A SPORTING TRIP ACROSS THE PRAIRIES
There is nothing extraordinary to the English reader in a man's making
a sixteen-hundred-mile journey across lonesome prairies and
mountain-ranges, where railways are almost unknown and fierce tribes
of savages abound, merely for the sake of shooting big game; for if we
do not take our pleasures sadly, we at least are proud to devote to
our sports as much energy and self-discipline as another nation would
bestow on its politics or monetary interests.
After a good deal of rambling through the eastern States, Mr. Henry
Coke, brother of the second Earl of Leicester, found himself wandering
one morning, in the year 1850, about the streets of St. Louis, already
sickened of town life and eager for something more wholesome and
natural. Generally it is only in story-books that a happy coincidence
suddenly arises to help a man out of a difficulty; but real life also
has its chance meetings and its odd bits of luck, and so Mr. Coke
thought when, on turning a corner, he found his arm seized by an old
Cambridge chum of whom he had heard nothing for three years.
"Why, man, what are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Packing up. I'm off for the Columbia River to-morrow, salmon-fishing.
You'd better come and make a sixth; I'm travelling with four Canadian
chaps; everything's arranged: horses, waggons, mules, stores, and even
a redskin guide."
There was no resisting such a temptation, especially as Coke had never
been farther west than Kansas City, had only caught salmon in Norway
and Scotland, had never seen a bison or a grisly except in a show, and
had never met with any Indians who were not perfectly respectable and
law-abiding. Therefore he never dreamt of hesitating, but hastened
away to make a few necessary purchases, and, the next morning,
presented himself at his friends' inn, where he found nine mules,
eight riding-horses, and two waggons drawn up, and his friend's valet
vainly endeavouring to get into conversation with a particularly
morose-looking Indian who sat on the front-board of one of the
waggons.
The early days of the journey were occupied by the sportsmen, as such
days generally are, in getting to know one another and in settling
down to a novel mode of life. The young Canadians were the sons of a
wealthy stock-breeder and were taking a year's furlough in order to
see the States; and no more valuable companions could have been found;
for, if they were ignorant of the route, there was not much left for
them to learn where prairie and forest life and the ways of Indians
and wild beasts were concerned. For the first week or so the party
managed each night to put up at some wayside inn or farm; but they no
sooner came on to the wilds of Kansas than the mere aspect of the
country was sufficient to tell them that they had probably bidden
good-bye to eastern civilisation. The way that now lay before them, if
seen from a balloon, would have looked like a gigantic staircase whose
treads sloped slightly upwards and whose uprights were low,
ragged-faced bluffs that seemed to hint at the advisability of
abandoning the waggons as henceforth useless, and teaching the horses
and mules to take flying ten-foot jumps. The guide, however, seemed
fairly confident in his ability to find suitable inclines, and at
least for some fifty miles they were able to follow a very rough track
that was a guide in itself.
But the Indian--one of the Crow tribe--grew more sullen and silent and
discontented as each new platform of ground was reached; so much so,
that George Dumont, the eldest of the Canadians, who was perfectly
familiar with the Siouan tongue, began to question him closely as to
the cause of his grumbling demeanour.
"It is no use trying to go any farther," said the Crow moodily. "The
next bluff is quite impassable."
"Then why didn't you say so before we left St. Louis?"
The Indian shelved the question. "And even if it were not, the country
here is full of Comanches and Pawnees and Shoshonees. Did I not warn
you of _that_?"
"Oh, if that's all," said the Canadian, laughing, "don't frighten
yourself. They won't hurt us."
The Indian shrugged his shoulders and said no more; but presently he
stood up on the footboard and, attracting Dumont's attention, pointed
triumphantly to a bluff about a furlong ahead, which had been hitherto
concealed by a ridge of rising ground dotted with pine-trees. Coke,
who had been riding some way in advance with his friend, now hurried
back to Dumont's side.
"What do you make of this?" he said, pointing to the bluff. "Fred's
ridden off to the right to try and find a slope, and I'm just off the
opposite way."
Dumont rode with him as far as the obstruction and examined it more
carefully; it was a sheer precipice, twelve feet high.
"Right you are," he said. "Try and find a slope, and I'll wait here
for the other fellows."
Two hours later the men met again; the two scouts had ridden ten miles
along the cliff-foot either way, only to find that there was no spot
where the waggons could possibly be raised. Meanwhile, two of the
Dumonts had scooped footholds for themselves and climbed to the higher
level, which they pronounced to be a beautiful grass plain, studded
with little conical hills; and by the aid of a telescope they had seen
large herds of bison going on ahead towards the Platte River.
