To the West――Wapiti in sight――A stalk――A grand run――The sand-hills
in sight――The finish――A noble beast――A gorgeous sunset――A vast
landscape――The Hills of Life and Death.
At dawn on the following morning we departed from the camp on the
Souri, holding our way towards the west.
It was a fair fresh morning; the summer, verging towards autumn, held
already in its nights and first hours of day the faint breathings of
the northern chill of frost; the dew lay upon the ground in silvery
sheen and glitter; all was yet green in meadow and willow copse; the
current of the river ran with fresh and sparkling eagerness, and from
its mimic rapids on the shallows little streaks of vapour rose――an
indication that the air of the morning was cooler than the water of the
river. Over all the scene, over the hill and the valley, on wood and
stream and meadow, there lay a sense of the perfect rest and ceaseless
quiet of the wilderness.
The path which the Indian took led for awhile along the valley of the
Souri. At times it climbed the higher ridges that bordered on the north
and south the alluvial meadows which fringed the river, and at times
it dived into the patches of poplar thicket and oak-wood copse that
dotted alike both hill and valley.
The Sioux was mounted on the same horse which he had ridden on the
previous day, but a change had fallen on the fortunes of Donogh and
myself. We now bestrode two close-knit wiry horses, whose sleek coats
and rounded flanks showed that the early summer had been to them a
season of rest, and that they had profited by the quiet of the last
few days to improve the “shining hours” on the fertile meadows of the
Souri. We went along now at an easy pace, half walk, half trot――a pace
which got over the ground with little fatigue to man and horse, and yet
made a long day’s journey out of the travel hours of daylight.
As the morning wore towards mid-day, and the trail led at times over
places which commanded a wider view of river and valley, the Indian
riding in front watched with keen glance each open space, and often
cantered his horse to the upper level for a better survey of the higher
plateau. All at once he stopped, and lay low upon his horse. He was
some distance ahead of us, but near enough to be seen by me. I at once
pulled up. Presently the Sioux came back to where we were standing.
There were wapiti in sight, he said; I could go forward with him on
foot and see them. We left our horses with Donogh, and went forward
very carefully to the spot from whence the Sioux had seen the game.
It was at the end of a willow copse. From here, looking partly through
and partly over the leaves of some small aspens, I now saw at the
farther side of an open space which was more than a mile across, a
herd of large dun-coloured animals, and high above all stood one stag,
erect and stately, looking in our direction, as though the echo of our
approach had apparently reached him.
These were the wapiti, the giant red-deer of North America. The monarch
of the group was evidently a gigantic specimen of his race, who, with
the true kingship of nature, kept watch and ward over his weaker
subjects, and did not, as in modern society, delegate that chiefest
function of leadership to other less favoured mortals. And now how was
this noble animal to be reached? The forest of antlers fixed and rigid
showed that his gaze was fixed too upon the spot from whence an attack
might be expected.
The Indian, surveying the ground for a moment, whispered to me, “We
cannot approach him from this side; his suspicions are already aroused.
And yet he is a noble prize, and well worth the trouble of the chase.
There is only one way it can be done. Where the ground rises to the
north, on the right of where we now stand, there is a large open
expanse of prairie, once on that level plain it would rest with our
horses to reach him; the few scattered clumps of trees growing upon it
cannot hide him from our view; he must be ours. So far, he has neither
seen nor winded us; he has simply heard a sound; he is watchful, not
alarmed. Let us see what can be done.”
Having said this, he drew back a little, plucked the heads of a few
long grasses growing near, and flung the dry light seeds into the air.
They floated towards the east; the wind was from the west. “Now,” he
said, having noted this, “we must retrace our steps along the path we
have come for some distance, then it will be possible to get round
yonder beast. We shall see.”
So saying, we fell back with easy and quiet footsteps, and, followed
by Donogh, were soon a long way from the open glade and its denizens.
Having gained the required distance, the Sioux stopped again to detail
to us the further plan of attack; it was simply this. We were to make a
long détour to the south; when the right position had been attained, we
would advance in the direction of the herd, emerging upon the clearing
full in view of the stag, whose course, the Indian said, would when
alarmed at once lead up the wind, or towards the west. This, however,
was not the direction in which the Indian wanted him to go. How then
was it to be done? We shall presently see.
