It Then Found Its Way Into The Buenos Ayres Newspapers, And I Heard It At The Time But Had Utterly Forgotten It Until This Florida Paper Came Into My Hand.

In the fifties a Mr. Gilmour, a Scotch settler, had a sheep and cattle ranch on the pampas far

South of Buenos Ayres, near the Atlantic coast. He lived there with his family, and one of the children, aged five, was a bright active little fellow and was regarded with affection by one of the hired native cattlemen, who taught the child to ride on a pony, and taught him so well that even at that tender age the boy could follow his teacher and guide at a fast gallop over the plain. One day Mr. Gilmour fell out with the man on account of some dereliction of duty, and after some hot words between them discharged him there and then. The young fellow mounted his horse and rode off vowing vengeance, and on that very day the child disappeared. The pony on which he had gone out riding came home, and as it was supposed that the little boy had been thrown or fallen off, a search was made all over the estate and continued for days without result. Eventually some of the child's clothing was found on the beach, and it was conjectured that the young native had taken the child there and drowned him and left the clothes to let the Gilmours know that he had had his revenge. But there was room for doubt, as the body was never found, and they finally came to think that the clothes had been left there to deceive them, and that as the man had been so fond of the child he had carried him off. This belief started them on a wider and longer quest; they invoked the aid of the authorities all over the province; the loss of the child was advertised and a large reward offered for his recovery and agents were employed to look for him. In this search, which continued for years, Mr. Gilmour spent a large part of his fortune, and eventually it had to be dropped; and of all the family Mrs. Gilmour alone still believed that her lost son was living, and still dreamed and hoped that she would see him again before her life ended.

One day the Gilmours entertained a traveller, a native gentleman, who, as the custom was in my time on those great vacant plains where houses were far apart, had ridden up to the gate at noon and asked for hospitality. He was a man of education, a great traveller in the land, and at table entertained them with an account of some of the strange out-of-the-world places he had visited.

Presently one of the sons of the house, a tall slim good-looking young man of about thirty, came in, and saluting the stranger took his seat at the table. Their guest started and seemed to be astonished at the sight of him, and after the conversation was resumed he continued from time to time to look with a puzzled questioning air at the young man. Mrs. Gilmour had observed this in him and, with the thought of her lost son ever in her mind, she became more and more agitated until, unable longer to contain her excitement, she burst out: "O, Senor, why do you look at my son in that way? - tell me if by chance you have not met someone in your wanderings that was like him."

Yes, he replied, he had met someone so like the young man before him that it had almost produced the illusion of his being the same person; that was why he had looked so searchingly at him.

Then in reply to their eager questions he told them that it was an old incident, that he had never spoken a word to the young man he had seen, and that he had only seen him once for a few minutes. The reason of his remembering him so well was that he had been struck by his appearance, so strangely incongruous in the circumstances, and that had made him look very sharply at him. Over two years had passed since, but it was still distinct in his memory. He had come to a small frontier settlement, a military outpost, on the extreme north-eastern border of the Republic, and had seen the garrison turn out for exercise from the fort. It was composed of the class of men one usually saw in these border forts, men of the lowest type, miztiros and mulattos most of them, criminals from the gaols condemned to serve in the frontier army for their crimes. And in the midst of the low-browed, swarthy-faced, ruffianly crew appeared the tall distinguished-looking young man with a white skin, blue eyes and light hair - an amazing contrast!

That was all he could tell them, but it was a clue, the first they had had in thirty years, and when they told the story of the lost child to their guest he was convinced that it was their son he had seen - there could be no other explanation of the extraordinary resemblance between the two young men. At the same time he warned them that the search would be a difficult and probably a disappointing one, as these frontier garrisons were frequently changed: also that many of the men deserted whenever they got the chance, and that many of them got killed, either in fight with the Indians, or among themselves over their cards, as gambling was their only recreation.

But the old hope, long dead in all of them except in the mother's heart, was alive again, and the son, whose appearance had so strongly attracted their guest's attention, at once made ready to go out on that long journey. He went by way of Buenos Ayres where he was given a passport by the War Office and a letter to the Commanding Officer to discharge the blue-eyed soldier in the event of his being found and proved to be a brother to the person in quest of him.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 8 of 65
Words from 7191 to 8230 of 66164