"Then we must go on," said Coke, "even if we have to haul the waggons
after us, or cut a roadway."
The others were of the same mind, but the sun had just set, and
whatever their plans might be, they would have to stand over till
to-morrow. The fire was lit and all were sitting down to supper when
someone asked:
"Where's the redskin?"
The redskin had gone, bag and baggage (someone else's baggage).
"Why, he's collared your new gun, Coke," shouted Fred, who had jumped
up into the waggon in which the Indian had ridden and was making a
hurried search, "And--whew! my little valise as well."
The gun was a large-bore rifle of a new pattern, which Coke had only
obtained with difficulty at the last moment; but even this theft,
annoying as it was, was of minor importance compared with the
disappearance of the valise, which contained all such maps and charts
as its owner had been able to procure, some money, and his letters of
introduction to people in Washington and across the boundary.
"Mounted or on foot?" asked Paul Dumont, the youngest of the
brothers.
"Horses and mules all here, sir," reported the manservant after a
brisk look round.
"Then come on, Coke; up with you," said young Paul. "We'll have him,"
and taking the two best of the horses, they were soon galloping along
the path by which they had come. In a few minutes they were past the
ridge with its little belt of trees, beyond which all was plain
sailing--or would have been if only the light could have lasted a
little longer; for here was only a treeless, imperceptibly sloping
plain where even an Indian could scarcely hope to conceal himself.
"Fellow must be a perfect ass to think he could get away from us
here," said Coke. "There you are; there goes the gentleman."
A couple of miles ahead was a dark, moving dot, evidently the Indian
trotting along at a good round pace.
"Ass enough to know that there's precious little twilight now, at any
rate," said Paul ruefully, as he urged on his horse. "And there's no
moon till after midnight."
They rode the next mile in silence, and, at the end of it, were no
longer able to distinguish the fleeing figure with any degree of
certainty. In another few minutes they were at the spot where they had
first seen the Indian, but there was hardly enough light for even the
keen-sighted Canadian to detect any trail.
"It's no use thinking of giving up," he said. "We must have the bag if
we ride all night for it."
Again they spurred the horses to a gallop, peering all the while on
either side of them; and in this manner they covered another few
miles. Farther than this the Indian could not possibly have gone in
the time.
"Better divide, and prowl round," said Coke. "Fire a pistol if you see
anything, and I'll do the same."
He rode away at a gentle trot, pausing now and then to listen. After
half an hour of this he heard the pop of a pistol a good way behind
him, yet distinct enough in the silent night air. Wheeling round, he
looked steadily before him in the hope of seeing the flash of a second
report. This came after a few seconds, and he at once responded to
it.
But even before he saw the flash he had noticed something else of far
more importance: a little glow of flame on the ground a few miles
away, somewhere about in the direction which Dumont had started to
follow. And now, coming towards him, was the steady thud of a horse's
hoofs.
"That you, Paul?"
"Ay; come on," sounded from a mounted figure that was beginning to
stand out indistinctly against the blue-black of the sky. The two
young men were soon together again, and Dumont pointed towards the
flame.
"Redskins. Thought I'd better come back and meet you first."
"How many?"
"I could make out three. They couldn't hear my shots with the wind
this way; I didn't hear yours; only saw the flash. Now for a little
bit of spying. Are you well loaded up?"
They were soon within a pistol-shot of the fire, in the light of which
shone the bodies of three Indians, naked as far as the waist. The
Englishman's heart beat with excitement, for as yet he had never been
so close to Indians who were real savages. A few more steps and then
the Indians, not to be taken altogether by surprise, sprang erect and
stood with bowstrings stretched.
"Pawnees, I think," said Dumont, reining up. He shouted some words in
the Siouan dialect, and was answered by what seemed to Coke merely a
series of grunts.
Again the Canadian spoke, and on receiving a brief reply moved on
again.
"Come on," he said triumphantly. "They've got him; they've got our
man."
As the two white men, stiff and hungry, got down from their saddles,
the Pawnees advanced cautiously to meet them, their bows still bent.
Paul, however, made some masonic motions with his hands which were
understood as meaning peace, and each returned his arrow to his
quiver.