Striking from the trail towards the south, we pursued our way through
mixed open and thicket country until the required distance had been
gained, then bending round to the west we gradually drew nearer to the
open ground on which the wapiti had last been seen.
When the neighbourhood of the open space was reached the Indian again
stopped, and spoke his last directions to us. “Wait here until you
hear a wolf cry twice; at the second call ride straight to the north
at an easy pace. When you emerge upon the open you will be in sight
of the big stag, but a long way from him; after looking at you for a
moment he will trot away to your left; then you must ride straight
up the hill until you gain the level plain on the summit; you will
then see the stag not very far from you. I will be there too. Let the
pack-horses follow quietly to the upper ground.” Having said this, the
Indian turned his horse to the west, and was soon lost to sight in the
thickets and undulations of the ground.
About a quarter of an hour passed; at length we heard the cry of a wolf
sounding a long way off to north and west. We listened anxiously for
the second signal. It soon came, and as it died away in the silence
of space we put our horses into a trot and rode straightforward. Two
minutes’ riding brought us to the edge of the prairie, on the other
side of which, but now some miles distant, we had first looked upon the
wapiti. As we entered upon the open ground we caught sight of the herd,
still in the same spot. The chief had apparently ceased to reconnoitre,
for his huge antlers no longer towered aloft; he was quietly feeding
like the others. We now rode at a walk straight for the herd. Our
presence in their area of vision was almost instantly detected, and all
heads were lifted from the ground to examine the enemy; then the leader
led the way, and the band, following his steps, filed off quietly
towards the wind.
I was sorely disposed to follow, but, remembering the directions of the
Indian I put my horse into a sharp canter, and held straight for the
high ground, the edge of which was visible in our front. As we crossed
the centre of the open space, a shot rang out some distance to our
left, and then there came a faint Halloo! borne down the west wind.
Still we held on our course, and climbing the steep ridge, gained the
open prairie land above. As our heads topped the ridge, we beheld a
sight that made our hearts beat fast with excitement. There, not half
a mile distant, going full across the plain, was the herd of wapiti,
still close grouped together; behind them, and not more than three
hundred yards distant from them, rode the Indian, his horse held full
within his pace but going at a free gallop across a level plain, on
which the grass grew short and crisp under a horse’s hoof. I did not
need the waving arm of the Indian to tell me what was to be done. My
horse seemed to realize the work too; I shook free his rein, and was
soon in fast pursuit of the flying stag.
There are many moments in wild life, the minute sensations of which are
worth the oft-indulged recollections of after time――moments when every
nerve is strained to action, when eye and ear and nostril are filled
with the sound, the sight and the scent of nature’s freshness――and when
the animate or inanimate thing that bears us, the horse or the canoe,
become sharers in the keenness of our progress, and seem to quiver with
the excitement of our impetuous onset; there are such moments in the
wild life of the wilderness, amply sufficient to outweigh the hardships
and privations of travel and exposure in a land where the sky is the
roof, and the ground the bed, the table and the chair of the wayfarer.
Much toil and trouble had befallen us since that distant day when we
had quitted the little roof of our far-away home; the goal aimed at had
often seemed a long way off, and many had been the obstacles that had
forced in between us and the wild life I had sought to reach; but now
it was ours――fully, entirely ours; and as my horse, entering at once
into the spirit of the chase, launched himself gamely along the level
sward I could not repress a ringing cheer, the natural voice of freedom
found, and of wild life fully realized.
I was now in wild pursuit. I directed my horse towards a spot far in
advance of the flying herd; the wapiti in turn, not slow to perceive
the advance of a fresh enemy from the flank, bent away in the opposite
direction, giving the Indian the advantages of a similar advance upon
an oblique line to cut them off, and so cause them to again alter
their course in my favour.
It is a singular fact in the hunting of wild game, that if a particular
animal of a herd be selected for pursuit, even though he may at the
time be in the midst of a number of other animals all flying from the
hunter, nevertheless, the one marked out as the special quarry will
quickly realize that he alone is the object of the hunter’s aim, and
he will soon become the solitary one, deserted by his companions, who
seem to understand his position. Such was now the case. One by one the
meaner ones in the little herd had dropped off to the right or to left,
and ere two miles had been ridden the monarch stag pursued alone his
wild career.
