Up Hill And Down
Hill, And Clambering Through Ravines, We Continued Our Journey.
As
we were skirting the foot of a hill I saw Raymond, who was some rods
in advance, suddenly jerking the reins of his mule.
Sliding from his
seat, and running in a crouching posture up a hollow, he disappeared;
and then in an instant I heard the sharp quick crack of his rifle. A
wounded antelope came running on three legs over the hill. I lashed
Pauline and made after him. My fleet little mare soon brought me by
his side, and after leaping and bounding for a few moments in vain,
he stood still, as if despairing of escape. His glistening eyes
turned up toward my face with so piteous a look that it was with
feelings of infinite compunction that I shot him through the head
with a pistol. Raymond skinned and cut him up, and we hung the
forequarters to our saddles, much rejoiced that our exhausted stock
of provisions was renewed in such good time.
Gaining the top of a hill, we could see along the cloudy verge of the
prairie before us lines of trees and shadowy groves that marked the
course of Laramie Creek. Some time before noon we reached its banks
and began anxiously to search them for footprints of the Indians. We
followed the stream for several miles, now on the shore and now
wading in the water, scrutinizing every sand-bar and every muddy
bank. So long was the search that we began to fear that we had left
the trail undiscovered behind us. At length I heard Raymond
shouting, and saw him jump from his mule to examine some object under
the shelving bank. I rode up to his side. It was the clear and
palpable impression of an Indian moccasin. Encouraged by this we
continued our search, and at last some appearances on a soft surface
of earth not far from the shore attracted my eye; and going to
examine them I found half a dozen tracks, some made by men and some
by children. Just then Raymond observed across the stream the mouth
of a small branch entering it from the south. He forded the water,
rode in at the opening, and in a moment I heard him shouting again,
so I passed over and joined him. The little branch had a broad sandy
bed, along which the water trickled in a scanty stream; and on either
bank the bushes were so close that the view was completely
intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the footprints of three
or four horses. Proceeding we found those of a man, then those of a
child, then those of more horses; and at last the bushes on each bank
were beaten down and broken, and the sand plowed up with a multitude
of footsteps, and scored across with the furrows made by the lodge-
poles that had been dragged through. It was now certain that we had
found the trail.
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