A BIGHORN IN CAMP.
The day was spent in the river bottom, all the horses being allowed to
feed at liberty, except one which was picketed. A few hours before
sunset they packed up and travelled north for two or three hours
stopping to camp for the night on the banks of a little stream which
flowed into the Yellowstone River. This valley was narrow, and on either
side high bad-land bluffs rose to the prairie above, which was dry and
already brown, though mid-summer was not yet here. That night they had a
long rest, making up then for the many hours of night travelling and day
watching which they had undergone during the last week.
As usual, Hugh was the first to turn out of his blankets; that is to
say, he was the first to awake and sit up, but before he had freed
himself from the coverings, he saw across the narrow valley, and just
below the top of the bluffs, something that made him call Jack sharply,
but in a low tone of voice. Standing on the bare earth, and scarcely to
be distinguished from it, except by the dark shadows which they cast,
were three great mountain rams, splendid with their stout curling horns,
looking curiously at the horses feeding below them.
"Wake up, son, quick!" said he, "there's your chance; you'll never get
a better shot at sheep than that."
Awakened from his sound sleep, Jack hardly understood what was said, but
the word, sheep, caught his ear, and he flew up suddenly to a sitting
posture, like a Jack springing out of its box.
"Not too quick," said Hugh; "easy now; don't lose your head. Where's
your gun and cartridges? You want to kill one of them rams, and not
leave me to try to do it, just as they're jumping over the ridge. Take
the middle one, he's the biggest, and shoot a little high on him; it's
over a hundred yards, maybe a hundred and twenty-five; aim just above
the point of his breast, and hold steady; if you make a line shot you're
sure to get him."
The biggest ram was standing with his head toward them, and his hips a
little higher than his shoulders. The other two stood quartering, one up
and one down the valley, and any one of the three offered a fair shot
for an ordinary rifleman. Jack drew his gun out from beneath his
blankets, loaded it, and drawing up his knees, and resting his elbow on
one of them, drew a careful bead at the point named by Hugh, and fired.
At the report, the ram shot at gave a long bound down the hill, and then
stood for an instant. The other two had each sprung into the air, and
now all three turned and began to climb the hill, the two smaller ones
at a gallop, the other walking.
"Shall I shoot again, Hugh?" said Jack, much excited.
Hugh still sat with his blankets around his legs, and a smile on his
face, as he answered, "I don't believe I'd waste another cartridge;
he'll do us for quite a ways yet."
As he spoke the last ram turned off to one side, and disappeared behind
a little ridge on the shoulder of the bluff.
"Ah," said Jack, with a long sigh of contentment, "I thought I heard the
bullet strike, but I wasn't dead sure."
"Well, I guess he's stopped over there somewhere: we surely would have
seen him if he'd run off anywhere. What's that?" As Hugh spoke, Jack
heard a clatter of stones, which to his ears sounded as if the whole
face of the bluff were sliding down, and a moment later a cloud of dust,
rising over the shoulder of the little ridge behind which the sheep had
disappeared, showed that some commotion was taking place over there. A
moment more and the great sheep appeared, slowly rolling over and over
down the hill, his legs sticking up in the air at one moment, then his
back and great horns showing, as he rolled on toward the valley.
"Ha!" said Hugh, "he's saving us quite a lot of packing. Now, the first
thing we'll do is to go over there and butcher him, and bring the meat
into camp; and then we'll eat breakfast."
They crossed the stream, which was only two or three inches deep, on a
wide riffle, and were soon standing over the game. It was a magnificent
animal; far handsomer, Jack thought, than any game he had as yet
killed--a picture of strength, grace and beauty.
"Well," said Jack, "I did hope that maybe sometime during the year I'd
get a chance to shoot a sheep, but I never expected to have it come so
soon."
"And I expect you never thought a sheep would walk right into camp to be
killed, either."
"No, I surely didn't think that."
"Now, I expect," said Hugh, "that you'd like to save this skin, and the
head, too; it's a good head, and you may kill a whole lot of sheep
before you'll ever see a better, and yet I don't like the idea of
packing this head all over the country; I wonder if we couldn't cache it
somewhere, and then try to come back here and get it when we're going
south this fall."
