Holding his weapon by the shortest of the three _sogas_, or thongs, and while going at full gallop, the Indian launches it at the long neck of the guanaco; a doe is always selected if possible. Extremely expert in its use, the rider's weapon probably reaches its mark, and the quarry, maddened by the tightening of the _sogas_, bucks and rears, until she becomes hopelessly entangled.
I have mentioned that the Tehuelches hunt in pairs. The companion of the Indian who has thrown the _bolas_ then leaps to the ground and despatches the guanaco. Meantime his comrade has dashed forward at the tail of the herd, and has probably secured another animal. The dogs, too, do their part, and as the storm of the chase sweeps across the pampa, it leaves the ground in its path dotted with the yellow-brown forms of the slain.
The chase tails itself out for many miles, and may be followed over desolate leagues marked by lines of dead guanacos and dropped _boleadores_ which have failed to carry home. I should be afraid to say how many animals are killed at one of these singular battues. To see the Indian hunt the guanaco is to see the art of rough-riding exemplified. How they gallop! Down one sheer _barranca_, or cliff, and up another. The roar of loosened stone behind them. The guanaco jink and dodge and break back, always making for the highest ground in the vicinity.
The dexterity with which the horses of the hunters keep their feet is truly wonderful. They will go at full gallop anywhere, and hardly ever fall or miss their footing. There is, however, one thing which they universally dislike, and that is jumping in any of its forms. Here and there in some parts of Patagonia the pampa is cut and scored with fissures a few feet in width. To have your horse stop dead, both feet together, on the edge of one of these and violently shy away at an acute angle is no uncommon experience. Generally, however, a certain amount of inducement and coercion at length takes them over in a complicated buck.
When the chase has run itself out, the lean dogs are fed upon the grosser parts, the pelts of the young are pulled off, and the meat, such of it as is wanted, is cargoed or packed upon the horses, and the hunting-party jogs back to the shelter of the wigwams, made from the skins their fathers and their grandfathers slew before the white men began to move southward and to overrun the land.