Seven Years Had Passed Since I Lost Sight Of Them, When It Chanced
That I Was Travelling Home From The Southern Frontier, With Only Two
Horses To Carry Me.
One gave out, and I was compelled to leave him on
the road.
I put up that evening at a little wayside pulperia, or
public-house, and was hospitably entertained by the landlord, who
turned out to be an Englishman. But he had lived so long among the
gauchos, having left his country when very young, that he had almost
forgotten his own language. Again and again during the evening he
started talking in English as if glad of the opportunity to speak his
native tongue once more; but after a sentence or two a word wanted
would not come, and it would have to be spoken in Spanish, and
gradually he would relapse into unadulterated Spanish again, then,
becoming conscious of the relapse, he would make a fresh start in
English.
As we sat talking after supper I expressed my intention of leaving
early in the morning so as to get over a few leagues while it was
fresh, as the weather was very hot and I had to consider my one horse.
He was sorry not to be able to provide me with another, but at one of
the large estancias I would come to next morning I would no doubt be
able to get one. He then mentioned that in about an hour and a half or
two hours I should arrive at an estancia named La Paja Brava, where
many riding-horses were kept.
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