"That would be good, but how would you ever find it again? Of course you
couldn't be sure of coming right back to this place. You might have to
travel up or down the Yellowstone a long way, hunting for the head."
"Don't you fret yourself about that, son; I know where this creek is
just as well as you know where the corrals are, down at the ranch. Many
a time I've camped here, and if we hang this head up in a tree somewhere
near here, I can find it the darkest night that ever was; but what I'm
thinking about is, that maybe we won't come back this way, and I don't
want to travel a hundred miles just to get a sheep's head. Anyhow, I'll
cut the skin of the neck low down, and we can make up our minds later
what we'll do with the skull."
It did not take very long to butcher and cut up the sheep, but several
trips had to be made before the meat and hide and head had been carried
to the camp.
"Now," said Hugh, "I want you to make the fire and cook breakfast, and
I'm going to dry some of this meat."
While Jack was at work getting breakfast, Hugh stretched two of the
sling ropes double, between a tree and some tall bushes that grew near
it, and then went to work at the carcass of the sheep, cutting the flesh
from it in wide flakes, of which before long he had a considerable pile.
These he hung over the sling ropes, much as a laundress would hang
handkerchiefs on a clothes line, and before Jack had announced that
breakfast was ready, one of the lines was covered with red meat, which
was already beginning to turn brown, in the rays of the hot sun.
"Whew!" said Hugh, as he came up to the fire to eat his breakfast, "this
is going to be a scorching hot day. I believe we'll stop here for a
while, and give that meat a chance to dry, and the horses a chance to
rest up, and feed good; they're beginning to get poor, and I don't
wonder, for they haven't had much chance to eat for the last six days.
Is that all the breakfast you've got?" he continued, looking at the
frying-pan full of meat which Jack had cooked; "why, that ain't a
marker; I could eat all that myself. You'll have to put on some more
before long, if you've got anything like the appetite I've got."
Breakfast was a deliberate meal, and greatly enjoyed. Jack thought that
the flesh of the mountain sheep was the best meat that he had ever
eaten, and said so.
"It's good," said Hugh. "It's sure good; but don't make up your mind
it's the best meat in the world till we get among the buffalo; then
you'll be eating what the Pawnees call, real meat, and if you don't say
that fat cow is the best meat in the world, I don't want a cent. Did you
notice anything when we came down into the valley last night?"
"Yes, I saw where some cattle had been."
"Ah, that's what I meant; but them cattle ain't the white-horned spotted
cattle that you're used to see; they're the cattle that belong here on
these prairies."
"What, are those buffalo tracks?"
"That's what. They're old, but there's been buffalo here this spring,
and I miss my guess if we don't see some of 'em before many days have
passed."
"Well," said Jack, "I'm going over to take a look those tracks, so I'll
know 'em again when I see 'em."
"Well," said Hugh, "you won't have to go across the creek, because
there's plenty of 'em right down below here. The first thing I want you
to do," and he put his hand in his pocket and drew out his pipe, "is to
help me to slice up the rest of this meat, and put it up where it'll
dry. With the sun as hot as it is to-day, it won't take long for it to
get hard, and maybe toward night we can pack up and travel a few miles
further on."
They now returned to the sheep's carcass, and before long almost the
whole of it was hanging in the sun to dry. One of the hams and a sirloin
were saved, to be eaten as fresh meat; the rest, when dry, would be
packed in a sack and carried with them.
By the time they had completed their task it was mid-day, and the sun
was blazing down with all its force into the little valley where the
camp was.
"Whew!" said Hugh, "it's hot here, ain't it? Now let's go down to the
creek and wash up, and then we'll fry some sheep meat, and set in the
shade for an hour or two; and then, if you like, we'll take this sheep's
head down below here, and maybe get it when we come back in the fall."
"All right," said Jack, "I'd like to put it up somewhere where it will
be safe, because I want to take it home with me and have it mounted, and
give it to mother. You see, I didn't take anything back with me last
year, except those hides, and I'd like real well to be able to point to
this head hanging in the house, and tell the fellows how I killed it."
