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.
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