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The fourth day arrived and still no sign on the horizon to the north. Our tasajo was all eaten, and we began to hunger. The nuts did not satisfy us. The game was in plenty at the spring, and mottling the grassy plain. One proposed to lie among the willows and shoot an antelope or a black-tailed deer, of which there were troops in the neighbourhood.
The dog is divided and devoured before his quivering flesh has time to grow cold! The horse is reprieved. Again we feed our animals on the cooling cactus. This occupies us for some time. When we return to the hill a glad sight is before us. We see the warriors seated around their fires, renewing the paint upon their bodies. We know the meaning of this. The tasajo is nearly black.
He was reserved only when I wished him to talk of himself. Seguin during these days was taciturn and lonely. He took but little heed of what was going on around him. He seemed to be suffering from impatience, as every now and then he paid a visit to the tasajo.
These were now the property of Carlos the cibolero. Not a bad outlay of his eight onzas! Not only would they yield well on his return, but it was his intention that each of them should carry back its full load of buffalo-hides, or "tasajo."
I had heard, too, that this method was much practised among the trappers and hunters when laying up a stock of buffalo flesh, or of any other animals they might chance to kill. It is called `jerking, and the meat when thus prepared goes by the name of `jerked meat. By the Spaniards it is called `tasajo.
A fellow, a demned trader in hides and tasajo in short, a butcher of demned buffaloes to aspire Parbleu!" Echevarria, though talking Spanish, always swore in French. It was more polite. "Most insolent intolerable!" cried several voices. "I don't think the lady seemed over angry withal," remarked a blunt young fellow, who sat near the lower end of the table.
Fresh parties of hunters mount and ride off. Those who remain cut the meat into long thin strips, and hang it over the lines already prepared for this purpose. It is thus left to be baked by the sun into "tasajo." We know part of what is before us. It is a fearful prospect; but men like those who compose the band of Seguin do not despond while the shadow of a hope remains.
There were some live pigs with immense tusks, and some tasajo in the hold, and a raft of pipes of tallow which a hawser towed behind. The boat was supposed to draw only two feet of water, but in her present overloaded state she dragged heavily against the mud in the shallower parts of the river.
Now, in Spanish America there are vast depositories of salt both in mines and on plains, with salt lakes called salinas; yet, for want of a proper commercial activity existing among these people, in many places the valuable article, salt, is both scarce and dear. In Mexico dried or "jerked" beef is called "tasajo."
Gahra gathered leaves and twigs and kindled a fire, for the air at that height was fresh, and we were lightly clad. We cooked our tasajo on the embers, and after smoking the calumet of peace, rolled ourselves in our cobijas, laid our heads on our saddles, and slept the sleep of the just. Only a moment ago the land had been folded in the mantle of darkness.
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