"Well," said Hugh, "there's a safe place to put it, not more'n a mile
away, and the only thing is not to forget to come this way when we're
going south in the fall."
After a hearty meal, and an hour or two of rest in the shade, Hugh said,
"Now, son, round up your horses and we'll start. Suppose you ride the
black to-day, and leave Pawnee and the others here; I'll ride the
bucking dun."
Jack walked out toward where the horses were standing, and, drawing his
whistle from his pocket, blew a shrill blast. At once all the horses
raised their heads and looked toward him, and in a moment Pawnee
started, trotting across the flat, and all the other horses followed.
Pawnee trotted straight up to Jack and reached out his nose toward him,
and Jack, taking from his pocket a piece of bread, held it toward the
horse, which nosed it for a moment and then took it between his lips and
began to eat it. While he was doing this, Jack passed his right arm,
which held the rope, around the horse's neck, knotted it through in a
bowline, and then stepping quietly around among the other horses, passed
the other end of the rope over the neck of the black, and tied that.
Hugh, meanwhile, had walked around the horses and up to the bucking dun,
on the other side, and attached his rope to its neck. Pawnee was then
freed, and the two horses to be ridden were led over to where the
saddles were.
Hugh was soon saddled up, but before he finished he noticed that Jack
was having trouble. He had dropped the rope on the ground, and holding
the bridle open, tried to pass it over the head of the black horse, but
whenever he did this the horse threw his head up in the air so high that
Jack could not reach it. Hugh watched the performance for a little
while, and at last saw Jack throw his right arm around the horse's neck,
near the head, and again try to put the bridle on, but again the horse
raised its head. Jack held on, and was swung quite off his feet, and
when the horse lowered its head again and Jack's feet touched the ground
he seemed angry, and struck at the horse's nose with his right hand, but
did not hit it, and then, very angrily, tried to kick the horse in the
belly. The horse stepped a little to one side and Jack had kicked so
hard that he sat down very suddenly in a bunch of sage brush.
"Hold on, son," said Hugh, "that ain't no way to manage that horse;
you'll never do nothing with a horse by getting angry at him and
hammering him; keep cool, and you can conquer most any horse; get mad,
and swear and kick and throw clubs, and you will spoil the best horse
that ever lived."
"Well, confound it," said Jack, "I can't bridle him and it would make a
saint mad to have to do with such a fool of a horse."
"Well, I guess that's so, but even if the saint did get mad, he wouldn't
get his horse bridled. I want you to have sense, and not make a fool of
yourself, even if the horse is one. Throw the bridle down on the ground,
now, and put the saddle on him."
Jack felt a good deal ashamed of what he had done, and he knew that what
Hugh had said was true, that nothing could be gained by getting angry.
He got his saddle, folded the blanket, and saddled the horse. "Now,"
directed Hugh, "throw the end of your rope across the saddle, so that it
hangs down on the off side." Jack did so, and then Hugh called him
around to that side of the horse.
"Now," said he, "tie your rope around his fetlock," and when this had
been done, he added, "now, take up his foot and bend his knee, and take
a couple of turns of your rope around the saddle horn, so's to hold his
foot up; now, slip round on the other side and put the bridle on him,
quietly; don't be in a hurry."
Jack took up the bridle and opened it, and was about to try to pass it
over the horse's head, when Hugh said, "Push against his shoulder hard."
Jack did so, and the horse lost its balance a little and awkwardly
lifted his front foot and put it down again, so that it could stand
steadily.
"Now," said Hugh, "put your bridle on quietly." The horse paid no
attention to the bridle, opened his teeth when Jack pressed his jaw, and
in a moment the bridle was on and the throat-latch buckled.
"Now, turn his foot loose," said Hugh, "and we'll go on up to that
clump of trees." Hugh took the sheep's head in one hand, mounted and
started on, and Jack followed. As they rode up the valley, side by side,
Hugh said, "That horse you're riding isn't a bad horse, and he isn't
rightly a fool horse, either, but your uncle lent him last fall to a
cow-puncher that was working for the Bar X outfit, and had lost his
horse and stopped with us for a few days. That fellow didn't have the
sense that God gave him; he was always hammering his horse in some way
or other. If the horse didn't lead good, he'd take a club and pound it
over the head. He came pretty near spoiling two or three horses he rode
while he was here. Finally, one day Jo found him in the corral,
hammering one of them young horses that was rode last summer, with a
club, and he took the club away from the fellow and began to hammer him.
