"Ease off a bit, Master Bart," cried Joses, after they had all been riding at full gallop for a couple of miles over the plains. "Whoo-- hoop, my Injun friends! Whoo--hoop!"
"Whoo-hoop! whoo-hoop! whoo-hoop!" yelled back the Indians, excitedly; and taking it as an incentive to renewed exertion, they pressed the flanks of their horses, which responded freely, and they swept on more swiftly still.
"Tell Beaver to stop a bit," cried Joses; "you"re nighest to him, my lad." And Bart was about to shout some words to the chief, who was on his other side, riding with eyes flashing with excitement, and every nerve on the throb, thoroughly enjoying the wild race after so long a time of inaction in the camp. And it was not only the riders who enjoyed the racing; the horses seemed to revel in it, all tossing their ma.s.sive manes and snorting loudly with delight, while swift as they went they were always so well-prepared that they would try to kick each other whenever two were in anything like close proximity.
Bart shouted to the Beaver to check his pace, but he was misunderstood, and the party swept on, whooping with delight, for all the world like a pack of excited schoolboys just let loose for a holiday.
"We shall have our nags regularly blown, my lad," panted Joses;--"and then if we come upon unfriendly Injuns it"ll be the worse for us. Let"s you and me draw rein, then they"ll stop."
A pause in the mad gallop came without the inciting of Bart and his follower, for all at once one of the Indians" horses planted his hoof in a gopher hole, cunningly contrived by the rat-like creature just in the open part of the plain; and unable to recover itself or check its headlong speed, the horse turned a complete somersault, throwing his rider right over his head quite twenty feet away, and as the rest drew rein and gathered round, it seemed for the time as if both pony and rider were killed.
Bart leaped down to go to the poor fellow"s help, but just as the lad reached him, the Indian, who had been lying flat upon his back, suddenly sat up, shook his head, and stared round in bewilderment. The next moment he had caught sight of his steed, and leaped to his feet to run and catch the rein just as the pony was struggling up.
As the pony regained its feet the Indian leaped upon its back, while the st.u.r.dy little animal gave itself a shake that seemed to be like one gigantic quiver, beginning at its broad inflated nostrils, and ending with the rugged strands of its great thick uncombed tail.
Just then the Beaver uttered a yell, and away the whole party swept again, the Indian who had fallen seeming in no wise the worse for his encounter with the sandy earth.
"That"s where the Indian gets the better of the white man, Master Bart.
A fall like that would have about knocked all the life out of me. It"s my belief them Injuns likes it, and so you see they can bear so much that they grow hard to clear away; and in spite of our being so much more knowing, they"re often too much for us."
"But had we not better pull up, Joses?" cried Bart, for they were tearing along over the plain once more at a tremendous gallop.
"It"s no use to try, my lad; the horses won"t stop and leave them others galloping on. You may train horses as much as you like, but there"s a lot of nature left in them, and that you can"t eddicate out."
"What do you mean?" panted Bart, for it was hard work riding so fast.
"What do I mean, my boy? why, that horses is used to going in big droves together, and this puts "em in mind of it, and they like it. You try and pull Black Boy in. There, I told you so. See how he gnaws at his bit and pulls. There"s no stopping him, my lad, no more than there is mine. Let "em go, my lad. Perhaps we mayn"t meet any one we don"t want to meet after all."
Hardly had he spoken before the Beaver raised his arm, and his followers pulled up as if by magic, forming in quite a small circle close to him, with their horses" heads almost touching him.
The Beaver signed to Bart and Joses to approach, and room was made for them to join in the little council which was to be held, and the result was that being now well out in the plains far north of where they had originally travelled to reach the mountain, they now headed off to the west, the Indians separating, and opening out more and more so as to cover wider ground with their keen eyes, while every little eminence was climbed so that the horizon could be swept in search of bison.
"Do you think we shall meet with any, Joses?" asked Bart.
"What, buffler, my lad? Well, I hope so. There"s never no knowing, for they"re queer beasts, and there"s hundreds here to-day, and to-morrow you may ride miles and miles, and not see a hoof. Why, I"ve known times when I"ve come upon a drove that was miles long."
"Miles, Joses?"
"Yes, Master Bart, miles long. Bulls, and cows, and calves, of all kinds, from little bits o" things, right up to some as was nearly as big as their fathers and mothers, only not so rough and fat; and they"d go on over the plain in little bands. If you was looking at "em from far off, it seemed like one great long drove that there was no counting, but when you rode nearer to see, you found that what you took for one big drove was only made up of hundreds of other droves--big families like of fathers, and mothers, and children, which always kept themselves to themselves and didn"t mix with the others. Then all along outside the flanks of the great drove of droves you"d see the wolves hanging about, half-starved, fierce-looking vermin, licking their bare chops, and waiting their chance to get something to eat."
"But wolves wouldn"t attack the great bison, would they?" asked Bart.
