SHAGGO’S BIG JUMP
Shaggo, the mighty buffalo, wandered up to the top of a little hill.
Down below him was the mud wallow, and he was still covered with the
cool slime from its depths――slime that would keep away the bugs and
mosquitoes for some time.
“At least I don’t have to worry about them,” thought the great, shaggy
buffalo――the mightiest of all the herd. He looked across the prairie,
which formed part of the government preserve, and could see a crowd
of other shaggy animals like himself. In the midst of this throng he
noticed two figures moving nimbly about.
“That’s Rumpo and Bumpo butting each other,” said Shaggo to himself.
“Well, I hope they get some fun out of it. I don’t care for it any
more, though.”
Time was when Shaggo would have been among the first to rush up to see
two buffaloes ramming each other with their immense heads with their
heavy shock of hair. In fact, Shaggo would have shouldered his way
through the throng to a place well up in front. But now he did not
care to look on, even from a distance.
“I wonder what is the matter with me?” mused Shaggo. “I wonder what is
going to happen? I don’t like it here any more, though I used to think
it was the finest place in the world.”
Shaggo looked over as much of the range as he could see. It was so
large, however, that he could not see it all at once. There were woods
and prairies――flat lands and low lands and hills, wallows and “salt
licks.” These last were places where salt cropped up out of the ground,
and at certain seasons buffaloes, deer, elks and antelopes came to
these places to lick the ground with their tongues to get the taste of
salt. Salt is good for some wild animals, such as buffaloes. You may
have seen, on a farm, how the cows and sheep are sometimes given salt.
Often a lump of rock salt is put in the manger of a horse, for a little
salt is good for horses also.
As Shaggo looked over the buffalo preserve and saw the sun shining on a
part of the fence that was all around it, a new thought came into his
head. He sniffed the air, pawed the ground, sending up a little cloud
of dry dust, and then he said to himself:
“I know what the matter is! This place is too small for me! It isn’t
large enough! I’m tired of being fenced in!”
For there was a wire fence, many miles long, all around the Park. The
fence had to be there to keep the buffaloes from wandering away, and to
keep out bad white men and Indians, who might have come in to take away
or to shoot the buffaloes. Of course the men could have crawled under,
jumped over, or have cut the fence, but the wire being there told these
men that the Government wanted them to stay out, and the men knew the
Government would punish them if they did any harm to the herd of big
animals.
“Yes, this place isn’t large enough,” decided the mighty buffalo.
“I have heard stories, told by Wuffo, of his grandfather and their
friends. They never had to stay cooped up in a park with a fence all
around it. They could run and roam as they pleased. I don’t see why
I can’t! I’m going to! That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to run
away!”
However, it was one thing for a buffalo to make up his mind he was
going to run away from the Government Park, but it was quite another
thing to do it. All around the range, or National Park, was this
strong, high fence of wire. The men who put it up knew they must needs
make it extra strong on account of the big buffaloes, who are stronger
and larger than any bull of the farm pasture.
Shaggo knew about the fence. More than once, in the dark, he had bumped
against it, and more than once, on the sly, he and some other buffalo
calves had tried to break through it.
“But it can’t be broken,” said Shaggo, after he had tried several
times, with his companions.
“No,” agreed Poko, “I don’t believe it can. Anyhow, who wants to break
it? This place suits me.”
“And me, too,” said Soako and the others.
It had suited Shaggo, too, until this past week, when, somehow or
other, he had become discontented.
“And so I’m going to run away,” he decided. “I’ll get over or through
the fence, somehow, and see what’s on the other side.”
Shaggo, like many of the other buffaloes, had never been outside the
fence. Shaggo had been born inside, and had never been allowed to go
out.
“But I’m going now,” he told himself, as he walked down the hill and
over toward the others of the herd. By this time the “fun fight”
between Rumpo and Bumpo was over. Bumpo had won, having knocked down
Rumpo more times than Rumpo had knocked him down.
[Illustration: Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence.]
“Oh, Shaggo, you should have seen it!” bellowed Poko, as he ran up
alongside of the big buffalo.
“Yes, you surely missed it!” echoed Soako. “It was a great fun fight.”
“I guess I didn’t miss much,” replied Shaggo. “I had a good time off by
myself.”
“Humph! That’s the first time I ever knew anybody could have a good
time alone, unless he was eating or rolling in the mud,” said Poko in a
low voice to Soako.
“That’s right,” agreed the other. “Shaggo’s getting more and more
queer.”
And if these two buffalo friends could have known what Shaggo had
made up his mind to do――that is, run away――they would have been more
surprised than ever.
Once Shaggo had found out what made him discontented――that the Park was
not big enough for him――he began to look about for a way of getting out
of it. For several days he wandered around with the rest of the herd,
eating the grass here and there, drinking from the different springs,
going to the shade of the trees when the sun was too hot, or rolling in
the mud when the flies bit too hard.
And, all this while, Shaggo was looking for a hole in the fence. But he
found none, and he was beginning to be discouraged.
“I wonder if I’ll get out?” he said to himself.
One day Shaggo separated himself from the rest of the herd. He could do
this easily, as, of late, he had not been very friendly, and the others
had come to let him alone.
“Shaggo is a bit cross and grouchy,” said Wuffo. “Just let him alone
until that spell wears off. Then he’ll be his same jolly old self
again.”
So when Shaggo wandered off alone, no one paid any attention to him.
Shaggo went up on top of a hill. From there he looked down and saw the
shiny wire fence that kept him from leaving the preserve.
A new idea came into Shaggo’s head. He looked at the fence and at a
thick clump of bushes and small trees that grew on the other side. The
fence was quite a distance below him.
“I believe I can do it!” cried Shaggo aloud to himself. He was quite
excited. “I believe if I took a run and gave a jump, I could leap down
from the top of this hill, over the fence and so down into the soft
bushes. It wouldn’t hurt me much, and I would be over the fence. Then
I’d be out! I’d be free and could roam where I pleased! That’s what
I’ll do! I’ll give a big jump down from this hill, over the fence and
get away!”
The more Shaggo thought of this idea the better he liked it. He looked
behind him. There was the rest of the herd calmly eating, chewing cud
or wallowing in the mud. Rumpo and Bumpo were again at their butting
fun fight game.
“None of that for me!” said Shaggo. “I’m going to run away, jump the
fence, and see the world. Good-bye, my buffalo friends!” he said,
though he was so far away the others could not hear him.
Shaggo did not have anything to pack to take away with him. He carried
his hump, or pack, on his big shoulders. Once more looking back toward
his friends and companions, Shaggo shook his head and pawed the dirt,
stamping his hoofs on the top of the hill.
“Here I go!” he said at last. He walked back a little way, and then
broke into a run. As he neared the edge of the hill Shaggo gave a big
jump, and launched himself outward and downward.
He held his legs stiff under him as he felt himself sailing through the
air.
“I’m going to clear the fence! This time I shall jump over it and land
on the other side!” thought Shaggo, as he leaped through the air. “At
last I am free! I am jumping away!”