The fellow tried to draw his gun, but Jo was too quick for him, and
clinched him, and got the gun and threw it out of the corral. Then they
fought all over the place, until Rube and Mr. Sturgis heard 'em, and
came out and stopped it. When your uncle heard what had happened, he
told that cow-puncher to take his blankets and walk, and the last they
see of him he was walking.
"When you tied up this horse's foot, and gave him a shove, so that he
see he wasn't very steady on his legs, you gave him something to think
about, and he forgot all about that he didn't want to be bridled, and
was just thinking of keeping his right side up."
"Well, Hugh, it's a mighty good thing to know that about taking up a
horse's leg. I was awful mad when I couldn't bridle that horse, and
felt as if I'd like to kill him; then when I kicked at him and missed
him, and sat down, I felt what a fool I'd been, and I was madder than
ever."
"Well, it don't pay for a fellow to lose his head. A man wants to keep
his wits about him all the time, and when you get mad and try to fight a
horse, whether it's a bad horse or just a scared horse, you're kind o'
losing the advantage that a man has over an animal, and putting yourself
down on his level."
"That's so, isn't it?" said Jack, "I never thought of it just that way
before."
"Yes, that is so; the only thing that a man has got that's much use to
him is his sense; a buffalo is bigger and stronger; a deer is swifter; a
wolf can crawl around better out of sight, and all them animals are
better armed than a man is. It's his sense that gives a man the pull on
all of 'em, and makes him able to creep up on 'em and kill 'em, if he
wants to; makes him able to tame horses, and makes him smart enough to
get up guns and gunpowder, and railways and all them things. So,
whatever you do, son, you want to try to hang on to your sense, and
never lose it even for a minute. A man that's got a level head, that
isn't away up in the air one minute, and away down to the ground
another, is the man that's going to come out ahead."
As Hugh finished speaking, they rounded a point of the bluffs and saw
before them a group of half-a-dozen box-elder trees, with a few clumps
of willows growing beneath them. "There," said Hugh, "if we put that
skull up in that thickest box-elder tree it's pretty sure to stay there
until we come back. Nothing will bother it except the magpies, and all
they'll do will be to clean off the meat there is on it."
They stopped under the tree, and dismounted. Hugh pointed upward, and
Jack, obeying his gesture, quickly scrambled up to the lowest of the
branches. Hugh threw him the end of his rope, which Jack caught, and
carrying it, climbed up in the thick foliage.
"Now," said Hugh, "you haul up the skull, and hang it by the horns,
close to the trunk, across two branches. See that it is so firm that it
can't blow down; or, if you can't make it firm, tie it with these
buckskin strings that I'll put around the horn." Hugh took two long
thongs of buckskin from his pocket, wound them around the horns, and
then lifting the skull as high as he could, Jack slowly hauled it up to
where he was.
"Here's a bully place," he said, "a branch to hold each horn, and a
strong, dry stub coming out, that will support the chin."
"All right," said Hugh, "maybe you'd better tie it, anyhow, with them
strings; then we'll be doubly sure that it will stay there."
After a few moments' work, Jack threw down the end of the lariat, and
called to Hugh, "It's firm and steady as a rock, now, and I don't
believe anything can move it."
"All right," said Hugh; "come on, we'll go back to camp and maybe move
on a little further to-night."
A little later they were again in camp.
Two or three hours before sunset they packed up and set out again,
travelling until nearly dark, when they came to a water course which
was dry, except for an occasional hole where there was a little mud and
stagnant water. Hugh paused and looked about, saying, "We've struck this
creek a little too far down; there's a spring just a little above
here--right good water." Turning, he rode up the stream and before long
called back, "There's the place just ahead; we'll camp there to-night."
For the next two or three days they continued their journey. Jack now
had plenty of chance to see buffalo tracks, for it was evident that not
long before there had been plenty of buffalo on the prairie here.