Pauline's yellow head was stretched over me when
I awoke. I got up and examined her. Her feet indeed were bruised
and swollen by the accidents of yesterday, but her eye was brighter,
her motions livelier, and her mysterious malady had visibly abated.
We moved on, hoping within an hour to come in sight of the Indian
village; but again disappointment awaited us. The trail disappeared,
melting away upon a hard and stony plain. Raymond and I separating,
rode from side to side, scrutinizing every yard of ground, until at
length I discerned traces of the lodge-poles passing by the side of a
ridge of rocks. We began again to follow them.
"What is that black spot out there on the prairie?"
"It looks like a dead buffalo," answered Raymond.
We rode out to it, and found it to be the huge carcass of a bull
killed by the Indians as they had passed. Tangled hair and scraps of
hide were scattered all around, for the wolves had been making merry
over it, and had hollowed out the entire carcass. It was covered
with myriads of large black crickets, and from its appearance must
certainly have lain there for four or five days. The sight was a
most disheartening one, and I observed to Raymond that the Indians
might still be fifty or sixty miles before us. But he shook his
head, and replied that they dared not go so far for fear of their
enemies, the Snakes.
Soon after this we lost the trail again, and ascended a neighboring
ridge, totally at a loss. Before us lay a plain perfectly flat,
spreading on the right and left, without apparent limit, and bounded
in front by a long broken line of hills, ten or twelve miles distant.
All was open and exposed to view, yet not a buffalo nor an Indian was
visible.
"Do you see that?" said Raymond; "Now we had better turn round."
But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise, we descended the hill
and began to cross the plain. We had come so far that I knew
perfectly well neither Pauline's limbs nor my own could carry me back
to Fort Laramie. I considered that the lines of expediency and
inclination tallied exactly, and that the most prudent course was to
keep forward. The ground immediately around us was thickly strewn
with the skulls and bones of buffalo, for here a year or two before
the Indians had made a "surround"; yet no living game presented
itself. At length, however, an antelope sprang up and gazed at us.
We fired together, and by a singular fatality we both missed,
although the animal stood, a fair mark, within eighty yards. This
ill success might perhaps be charged to our own eagerness, for by
this time we had no provision left except a little flour. We could
discern several small lakes, or rather extensive pools of water,
glistening in the distance. As we approached them, wolves and
antelopes bounded away through the tall grass that grew in their
vicinity, and flocks of large white plover flew screaming over their
surface. Having failed of the antelope, Raymond tried his hand at
the birds with the same ill success. The water also disappointed us.
Its muddy margin was so beaten up by the crowd of buffalo that our
timorous animals were afraid to approach. So we turned away and
moved toward the hills. The rank grass, where it was not trampled
down by the buffalo, fairly swept our horses' necks.
Again we found the same execrable barren prairie offering no clew by
which to guide our way. As we drew near the hills an opening
appeared, through which the Indians must have gone if they had passed
that way at all. Slowly we began to ascend it. I felt the most
dreary forebodings of ill success, when on looking round I could
discover neither dent of hoof, nor footprint, nor trace of lodge-
pole, though the passage was encumbered by the ghastly skulls of
buffalo. We heard thunder muttering; a storm was coming on.
As we gained the top of the gap, the prospect beyond began to
disclose itself. First, we saw a long dark line of ragged clouds
upon the horizon, while above them rose the peak of the Medicine-Bow,
the vanguard of the Rocky Mountains; then little by little the plain
came into view, a vast green uniformity, forlorn and tenantless,
though Laramie Creek glistened in a waving line over its surface,
without a bush or a tree upon its banks. As yet, the round
projecting shoulder of a hill intercepted a part of the view. I rode
in advance, when suddenly I could distinguish a few dark spots on the
prairie, along the bank of the stream.
"Buffalo!" said I. Then a sudden hope flashed upon me, and eagerly
and anxiously I looked again.
"Horses!" exclaimed Raymond, with a tremendous oath, lashing his mule
forward as he spoke. More and more of the plain disclosed itself,
and in rapid succession more and more horses appeared, scattered
along the river bank, or feeding in bands over the prairie. Then,
suddenly, standing in a circle by the stream, swarming with their
savage inhabitants, we saw rising before us the tall lodges of the
Ogallalla. Never did the heart of wanderer more gladden at the sight
of home than did mine at the sight of those wild habitations!
CHAPTER XIV
THE OGALLALLA VILLAGE
Such a narrative as this is hardly the place for portraying the
mental features of the Indians. The same picture, slightly changed
in shade and coloring, would serve with very few exceptions for all
the tribes that lie north of the Mexican territories. But with this
striking similarity in their modes of thought, the tribes of the lake
and ocean shores, of the forests and of the plains, differ greatly in
their manner of life.
