As the riders draw nearer it is plain that they are Gauchos--Gauchos in a workaday mood, and consequently in attire far less picturesque than that which lends colour to their feast days. Yet they afford striking enough figures of men in their sombreros, kerchiefs, white shirts, broad trousers, horse-hide boots, and giant spurs. Each part and parcel of his horse, they come loping easily along with that curious air of careless alertness that is characteristic of the Gaucho. With the first warning of human approach the cattle have raised their heads in the wary and rather resentful stare that the presence of such visitors demands. When no doubt longer remains that the grim-faced riders are heading directly for their own company, doubt turns to active alarm. There is a flinging up of heels and tails, a bunching together of scattered units, and a surging to and fro, while the horns wave in a panic of indecision. The bullock with the traces of Hereford markings has run to a common centre with the rest. A moment later the horses are cleaving the ranks of the cattle, and the cumbrous bodies of the horned creatures go floundering to right and left just as they have floundered a dozen times before, with precisely the same degree, moreover, of dread and confusion. Dodging and twisting ponderously, they rush to and fro for a while, then flee with a thunder of hoofs from the impact, ending up in a breathless halt at length to turn their horns upon one another in a fury of terror. All but the bullock with the scanty Hereford markings. He has raced and charged with the rest, only to find on each occasion a horse's flank or chest barring the way to safety, and a threatening human arm raised on high that sent him without further ado to the right-about. And now the situation is doubtless quite inexplicable, since the rumbling of his companions' hoofs has died away, and he is racing across the Campo quite alone save for the horseman who gallops remorselessly on either flank--fatal attendants who are no more to be shaken off than the hairs of his hide. A lasso circles lightly in the air, uncoiling as it goes like an aerial snake: the noose falls with a gentle rattle on the hurrying animal's horns. A terrific jerk shakes him from tail to nostril. But the bullock has kept his legs, and stands firm now, pulling with all his might against the strain that follows, heaving from side to side in his fight with the rope that never slackens. There is a thudding of horses' hoofs at his quarters now. Enraged at the presence of a second foe, the bullock kicks wildly, and the action is the signal for his doom. Another rope has whistled through the air, and has encircled his fetlock in some demoniacal fashion. In consequence, he gives a strenuous jump into the air--his last, for ere his feet have touched the ground his legs are wrenched away from under him, and the heavy body of the creature, flung full upon its side, strikes the earth with a crash. Ere he can