His pace was still the long rapid stride or trot peculiar to his breed.
To the inexperienced eye it looked a rate of speed which could be
easily overtaken by a horse; but, nevertheless, although a good horse
will always outrun a wapiti, it takes both time and open country to
enable him to do so. The long swinging trot is really the wapiti’s best
pace. When he is forced to change it for a gallop, his end is near――his
course is almost run.
Right on over the level prairie held the stag, and at full speed we
followed his flying steps. The prairie lay an almost unbroken level for
six or seven miles, then a succession of sand-ridges appeared in view,
and farther still rose the blue outlines of more distant hills. It was
toward this refuge that the stag now held his way.
When the last of his little band had fallen from him, and he was alone
with his pursuers, it seemed that his energies only reached their
fullest power; for, more than half way across the plain he not only
kept his distance in the race, but increased it by many lengths; nor
did he appear to labour in his stride, as with head thrown forward, and
antlers lying back almost upon his haunches, he spurned behind him the
light soil of the plains.
With rapid survey the Indian scanned the hills towards which his quarry
was now leading, and his practised eye soon caught the features of the
land, while he still maintained the same headlong speed. We knew that
if the stag once gained those ridges of light brown sand his chances
of final escape would be great. The yielding surface would give the
spreading cloven hoof the support which it would refuse to the more
solid pressure of the horse.
In all these things nature never fails to instruct her creatures in the
means of escape she provides for them in their hours of trouble. The
hare seeks the hill when coursed by the grey-hound, because the great
length of her hind legs gives her an increased power to traverse with
rapidity rising ground.
When the falcon is abroad, the birds know that their wings are their
weakest refuge, lying close hid on moorland or in cover.
The moose makes his place of rest for the day to the leeward of his
track during the night, so that he may have the wind of every hunter
who follows in his trail.
It is in that acute knowledge of all these various resources,
instincts, and habits, possessed by the wild game which they pursue,
that the Indian hunter surpasses all other hunters of the earth.
It is not too much to say that a good Indian hunter can anticipate
every instinct of the animal he is in quest of.
We have seen in the present instance how completely the Sioux had
forced the herd of wapiti to take the upper level. This he had achieved
by knowing exactly where they would run upon being first disturbed, and
then placing himself in such a position that they were enabled to scent
his presence before they could see that he meant to follow them. By
this means he caused them to abandon the partly wooded country before
they had become thoroughly frightened by a closer attack.
Under the different conditions of suspicion, fear, and absolute danger,
wild animals, like human creatures, show widely different tactics.
It is these finer distinctions of habit and emotion that the red man
has so thoroughly mastered, and it is this knowledge that enables him
almost invariably to outwit the keenest sense of animal cunning.
In most of the wisdom of civilized man he is only a child. His
perceptions of things relating to social or political life are bounded
by narrow limits. But in the work of the wilderness, in all things that
relate to the conquest of savage nature, be it grizzly bear, foaming
rapid, or long stretch of icy solitude, he is all unmatched in skill,
in daring, and in knowledge.
But while we have been speaking thus of Indian skill in the chase, our
stag has been nearing with rapid strides the sand-hills of his refuge.
We had now drawn closer to each other in the pursuit, and it seemed
that hunters and hunted were straining their every nerve, the one to
attain, the other to prevent, the gaining of this refuge.
I had thought that the horse ridden by the Sioux had been going at its
utmost speed. But in this I was mistaken, as the next instant proved.
All at once he shot forward, laying himself out over the prairie as I
had never before seen any horse do.
He was soon close upon the flying footsteps of the stag, which now,
finding himself almost outpaced, broke from his long-held steady trot
into a short and laboured gallop, while his great antlers moved from
side to side, as he watched over his flanks the progress of his pursuer.
The sand-hills were but a short half-mile distant. Another minute
would decide the contest. Just when I thought the stag must win, I
saw the Sioux urge his horse to a still faster effort. He was now
almost at the flank of the wapiti. Then I saw him with the quickness
of lightning unsling his short bow, and place an arrow on the string.
