A"tim grinned like a Hyena. Already in his Wolf nostrils was the visionary scent of blood, and much killing. That night he would dip his lean jaws in the Kill of the Redmen.
Eagle Shoe and the two Indians who had come up out of the level plain like evil spirits were leading and driving their prey into the wide jaws of the converging stockade. The Buffalo were pressing on to destruction with increased pace, following with blind stupidity the horseman who cantered in front of them. From a lazy stroll they had quickened to a fast walk; a shuffling trot had given place to an impatient lope. Calves were being hustled to the center of the moving Herd by loving mothers. Head down, and wisp-tail straight out, the brown bodies shifted from lope to mad gallop. The Bulls snorted restlessly and called hoa.r.s.e-voiced to their consorts: "Speed fast, for something evil follows."
The beaten earth groaned in hollow misery; the thrusting weight of half a thousand head made its breast ache; its plaintive protest grew into an angry roar like incessant thunder; the dust, sharp-hoof-pounded, rose like a hot breath, and hung foglike over the troubled sea of rocking bodies.
Behind, the two hors.e.m.e.n, wide apart like fan points, galloped with hard-set faces. Eagerly the ponies, bred to the Hunt, stretched their limbs of steel-like toughness, and raced for the brown cloud that fled as a broken regiment.
Surely it was wondrous sport, as A"tim thought; surely it was unholy slaughter, as the Outcast Bull muttered.
Now the galloping brutes were well between the brush walls of the ever-narrowing stockade. A Calf, speed-strangled, slipped from the dust cloud and wandered aimlessly toward the galloping hors.e.m.e.n; Gra.s.shead"s pony swerved as the Calf sprawled in his path.
On the Buffalo galloped; faster and faster rode Eagle Shoe. His cayuse, the fleetest Buffalo horse of all the Blood tribe, galloped with the full fear in his heart of the danger that was behind. Low over his neck crouched Eagle Shoe; one false step--a yawning badger hole, a swerve at a white rock, a falter, and crunching hoofs would grind the Redskin to pulp.
Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for the leading horseman; hindermost labored the fatted bulls, but in front thundered the leader.
With hawk eye, Eagle Shoe swept the stockade wall for the opening through which he was to slip and let the Herd gallop on to their destruction. Hi, yi! there it was. Sharp to the left, swinging his body far out on the side to steady the careening cayuse, he turned. As he shot through the opening two Indians rose up, and their guns belched a red repulse in the faces of the Buffalo.
On swept the Herd--on raced the pursuing Redskins, now joined by Eagle Shoe. An Indian rose like a specter behind the bush wall, and tw.a.n.ged a hoa.r.s.e-singing arrow into the quivering flank of the Herd that was as one Buffalo. His Hunt-Cry of joy, fierce-voiced, was like the wail of an infant--the roar of the troubled earth hushed it to nothing.
Fear rode on the backs of the striding beasts, and they were afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop; there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call, the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned and smiled a lie of safe pa.s.sage; the Pound, the death-pit, dug on its rounded breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and the Bull Leader saw only a narrow gate at the far end of the fast-closing wings. Soon he would lead all this mighty Herd that had grown into his charge past the walls that were alive with evil spirits, and out to the prairie beyond.
What could rise up in front and stay that mad rush of half a thousand Buffalo? Nothing--nothing! and the Pound still lay hushed--waiting.
Behind the Bull, with implicit faith, pressed the Herd. Only a short distance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed walls that hid the Man enemy. In six breaths he would have pa.s.sed the narrow mouth, and all his heart"s pride would stream out from that death gauntlet to the broad Range that called to him.
Even now he drew a sigh of relief; one more jump--oh, spirit of sacred Buffalo! that yawning abyss! the frown of the Pound. He braced his giant forelegs in the graveled earth on its very brink. Too late! Behind, two hundred tons of impetuous fright crashed against his guarding frame; the treacherous sod crumbled; down, down, thirty feet sheer, over the cliff he shot: two, six, a dozen, fifty! beyond all count, one after another, bellowing Cow and screaming Calf, they hurtled into the slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians" corral.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE AFTER ANOTHER THEY HURTLED INTO THE SLAUGHTER-PEN OF THE BLOOD INDIANS" CORRAL.]
