Before leaving the camp I went down again to the river brink to seek for wreckage. Nothing was to be seen save rock and stone, overturned trees and boulders. My regrets for the losses which had befallen us were, however, moderated by the reflection that I might well be thankful I was not personally keeping the two guns cold company in the bottom of the lake.
We were astir at four o'clock by moonlight, and started three-quarters of an hour later. To us, knocked about and dog-tired as we were, the going was difficult. The _barrancas_ seemed endless. The river was now a yellow flood, crashing and rushing down the _cañadon_, bearing trees, bushes, and logs with its whirl and flurry. When we arrived at the upper ford it was only to find six feet of water there and a fall formed beyond it--quite impassable in fact.
Our position, in the face of this difficulty, was rather a serious one. We had food for three days, that is, porridge, and though "parritch is gran' food," it is not, alone, good to work very hard on. The snows were still melting in the hills, and, given a protracted period of warm weather, it might be days before the river would allow of our passing through it. I lit a signal-fire on the hills in the hope that my party at Horsham Camp would reply.
[Illustration: HUEMUL (_XENELAPHUS BISULCUS_) IN SUMMER COAT]
It was possible that our small Argentine friend had again been lost "running ostriches" and had again lit up half the countryside to call his companions' attention to that important fact. The only weapon left us was a broken Colt and the cartridges in it. But apart from our own position was the far more serious fact that our companions were signalling to us to "Come at once--something wrong."
All the day through we patrolled the river banks, riding up and down searching for a ford. About six in the evening we found a place where an island broke the force of the torrent, and we fancied the water was falling.
The river everywhere was shut in by high cliffs. At the foot of the cliff we descended the ground was so soft that the horses sank, and we had to haul them through. When we came down to the level of the river, it appeared very different, viewed close at hand, to the encouraging idea we had formed, even through the telescope, from the cliffs above. But the set of the current was for once towards the farther bank, where it culminated in rapids.