We Entered It, And Galloping Up, In A Moment
Were Surrounded By The Bleak Sand-Hills.
Half of their steep sides
were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and
various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-
like prickly-pear.
They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as
the sky had suddenly darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the
strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate.
But Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair from
the piece of buffalo robe under his saddle, and threw it up, to show
the course of the wind. It blew directly before us. The game were
therefore to windward, and it was necessary to make our best speed to
get around them.
We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away through the
hollows, soon found another, winding like a snake among the hills,
and so deep that it completely concealed us. We rode up the bottom
of it, glancing through the shrubbery at its edge, till Henry
abruptly jerked his rein, and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter
of a mile distant, on the outline of the farthest hill, a long
procession of buffalo were walking, in Indian file, with the utmost
gravity and deliberation; then more appeared, clambering from a
hollow not far off, and ascending, one behind the other, the grassy
slope of another hill; then a shaggy head and a pair of short broken
horns appeared issuing out of a ravine close at hand, and with a
slow, stately step, one by one, the enormous brutes came into view,
taking their way across the valley, wholly unconscious of an enemy.
In a moment Henry was worming his way, lying flat on the ground,
through grass and prickly-pears, toward his unsuspecting victims. He
had with him both my rifle and his own. He was soon out of sight,
and still the buffalo kept issuing into the valley. For a long time
all was silent. I sat holding his horse, and wondering what he was
about, when suddenly, in rapid succession, came the sharp reports of
the two rifles, and the whole line of buffalo, quickening their pace
into a clumsy trot, gradually disappeared over the ridge of the hill.
Henry rose to his feet, and stood looking after them.
"You have missed them," said I.
"Yes," said Henry; "let us go." He descended into the ravine, loaded
the rifles, and mounted his horse.
We rode up the hill after the buffalo. The herd was out of sight
when we reached the top, but lying on the grass not far off, was one
quite lifeless, and another violently struggling in the death agony.
"You see I miss him!" remarked Henry. He had fired from a distance
of more than a hundred and fifty yards, and both balls had passed
through the lungs - the true mark in shooting buffalo.
The darkness increased, and a driving storm came on. Tying our
horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began the bloody work of
dissection, slashing away with the science of a connoisseur, while I
vainly endeavored to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror
and indignation when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of
raw hide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back of
the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scruples; and
heavily burdened with the more eligible portions of the buffalo, we
set out on our return. Scarcely had we emerged from the labyrinth of
gorges and ravines, and issued upon the open prairie, when the
pricking sleet came driving, gust upon gust, directly in our faces.
It was strangely dark, though wanting still an hour of sunset. The
freezing storm soon penetrated to the skin, but the uneasy trot of
our heavy-gaited horses kept us warm enough, as we forced them
unwillingly in the teeth of the sleet and rain, by the powerful
suasion of our Indian whips. The prairie in this place was hard and
level. A flourishing colony of prairie dogs had burrowed into it in
every direction, and the little mounds of fresh earth around their
holes were about as numerous as the hills in a cornfield; but not a
yelp was to be heard; not the nose of a single citizen was visible;
all had retired to the depths of their burrows, and we envied them
their dry and comfortable habitations. An hour's hard riding showed
us our tent dimly looming through the storm, one side puffed out by
the force of the wind, and the other collapsed in proportion, while
the disconsolate horses stood shivering close around, and the wind
kept up a dismal whistling in the boughs of three old half-dead trees
above. Shaw, like a patriarch, sat on his saddle in the entrance,
with a pipe in his mouth, and his arms folded, contemplating, with
cool satisfaction, the piles of meat that we flung on the ground
before him. A dark and dreary night succeeded; but the sun rose with
heat so sultry and languid that the captain excused himself on that
account from waylaying an old buffalo bull, who with stupid gravity
was walking over the prairie to drink at the river. So much for the
climate of the Platte!
But it was not the weather alone that had produced this sudden
abatement of the sportsmanlike zeal which the captain had always
professed. He had been out on the afternoon before, together with
several members of his party; but their hunting was attended with no
other result than the loss of one of their best horses, severely
injured by Sorel, in vainly chasing a wounded bull. The captain,
whose ideas of hard riding were all derived from transatlantic
sources, expressed the utmost amazement at the feats of Sorel, who
went leaping ravines, and dashing at full speed up and down the sides
of precipitous hills, lashing his horse with the recklessness of a
Rocky Mountain rider.
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