But The Adoption
Of This Resolution Did Not Wholly Allay My Anxiety, For It Involved
Both Uncertainty And Danger.
To remain stationary and alone for
three days, in a country full of dangerous Indians, was not the most
flattering of prospects; and protracted as my Indian hunt must be by
such delay, it was not easy to foretell its ultimate result.
Revolving these matters, I grew hungry; and as our stock of
provisions, except four or five pounds of flour, was by this time
exhausted, I left the camp to see what game I could find. Nothing
could be seen except four or five large curlew, which, with their
loud screaming, were wheeling over my head, and now and then
alighting upon the prairie. I shot two of them, and was about
returning, when a startling sight caught my eye. A small, dark
object, like a human head, suddenly appeared, and vanished among the
thick hushes along the stream below. In that country every stranger
is a suspected enemy. Instinctively I threw forward the muzzle of my
rifle. In a moment the bushes were violently shaken, two heads, but
not human heads, protruded, and to my great joy I recognized the
downcast, disconsolate countenance of the black mule and the yellow
visage of Pauline. Raymond came upon the mule, pale and haggard,
complaining of a fiery pain in his chest. I took charge of the
animals while he kneeled down by the side of the stream to drink. He
had kept the runaways in sight as far as the Side Fork of Laramie
Creek, a distance of more than ten miles; and here with great
difficulty he had succeeded in catching them. I saw that he was
unarmed, and asked him what he had done with his rifle. It had
encumbered him in his pursuit, and he had dropped it on the prairie,
thinking that he could find it on his return; but in this he had
failed. The loss might prove a very formidable one. I was too much
rejoiced however at the recovery of the animals to think much about
it; and having made some tea for Raymond in a tin vessel which we had
brought with us, I told him that I would give him two hours for
resting before we set out again. He had eaten nothing that day; but
having no appetite, he lay down immediately to sleep. I picketed the
animals among the richest grass that I could find, and made fires of
green wood to protect them from the flies; then sitting down again by
the tree, I watched the slow movements of the sun, begrudging every
moment that passed.
The time I had mentioned expired, and I awoke Raymond. We saddled
and set out again, but first we went in search of the lost rifle, and
in the course of an hour Raymond was fortunate enough to find it.
Then we turned westward, and moved over the hills and hollows at a
slow pace toward the Black Hills. The heat no longer tormented us,
for a cloud was before the sun. Yet that day shall never be marked
with white in my calendar. The air began to grow fresh and cool, the
distant mountains frowned more gloomily, there was a low muttering of
thunder, and dense black masses of cloud rose heavily behind the
broken peaks. At first they were gayly fringed with silver by the
afternoon sun, but soon the thick blackness overspread the whole sky,
and the desert around us was wrapped in deep gloom. I scarcely
heeded it at the time, but now I cannot but feel that there was an
awful sublimity in the hoarse murmuring of the thunder, in the somber
shadows that involved the mountains and the plain. The storm broke.
It came upon us with a zigzag blinding flash, with a terrific crash
of thunder, and with a hurricane that howled over the prairie,
dashing floods of water against us. Raymond looked round, and cursed
the merciless elements. There seemed no shelter near, but we
discerned at length a deep ravine gashed in the level prairie, and
saw half way down its side an old pine tree, whose rough horizontal
boughs formed a sort of penthouse against the tempest. We found a
practicable passage, and hastily descending, fastened our animals to
some large loose stones at the bottom; then climbing up, we drew our
blankets over our heads, and seated ourselves close beneath the old
tree. Perhaps I was no competent judge of time, but it seemed to me
that we were sitting there a full hour, while around us poured a
deluge of rain, through which the rocks on the opposite side of the
gulf were barely visible. The first burst of the tempest soon
subsided, but the rain poured steadily. At length Raymond grew
impatient, and scrambling out of the ravine, he gained the level
prairie above.
"What does the weather look like?" asked I, from my seat under the
tree.
"It looks bad," he answered; "dark all around," and again he
descended and sat down by my side. Some ten minutes elapsed.
"Go up again," said I, "and take another look;" and he clambered up
the precipice. "Well, how is it?"
"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the top of the
mountain.
The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going down to the
bottom of the ravine, we loosened the animals, who were standing up
to their knees in water. Leading them up the rocky throat of the
ravine, we reached the plain above. "Am I," I thought to myself,
"the same man who a few months since, was seated, a quiet student of
BELLES-LETTRES, in a cushioned arm-chair by a sea-coal fire?"
All around us was obscurity; but the bright spot above the
mountaintops grew wider and ruddier, until at length the clouds drew
apart, and a flood of sunbeams poured down from heaven, streaming
along the precipices, and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft
and lovely as that which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring.
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