A conversation began which, to the Englishman, was very much worse
than any Greek, and so gave him leisure to look about him. Now that
his eyes had become accustomed to the glare of the fire, the first
thing he saw clearly was the runaway guide, bound so tightly with
thongs that the poor creature could not move an inch. Near him lay the
stolen rifle and his friend's valise, the latter disgorging papers
through an opening which had been slashed along one side of it.
Regardless of a murmur of protest from the savages, young Dumont
picked up the gun and handed it to its owner, and having satisfied
himself that none of the papers were missing, strapped the bag across
his own shoulder.
"You must pay us for them," said the Pawnees discontentedly.
"Yes, yes; all right. Come to our camp in the morning, and we'll give
you what is reasonable. What do you propose doing with this man?"
"We shall take him to our camp."
"I'll swear you shan't," said Dumont in English; for he knew what sort
of mercy a trespassing Crow might expect from the Pawnees.
"Tell them we'll fight them or we'll buy the chap of them, which they
like," said Coke, when the position was explained to him.
A debate followed in which Paul showed himself a shrewd bargainer. He
and Coke totted up their available assets, and eventually about a
quarter of a pint of whisky, a penknife, a steel watch-chain, and
four or five shillings' worth of small silver were offered as the
Crow's ransom, and accepted, much to the astonishment of Coke, who, in
his innocence, had been about to add a valuable ring and a pair of
pocket-pistols to the purchase-money. He stooped and cut the
prisoner's bonds, and that worthy, in obedience to a threatening hint
from Dumont, fled into the darkness.
The Indians were amicably inclined, and not only shared their supper
of broiled deer's meat with the travellers, but agreed to call for
them at the camp in the morning and lead them to a point where the
waggons could easily be drawn up to the higher platform; and on this
good understanding the young men rode away. The new guides were as
good as their word, and appeared on their little mustangs before
Coke's party had finished breakfast. They appeared to be one of
several small scouting parties sent out from a main camp farther on to
gather intelligence as to a reported advance of the Crow Indians
against them; and were now returning to their head-quarters beyond the
Platte River. Instructed by them, the sportsmen moved along the bluff
to a place about three miles farther than Coke had ridden on the
previous afternoon; and there found a tolerably easy incline, up which
the waggons were soon dragged.
By the side of the first of the hills seen the day before, the noonday
halt was made. The Pawnees still continued very friendly, the more so
on discovering that nothing but the desire to do battle with bisons
and grisly bears had brought the pale-faces so far.
"To-morrow we will show you many bisons," they said; and they
certainly kept their promise.
All that afternoon the sportsmen could trace the steady passage
north-westwards of herd after herd of the animals; at that distance
merely a brown, moving blur; and Coke wondered how the Indians ever
proposed to come up with them.
"They will go no farther than the river," said the Pawnees, when
questioned.
On the afternoon of the next day, as the little procession came near
to another of the mound-like hills, the guides called a halt.
"We are too few to attack a herd," they said. "We must watch for the
stragglers which may be grazing on the slopes. Go very quietly and do
not raise your voices. Follow us and leave the waggons here." They
moved on their horses again at a quick walk, and the white men did the
same, till they had gone nearly half round the base of the hill, when
the Pawnees pulled up with a jerk, and one of them spoke hurriedly to
George Dumont, who rode immediately behind the guides.
On the hillside about twenty bisons were grazing; and it seemed the
easiest thing in the world to cut them off from the rest of the herd,
which, to the number of three or four hundred, were moving slowly
towards the river, now plainly to be seen flashing in the far
distance.
"Look here," said George, turning to the Englishmen, and speaking with
evident embarrassment. "They mean to make us prove our pretensions to
being mighty hunters. Two of them are going round the farther side to
keep the bulls from wandering, and this chap is going to captain us.
We've got to guard the valley and this side of the hill; but as you
fellows are new to it--if you'd rather not be in it----"
"Oh, bosh!" said Coke; "we're going to stand by you and get our share
of the fun."
"Oh--of course; if you feel sure of yourselves. Well; keep an eye open
for the game beyond. They have a nasty trick of coming to each other's
assistance." He made a sign to the two foremost Indians, who galloped
away without a word, and were soon invisible behind the loitering
bisons. Then the Englishmen saw what sort of sport they were letting
themselves in for. They were to stop the probable downward and
sideward rush of twenty bulls, killing as many of them as they could,
and be prepared at the same time for an attack by the remaining
hundreds that, at the first gunshot, might turn on them in a body.
