"Watch me and see," I replied. Gathering all the near vines
and twisting them around my neck, I covered my head with leaves
and creeping plants, then proceeded to show that it was possible,
while Sousi followed. I reached the cover and found it was a bed
of spring anemones on the far side of an old Buffalo wallow, and
there in that wallow I lay for a moment revelling in the sight. All
at once it came to me: Now, indeed, was fulfilled the long-deferred
dream of my youth, for in shelter of those flowers of my youth, I
was gazing on a herd of wild Buffalo. Then slowly I rose above the
cover and took my second picture.
But the watchful creatures, more shy than Moose here, saw the
rising mass of herbage, or may have caught the wind, rose lightly
and went off. I noticed now, for the first time, a little red calf;
ten Buffalo in all I counted. Sousi, standing up, counted 13. At
the edge of the woods they stopped and looked around, but gave no
third shot for the camera.
I shook Sousi's hand with all my heart, and he, good old fellow,
said: "Ah! it was for this I prayed last night; without doubt it
was in answer to my prayer that the Good God has sent me this great
happiness."
Then back at camp, 200 yards away, the old man's tongue was loosed,
and he told me how the chiefs in conference, and every one at the
Fort, had ridiculed him and his Englishmen - "who thought they
could walk up to Buffalo and take their pictures."
We had not been long in camp when Sousi went off to get some water,
but at once came running back, shouting excitedly, "My rifle,
my rifle!" Jarvis handed it to him; he rushed off to the woods. I
followed in time to see him shoot an old Bear and two cubs out of
a tree. She fell, sobbing like a human being, "Oh! Oh! Oh-h-h-h!"
It was too late to stop him, and he finished her as she lay helpless.
The little ones were too small to live alone, so shared her fate.
It seems, as Sousi went to the water hole, he came on an old Bear
and her two cubs. She gave a warning "koff, koff." The only enemies
they knew about and feared, were Buffalo, Moose, and Wolves; from
these a tree was a safe haven. The cubs scrambled up a tall poplar,
then the mother followed. Sousi came shouting in apparent fear; I
rushed to the place, thinking he was attacked by something, perhaps
a Buffalo bull, but too late to stop the tragedy that followed.
That night he roasted one of the cubs, and as I watched the old
cannibal chewing the hands off that little baby Bear it gave me a
feeling of disgust for all flesh-eating that lasted for days.
