Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/106

 in scattered clumps. To the right ran the rocky wall, striped here and there with pebble bands in the limestone, and rising higher and higher as the travellers went southwards.

At eleven o'clock the first halt was made for lunch; and this time, so as to lose no time, the provisions in the bags were attacked. After the fresh start was made progress was more rapid, and nothing occurred to stop it, until about three o'clock in the afternoon the report of a gun echoed among the trees.

Donagan, Cross, and Webb, accompanied by Fan, were a hundred yards in advance, and their comrades could not see them, when they heard the shout of "Look out!"

Suddenly an animal of large size came rushing through the thicket. Baxter whirling his lasso over his head took a flying shot. The noose fell over the neck of the animal, but so powerful was it that Baxter would have been dragged away if Gordon, Wilcox and Service had not hung on to the end of the line, and whipped it round the trunk of a tree.

No sooner had they done so than Webb and Cross appeared from under the trees, followed by Donagan, who exclaimed in a tone of ill-temper, "Confound the beast! How could I have missed it?"

"Baxter didn't miss it," said Service, "and here we have it, all alive oh!"

"What does it matter?" asked Donagan. "You'll have to kill it."

"Kill it!" said Goidon. "Not at all! It is our beast of burden!"

"What, this thing?" exclaimed Service.

"It is a guanaco," said Gordon, "and guanacos figure largely in the studs of South America."

Useful or not useful, Donagan was very sorry he had not shot it. But he said nothing, and went up to examine it.

Although the guanaco is classed with the camels, it in no way resembles those animals at first glance. Its slender neck, elegant head, long, rather lanky