Daily, for the past fortnight, both of them had zealously practised
shooting with a rifle while at the gallop; but what sort of experience
was that to bring to a task which the Canadians, used from boyhood to
bison-hunting, admitted was a dangerous one?
Low as the voices had been, the stragglers had heard them and were
beginning to look nervously from side to side. Suddenly a white streak
darted through the air, and with an awful bellow one of the bisons
fell, pierced through the eye by an arrow, and began to roll
helplessly down the grassy slope. The remaining Pawnee had drawn first
blood. But a second after, the four Canadians brought their guns to
the shoulder and fired one after the other; two beasts fell dead and
two more showed by their groaning that they were badly wounded.
"Here goes," said Fred; and in another moment he had shot his first
bison.
"Get more to your left, or they'll bolt yet," shouted Dominique
Dumont; and Coke, with an uncomfortable impression that the whole herd
was charging upon him from the rear, nevertheless spurred his horse
sidewards for several yards; then fired at a bull which was
endeavouring to flee down the near side of the hill; and with a thrill
of pride saw him fall on his knees and then roll over.
The excitement of the hunt was on him now and he thought no more of
the herd behind him. Had he looked back he might have seen that alarms
on that score were groundless; for, contrary to their usual custom, at
the first shot they had fled in a body. But it was their desertion
that made the loiterers so determined to escape and rejoin them. Three
more of their number had fallen dead or disabled before the arrows of
the Pawnees on the farther side, who could now be seen pressing the
game more closely; and, at a sign from the other Indian, the party in
the valley now spurred up the hill, the six guns all crashing out
together.
In despair the remaining bulls sought the only sure escape open to
them, and charged up the hill. Fred, the best mounted of the white
men, was soon ahead of the rest, and, deaf to a laughing shout of
"Whoa! Don't be in a hurry," from Paul Dumont, was soon on the heels
of the biggest of the bisons. He had but one barrel loaded; the bullet
took the animal in the hindquarters, making him stop and turn. The
next thing Fred knew was that he was lying bruised and giddy, on his
back, within a very few yards of the maddened brute; for his horse,
young and easily confused, had suddenly reared at sight of the
monster's motion towards him and had thrown his rider.
[Illustration: ALMOST A TRAGEDY
Fred had fired at the bison, but only hit it in the hind-quarters. It
stopped and turned, frightening the horse, which threw its rider within a
few yards of the maddened brute. His friends were powerless to help him,
but a Pawnee on his wiry little mustang galloped up between them and with
a couple of arrows brought the monster down.]
Coke had reloaded by this time, but at first his aim was baulked by
the prancing horse.
"Shoot the confounded horse; he'll kick him to death," yelled George
Dumont in his ear, at the same time frantically pushing a cartridge
into the empty breech of his own gun; but just then the horse swerved
and fled down the hill towards the waggons. The bull, meanwhile,
seeing his enemy at his mercy, had paused just for a moment as though
to take breath; and now, with his nose to the ground, was making a
wild dash towards him.
Coke pulled up, took good aim, and fired; but unluckily, the bullet
which was meant for the bison's shoulder caught him on the frontlet,
his most hopelessly invulnerable part. The three younger Dumonts,
unaware of the accident, were now over the brow and out of sight.
George had almost pulled his trigger, when the Pawnee who had been
riding near him galloped between him and the bull. The little Indian
horse, more used to climbing than the heavily-built hacks of the white
men, shot up the slope like a chamois, and, joining his whinny to the
rider's howl, flew between the prostrate man and the bull.
Fred, who had been too unnerved for the moment to do anything but try
feebly to roll away out of danger, was conscious suddenly of a good
deal of clattering close to him; then, looking up, he saw that the
bull had turned to flee and that the shaft of an arrow was protruding
from his ribs. The bull was struggling up the hill, too startled and
confused to attempt to battle with his new assailant, who, in hot
pursuit, was sending a second arrow after the first.
"No, no; hang it; let the redskin finish him," said Dumont as Coke
made ready to fire again.
The bull did not require much more "finishing." Already the Indian had
wounded him in two places and was getting a third arrow ready for him;
and the final rush up-hill, together with loss of blood, was weakening
him at every step. The mustang, not to be outraced, was soon abreast
of him; and one more arrow from the persevering Indian brought the
luckless beast on to his knees.
Mr. Coke and his friend saw and shot a good many bisons after that,
but never again one that so nearly turned their trip into a tragedy.