Inferno upon earth was born in an instant; up from the sun smile of the prairie rose a shadow of fiends. The walls of the pit, large as the Coliseum, were lined with Redskins of the murder caste. Bow-strings tw.a.n.ged; dag-spears, long-handled, were driven with vengeful swish into the bellowing mob of crazed Buffalo. A sulphurous cloud of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of a verity it was a carnival of demons. Surely it was a mighty Kill! Surely it was a blood fresco on the beautiful earth.
Some strong animals, not shattered in their fall, rushed about the pit in erratic frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena. The mocking walls rose on every side, grim, unsurmountable, and thrust the captives back into the shambles; jagged flint arrow-heads stung their hearts like angry serpents. Oh, blessed quick death! better than the smother and trample that beat out the lives of others, inch by inch. The gun fire belched hot in their faces; the bellowing of Bulls almost hushed the Hunt-Cry of the Redman.
For an hour the full carnage lived; the joy of blood-shedding was over the Indians; gray-aged warriors and lean-chested children, all drank of the glory of slaughter. Skinning-knife in hand, the Squaws waited for the tumult to subside that they might complete the tragedy.
At last no Buffalo chased hopelessly over the dead bodies of his fellows, seeking a vain safety; all were stricken to their death--not one had escaped. No bellowing was heard now; nothing but the victory clamor of the rabble and the gasping choke of dying Buffalo. Out on the prairie the silly Calf wandered like a lost babe--the only survivor of a king-led Herd.
Like butchers, the strong-backed Squaws leaped into the arena, its stone floor slippery with blood, and stripped the bodies of their victims. The Indians, their warrior pride holding them aloof from this menial labor, sat and gloried in the mighty Kill.
s.h.a.g and the Dog-Wolf had heard the din from afar. "They will not poison the meat to-night," muttered A"tim, "and when they have gorged themselves to sleep, I also shall feast, for it must have been a great Kill."
"It"s dreadful!" lamented s.h.a.g; "it"s dreadful! I can"t eat--the gra.s.s tastes of blood, for this Kill has been of my kind. It is different with you, A"tim. I will sleep here in this near-by coulee, and when you have feasted, Dog Brother, come back to me, for I am sad and my heart is heavy; come back, A"tim, and sleep warm against my side."
Far into the night, by the light of dry willow fires, like dancing ghouls, the Squaws cut and hacked and laid bare the bones that had been joyous in much life at sunrise.
Over the camp-fires, for long hours, the pots boiled and bubbled with the cooking meat--the delicious Buffalo flesh that was meat and bread to the Indians; and beside the glowing embers huge joints spitted on sharp sticks sizzled and threw off a perfume that came to the starved nostrils of A"tim, and almost crazed him with eager hunger.
Would the Indians never cease eating? he wondered. Close-crept, he watched Eagle Shoe take a piece of the luscious "back fat"--ah, well A"tim knew the loin!--and devour it greedily. How like vultures these feeders were, A"tim thought. At least a dozen times each Indian returned to the flesh-pots, the Dog-Wolf felt sure. "They are like Wolves," he snarled; "well I know them. For days and days they will live on nothing, even as a Wolf; then, when the Kill is on, they will gorge until they are stupid.
E-u-h-ha! but when they become stupid from this feeding surely I will also feast; wait, hunger-pain, wait just a little."
A cold moon came up over the fog-lined prairie and looked down wonderingly at the fierce barbecue. Sometimes the silent prairie, silent as the Catacombs, would be startled by the exultant cry of a blood-drunken feaster. It was a fierce joy the Kill had brought to these Pagans.
Half a thousand robes Eagle Shoe had tallied. "Waugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
he had grunted in sheer joy when the little willow wands which marked the score had been counted before him. Surely they would revel in things dear to the heart of an Indian when the robes were carted to the Hudson Bay Store. The meat was feeling all right in its way when the stomach was lean, but at the Fort, at the time of giving up the robes--Waugh! G.o.d of the fallen Indians! how they would revel in the fierce fire-water, the glorious fire-water! Even the Squaws, useful at the skinning, would also drink, and reel, and become lower than the animals they had slain to bring about all this saturnalia. Why had his forefathers fought against the Palefaces? Was not all this civilized evil a good thing, after all?
