On reaching the hotel, I had some dinner, and much enjoyed the Habana cigar, which I knew to be too good a one to light and smoke in the open street. I went early to bed, with the request that they would call me at sunrise next morning. This they did, having also prepared me some coffee. So I saddled up "Carnival," and reached the estancia just before nine o'clock. I was pleased to hear from Mr. Jardine that Peter was better, having fortunately passed a good night. One afternoon I and Ramon Duran had ridden down to look up some cattle not far from Beatty's puesto. As we were returning he told me there was a big dun-coloured bull, not bearing the estancia mark, which for some time had taken up his abode among the "tarlas," at the far end of the camp, within easy reach of the river bank. He made a constant disturbance among our cattle, his object no doubt being to cut some of them off, and so get control over them, and then form a small point of his own. Ramon suggested that we should lasso him and kill him, and so get rid of the nuisance once and for all. He asked if I would like to go down and assist, and I said I should very much. However, we came to the conclusion it would be better to have three horsemen for the job, so the matter remained for the moment in abeyance. The next day he told me he had seen Robert Mackie, a young Scotchman, who had come out to Uruguay as a boy, and was already something of a camp man, accustomed to lassoing on the "rodeo," and working amongst cattle, who wished to join us in our little adventure. He, moreover, described him as "un joven muy guapo," "a very capable youth," so it was agreed we should all three go in search of the bull on Saturday afternoon. Ramon was to ride his favourite "picaso" (a black horse, with a white blaze and two white hind fetlocks), while Mackie would saddle up a "moro" (or blue roan), which he often rode, as it was well-trained, and a first-rate horse at that kind of work. I was to ride my "rosillo," so we were all to be well-mounted. Our first idea had been that if we came across the bull we should all three try and get round to the far side of him, with the object of driving him in among a point of our own cattle, but on consideration we determined to approach him from the direction we were ourselves riding, and then by acting quickly and suddenly, try and get a lasso round him before he had time to reach his favourite woods. We were riding quietly along, when we made out the bull standing feeding by himself, quite a long distance inside the camp, and away from the woods, whereupon we widened out our line into a kind of semi-circle, Ramon being on the left, with Mackie in the centre, while I took the right, so that we might approach as near to him as possible without causing any alarm. This method seemed to answer for, as it happened, we managed to get closer up to him than we had any reason to expect. Suddenly, however, up went his head, and he saw us coming, when he immediately made off as fast as he could. We then followed at full gallop, and Mackie, who was in the centre, pushed ahead of Ramon and myself, for the "moro" was a fast horse, and his rider both young and eager. Running his horse close up behind the bull, he threw his lasso, the loop of which, instead of going round the horns of the animal, as it should have done, passed over his head and round his neck, thus giving the bull a much greater power of purchase than he would otherwise have had. Then a most unfortunate thing happened. Mackie had his foot out of the stirrup on the lasso side, which was not by any means unusual, but he also had his leg rather far forward, and as the coils of the lasso went out swiftly, owing to the speed at which the bull was now running, one of them caught his right leg, entangling it just below the knee. It was now a question of speed between the horse and the bull, with a man's life hanging in the balance. Ramon and I could do nothing, for if either of us pressed forward we should only help to increase the speed of the bull. So we both slowed down, edging off one to the left and the other to the right, which was the only thing to do. Fortunately, the "moro" rose to the occasion. He never made a mistake, in spite of the ground being rough and uneven, but shooting forward at an increased speed, he enabled Mackie to get his leg free from the coil of the lasso, and so saved the situation. Ramon had called to Mackie to take out his knife from its sheath and cut the lasso, but when he put his hand behind him both knife and sheath had fallen from his belt during the gallop.