One sharp draw, apparently without any aim, and the shaft sped upon its
way, piercing the heart of the giant stag, which, with one great leap
forward into space, rolled dead upon the prairie.
[Illustration: The Sioux was now almost at the flank of the wapiti.]
He was a noble specimen of those gigantic animals now growing scarce on
the American prairies.
From fore hoof to tip of shoulders he stood seventeen hands high. His
antlers were the finest I ever saw. They branched from his frontlet in
perfect symmetry and regularity, each tier was the exact counterpart of
the opposite one. From brow to tip they measured more than five feet,
and their ribbed sides shone like roughened bronze, while the strong
tips were polished ivory. Standing breathless beside my breathless
horse, I looked on the dead animal in mute admiration, while the Sioux
set to at the more practical work of getting some meat for dinner.
“You may well look at him,” he said to me; “he is the finest of his
tribe I have yet seen.”
“It is almost a pity we have killed such a noble beast,” I replied; “to
lay such a proud head low.”
“Yes,” answered the Indian. “But it is in such things that we learn
the great work of war. To ride a chase to the end; to shoot an arrow
fast and true after a six-mile gallop; to watch every turn of the
game enemy, and to note every stride of the steed; to avoid the deadly
charge of the buffalo, and to wheel upon his flank as he blindly
pursues his impetuous onset; to stand steady before the advance of the
savage grizzly bear, and to track the wary moose with silent footfall
into the willow thickets,――these are the works by which, in times of
peace, the Indian learns his toil in the deeper game of war.
“And then, the health, the strength, the freshness of these things;
the pleasure they give us in after-time when by the camp fire in the
evening we run back in memory some day of bygone chase. Well, now we
have other work to do. This run has taken us far from our trail. The
sun gets low upon the plain. We must away.”
So taking with us a few tit-bits of the wapiti, we retraced our steps
to where the pack-horses had been left with Donogh when I joined the
pursuit, and then rode briskly towards the now declining sun.
By sunset we came in sight of a small creek, on the banks of which grew
a few dark pine-trees. Beneath one of these pines we made our camp; the
horses found good pasturage along the edge of the creek, and from a
high sand dune which rose behind the camp the Sioux pointed out to us
our course for the morrow.
As we stood together on the summit of the sand ridge, the scene that
lay to the west was enough to make even the oldest voyageur pause in
wonder as he beheld it. Many a long mile away, over a vast stretch
of prairie, the western sky blazed in untold hues of gold, saffron,
orange, green, and purple. Down to the distant rim of the prairie,
the light shone clear and distinct. No fog, no smoke blurred the vast
circle of the sky-line. Never before had we realized at a single
glance the vastness of earthly space. The lustrous sky made dim the
intervening distance, and added tenfold to the sense of immensity.
The Indian pointed his finger full towards the spot where the sun had
gone down.
“There lies our course,” he said. “Would that, like yon sunset, the
prairie land circled the world, then we might for ever travel into the
west.”
“Well, master, we’re in the big wilderness, surely,” said Donogh, as
he stood by my side watching intently this vast ocean of grass, slowly
sinking into night beneath the many-hued splendours of the western
skies. “When we used to sit together on the top of Seefin, talking of
the lands beyond the seas, I didn’t think that one short year would
carry us so far.”
“How do you like it, Donogh?” I asked him.
“Like it, sir! I like it as long as it holds you in it. And I like it
for all the fine wild birds and beasts it has. But I’d like it better
if it had a few more hills, just to remind me of Coolrue, and the rest
of the old mountains about Glencar!”
“We’ll come to the hills all in good time,” I replied. “There, beyond
where you see the sun has gone down, twenty long days’ riding from here
you will see hills that will make Seefin and Coolrue seem only hillocks
in comparison――mountains where the snow never melts.”
“What name do the Indians call the Rocky Mountains?” I asked Red Cloud,
who was listening to our conversation.
“The Blackfeet call them the Ridge of the World,” he answered.
“My people named them the Mountains of the Setting Sun; and the
Assineboines, who dwell at their feet, call them the Hills of Life and
Death, because they say that the spirits of the dead climb them to look
back on life, and forward on the happy hunting-grounds.”
“Do you hear, Donogh?” I said.
He laughed as he answered,――
“Who knows but we’ll see Glencar from there, sir?”