A cloud drifted a frown over the face of the cold moon, and A"tim skulked closer and closer--almost to the very edge of the slaughter-pit. The Indian Pack-Dogs snarled at his presence, and yapped crabbedly. Other gray shadows, less venturesome than the Dog-Wolf, flitted restlessly back and forth in the dim mist of the silent plain.
A"tim sneered to himself maliciously. "To-day is the Kill of the Buffalo," he muttered; "to-morrow you, my Gray Brothers, will give up your lives because of the Death Powder. There will be meat enough for the poisoning; feast to-night, for to-morrow you die, and your pelts will go with those of the Dead Gra.s.s-Eaters.
If you had not outcasted me, I, who know of this thing, would save you; but to-morrow I shall be far away and care not."
Would the Indians never gorge themselves to sleep? Eagle Shoe"s voice was hushed; one by one the feasters stretched themselves upon the silent gra.s.s, and slumbered with a heaviness of full content. When the last Squaw, weary of the blood toil, curled beneath her blanket, A"tim crept to the meat piles. All the energy of his rested stomach urged him to the feasting; there was no stint.
Surely no Swift-runner, Dog or Wolf, ever had such a choosing.
The Pack-Dogs kept the Wolves at bay, but with A"tim was the scent of their own kind, the Dog scent. He was not an utter stranger to them, only an Outcast; they tolerated him as a beggar at the meat store of which they had more than enough.
At last the hunger pain was all gone. Once in his Train-Dog days he had looted a cache of White Fish, and eaten until he could eat no more; it was like that now. Then, with a Dog thought for the morrow, he stole four huge pieces of choice meat, and cached them in the little coulee where waited s.h.a.g.
"Ah! you"ve come back, Brother," said the Bull, as A"tim crept complacently to his side. "I was afraid something might have happened to you, for hunger often carries us into unknown danger."
"E-u-h-h! but it was a mighty Kill, s.h.a.g. Such flesh I"ve never tasted--never--tasted--" He was asleep.
"I wonder what makes the moon red," muttered s.h.a.g, drowsily, as he, too, nodded off to sleep.
Then again the two Outcasts, the one for whom the blood horror had colored the moon red, and the other with a new joy of meat fullness, slumbered together in the little coulee by the Buffalo Pound.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER THREE
s.h.a.g was the first to awaken; the night"s banquet caused the morning to come slowly to A"tim.
The pulling cut of s.h.a.g"s heavy jaws on the crisp gra.s.s awoke the Dog-Wolf. He yawned heavily, and eyed the old Bull with sleepy indifference. Ghur-h-h-h! what a plaintive figure the aged Buffalo was, to be sure.
"Good-morning, Brother," whuffed s.h.a.g, his mouth full of gra.s.s; "where are you going?"
"I _cached_ a piece of the new meat here last night," answered A"tim, as he nosed under an overhanging cut-bank. "Forest thieves!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed angrily; "the Gray Stealers of Things have taken it." His _cache_ was as bare as Mother Hubbard"s cupboard--not even a bone; there was nothing but the reddened stones where the meat had lain, and a foul odor of Wolf.
Impetuously he rushed to the second _cache_; it, too, was void of all meat; the third _cache_ held nothing but the footprints of his gray half-brothers, the Wolf Thieves.
Despair crept into the heart of A"tim; what use to explore the fourth _cache_? The meat would be gone of a certainty. Why had he slept so soundly? Why had he hidden the meat at all? Oh! but he _was_ stupid; as silly as a calf Musk Ox.
And the other meat up at the Pound, such as was left, would be full of Death Powder, put there for the Gray Runners. How he hoped they might eat it all--the thieves! It seemed such unnecessary looting, too, to steal his food when there was so much at the Pound; it was like the persecution that had kept him an Outcast from the Wolf Pack.