"Only when they"re about helpless--wounded or old, you know, then they will. What they wolves is waiting for is for the young calves--little, helpless sort of things that are always being left behind as the great drove goes feeding on over the plains; and if you watch a drove, you"ll every now and then find a calf lying down, and its mother trying to coax it to get up and follow the others, while the old cow keeps mooing and making no end of a noise, and c.o.c.king up her tail, and making little sets of charges at the wolves to drive them back whenever they get too near. Ah, it"s a rum sight to see the lank, fierce, hungry beasts licking their chops, and thinking every now and then that they"ve got the calf, for the old mother keeps going off a little way to try and make the stupid cow baby get up and follow. Then the wolves make a rush, and so does the buffalo, and away go the hungry beggars, for a wolf is about as cowardly a thing as ever run on four legs, that he is."
"I should like to see a sight like that, Joses," said Bart; "how I would shoot at the wolves!"
"What for?" said Joses.
"What for? Why, because they must be such cowardly, cruel beasts, to try and kill the calves."
"So are we cowardly, cruel beasts, then," said Joses, philosophically.
"Wolves want to live same as humans, and it"s all their nature. If they didn"t kill and keep down the buffler, the country would be all buffler, and there wouldn"t be room for a man to walk. It"s all right, I tell you; wolves kills buffler for food, and so do we. Why, you never thought, praps, how bufflers fill up the country in some parts. I"ve seen droves of "em miles upon miles long, and if it wasn"t for the wolves and the Injun, as I said afore, there wouldn"t be room for anything else."
"Are there so many as you say, Joses?" asked Bart.
"Not now, my lad. There used to be, but they"ve been killed down a deal. You see the Injun lives on "em a"most. He cuts up and dries the beef, and he makes himself buffler robes of the skins, and very nice warm things they are in cold parts up in the mountains. I don"t know what the Injun would do if it wasn"t for the buffler. He"d starve. Not as that would be so very much consequence, as far as some tribes goes-- Comanches and Apaches, and them sort as lives by killing and murdering every one they sees. Halloa! what"s that mean?"
He pulled up, and shaded his eyes with his hand, to gaze at where one of the Indians was evidently making some sign with his spear as he sat in a peculiar way, right on their extreme left, upon an eminence in the plain.
Bart looked eagerly on, so as to try and learn what this signal meant.
"Oh, I know," said Joses directly, as he saw the Beaver make his horse circle round. "He can see a herd far out on the plain, and the Beaver has just signalled him back; so ride on, my lad, and we may perhaps come across a big run of the rough ones before the day is out."
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
BART"S FIRST BISON.
Joses was wrong, for no sign was seen of buffalo that day, and so the next morning, after a very primitive kind of camp out in the wilderness, the Beaver took them in quite a different direction, parallel to the camp, so as to be within range, for distance had to be remembered in providing meat for so large a company.
It was what Joses called ticklish work.
"You must keep your eyes well skinned, Master Bart," he said, with a grim smile, as they left the plain for an undulating country, full of depressions, most of which contained water, and whose gentle hills were covered with succulent buffalo-gra.s.s. "If you don"t, my lad, you may find yourself dropping down on to a herd of Apaches instead of buffaloes; and I can tell you, young fellow, that a buck Injun"s a deal worse thing to deal with than a bull buffler. You must keep a sharp look-out."
"I"ll do the best I can, Joses, you may be sure; but suppose I should come upon an Indian party--what am I to do?"
"Do, my lad? Why, make tracks as sharp as ever you can to your friends--that is, if you are alone."
"But if I can"t get away, and they shoot at me?"
"Well, what do you mean?" said Joses, dryly.
"I mean what am I to do if I am in close quarters, and feel that they will kill me?"
"Oh," said Joses, grimly, "I should pull up short, and go up to them and give them my hatchet, and rifle, and knife, and say to "em that you hope they won"t be so wicked as to kill you, for you are very fond of Injun, and think "em very nice; and then you"ll see they"ll be as pleased as pleased, and they"ll make such a fuss over you."
"Do you mean that, Joses?"
"Mean it, my lad? to be sure I do. A friend of mine did so, just as I"ve told you, for he was afraid to fight."
"And did the Indians make a fuss over him?" asked Bart.
"To be sure they did, my lad; they took his weppuns, and then they set him on his knees, and pulled all the hair off his head to make an ornament for one of their belts, and then, because he hollered out and didn"t like it, they took their lariats and tethering pegs, and after fixing the pegs in the ground, they put a rope round each of his ankles and his wrists, and spread-eagled him out tight, and then they lit a fire to warm themselves, for it was a very cold day."
"What!" cried Bart, looking aghast at his companion, who was evidently bantering him.
"Oh no, not to roast him," said Joses, laughing; "they didn"t mean that.
They lit the fire on purpose to warm themselves; and where do you think they lit it?"