On The Next Morning We Entered Once More Among The Mountains.
There
was nothing in their appearance either grand or picturesque, though
they were desolate to the last degree, being mere piles of black and
broken rocks, without trees or vegetation of any kind.
As we passed
among them along a wide valley, I noticed Raymond riding by the side
of a younger squaw, to whom he was addressing various insinuating
compliments. All the old squaws in the neighborhood watched his
proceedings in great admiration, and the girl herself would turn
aside her head and laugh. Just then the old mule thought proper to
display her vicious pranks; she began to rear and plunge most
furiously. Raymond was an excellent rider, and at first he stuck
fast in his seat; but the moment after, I saw the mule's hind-legs
flourishing in the air, and my unlucky follower pitching head
foremost over her ears. There was a burst of screams and laughter
from all the women, in which his mistress herself took part, and
Raymond was instantly assailed by such a shower of witticisms, that
he was glad to ride forward out of hearing.
Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him shouting to me. He
was pointing toward a detached rocky hill that stood in the middle of
the valley before us, and from behind it a long file of elk came out
at full speed and entered an opening in the side of the mountain.
They had scarcely disappeared when whoops and exclamations came from
fifty voices around me. The young men leaped from their horses,
flung down their heavy buffalo robes, and ran at full speed toward
the foot of the nearest mountain. Reynal also broke away at a gallop
in the same direction, "Come on! come on!" he called to us. "Do you
see that band of bighorn up yonder? If there's one of them, there's
a hundred!"
In fact, near the summit of the mountain, I could see a large number
of small white objects, moving rapidly upward among the precipices,
while others were filing along its rocky profile. Anxious to see the
sport, I galloped forward, and entering a passage in the side of the
mountain, ascended the loose rocks as far as my horse could carry me.
Here I fastened her to an old pine tree that stood alone, scorching
in the sun. At that moment Raymond called to me from the right that
another band of sheep was close at hand in that direction. I ran up
to the top of the opening, which gave me a full view into the rocky
gorge beyond; and here I plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep,
almost within rifle-shot, clattering upward among the rocks, and
endeavoring, after their usual custom, to reach the highest point.
The naked Indians bounded up lightly in pursuit. In a moment the
game and hunters disappeared. Nothing could be seen or heard but the
occasional report of a gun, more and more distant, reverberating
among the rocks.
I turned to descend, and as I did so I could see the valley below
alive with Indians passing rapidly through it, on horseback and on
foot. A little farther on, all were stopping as they came up; the
camp was preparing, and the lodges rising. I descended to this spot,
and soon after Reynal and Raymond returned. They bore between them a
sheep which they had pelted to death with stones from the edge of a
ravine, along the bottom of which it was attempting to escape. One
by one the hunters came dropping in; yet such is the activity of the
Rocky Mountain sheep that, although sixty or seventy men were out in
pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were killed. Of these
only one was a full-grown male. He had a pair of horns twisted like
a ram's, the dimensions of which were almost beyond belief. I have
seen among the Indians ladles with long handles, capable of
containing more than a quart, cut from such horns.
There is something peculiarly interesting in the character and habits
of the mountain sheep, whose chosen retreats are above the region of
vegetation and storms, and who leap among the giddy precipices of
their aerial home as actively as the antelope skims over the prairies
below.
Through the whole of the next morning we were moving forward, among
the hills. On the following day the heights gathered around us, and
the passage of the mountains began in earnest. Before the village
left its camping ground, I set forward in company with the Eagle-
Feather, a man of powerful frame, but of bad and sinister face. His
son, a light-limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, named the
Panther, was also of the party. Leaving the village out of sight
behind us, we rode together up a rocky defile. After a while,
however, the Eagle-Feather discovered in the distance some appearance
of game, and set off with his son in pursuit of it, while I went
forward with the Panther. This was a mere NOM DE GUERRE; for, like
many Indians, he concealed his real name out of some superstitious
notion. He was a very noble looking fellow. As he suffered his
ornamented buffalo robe to fall into folds about his loins, his
stately and graceful figure was fully displayed; and while he sat his
horse in an easy attitude, the long feathers of the prairie cock
fluttering from the crown of his head, he seemed the very model of a
wild prairie-rider. He had not the same features as those of other
Indians. Unless his handsome face greatly belied him, he was free
from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cunning of his people.
For the most part, a civilized white man can discover but very few
points of sympathy between his own nature and that of an Indian.
With every disposition to do justice to their good qualities, he must
be conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and his red
brethren of the prairie.
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