished. An honest collie found Bombazo--actually scraped him up out of the sand, where he lay buried, with his head in a tussock of grass. It would be unfair to judge him too harshly, wrong not to listen to his vouchsafed explanation; yet, sooth to say, to this very day I believe the little man had hidden himself after the manner of the armadillos.
'Where is my sword?' he shouted, staggering to his feet. 'Where is the foe?'
The Scotchmen and even the Gauchos laughed in his face. He turned from them scornfully on his heel and addressed Moncrieff.
'Dey tried to keel me,' he cried. 'Dey stunned me and covered me up wit' sand. But here I am, and now I seek revenge. Ha! ha! I will seek revenge!'
'Oh, ye shameless sinner!' she roared. 'Oh, ye feckless fusionless winner! Let me at him. _I'll_ gie him revenge.'
There was no restraining Jenny. With a yell like the war cry of a clucking hen, she waved her umbrella aloft, and went straight for the hero.
The blow intended for his head alighted lower down. Bombazo turned and fled, pursued by the remorseless Jenny; and not even once did she miss her aim till the terror of the redskins, to save his own skin, had taken refuge beneath the caravan.
As at sea, so in travelling. Day after day, amid scenes that are for ever new, the constantly recurring adventure and incident suffice to banish even thoughts of the dead themselves. But neither seafarers nor travellers need be ashamed of this; it is only natural. God never condemns His creatures to constant sorrow. The brave fellows, the honest Scot and the Gauchos, that we had laid side by side in one grave in the little burying-place at the frontier fort, were gone beyond recall. No amount of sorrowing could bring them back. We but hoped they were happier now than even we were, and so we spoke of them no more; and in a week's time everything about our caravan and camp resumed its wonted appearance, and we no longer feared the Indians.
One Gaucho, however, had escaped, and there was still the probability he might seek for revenge some other day.
We have left the bleak pampas land, although now and then we come to bare prairie land but scantily furnished with even bushes, and destitute of grass; houses and _estancias_ become more frequent, and _fondas_ too, but nothing like that fearful _fonda_ in the prairie--the scene of the massacre.
