_MY FIRST BUFFALO._
THREE days after the little disciplining I had given Rattler, Mr. White,
the head engineer of the next section, rode over to us to report that
their work was finished, and to inquire what our prospects were for
making speedy connection. When he set out on his return he invited Sam
Hawkins and me to accompany him part of the way through the valley.
We found him a very agreeable companion; and when we came to the point
where we were to turn back we shook hands cordially, leaving him with
regret. “There’s one thing I want to warn you of,” Mr. White said in
parting. “Look out for redskins.”
“Have you seen them?” Sam asked.
“Not them, but their tracks. Now is the time when the wild mustangs and
the buffaloes go southward, and the Indians follow in the chase. The
Kiowas are all right, for we arranged with them for the road, but the
Apaches and Comanches know nothing of it, and we don’t dare let them see
us. We have finished our part, and are ready to leave this region; hurry
up with yours, and do likewise. Remember there’s danger, and good-by.”
Sam looked gravely after his retreating form, and pointed to a footprint
near the spring where we had paused for parting. “He’s quite right to
warn us of Indians,” he said.
“Do you mean this footprint was made by an Indian?”
“Yes, an Indian’s moccasin. How does that make you feel?”
“Not at all.”
“You must feel or think something.”
“What should I think except that an Indian has been here?”
“Not afraid?”
“Not a bit.”
“Oh,” cried Sam, “you’re living up to your name of Shatterhand; but I
tell you that Indians are not so easy to shatter; you don’t know them.”
“But I hope to understand them. They must be like other men, enemies to
their enemies, friends to their friends; and as I mean to treat them
well, I don’t see why I should fear them.”
“You’ll find out,” said Sam, “or you’ll be a greenhorn for eternity. You
may treat the Indians as you like, and it won’t turn out as you expect,
for the results don’t depend on your will. You’ll learn by experience,
and I only hope the experience won’t cost you your life.”
This was not cheering, and for some time we rode through the pleasant
autumn air in silence.
Suddenly Sam reined up his horse, and looked ahead earnestly through
half-closed lids. “By George,” he cried excitedly, “there they are!
Actually there they are, the very first ones.”
“What?” I asked. I saw at some distance ahead of us perhaps eighteen or
twenty dark forms moving slowly.
“What!” repeated Sam, bouncing up and down in his saddle. “I’d be
ashamed to ask such a question; you are indeed a precious greenhorn.
Can’t you guess, my learned sir, what those things are before your eyes
there?”
“I should take them for deer if I didn’t know there were none about
here; and though those animals look so small from here, I should say
they were larger than deer.”
“Deer in this locality! That’s a good one! But your other guess is not
so bad; they certainly are larger than deer.”
“O Sam, they surely can’t be buffaloes?”
“They surely can. Bisons they are, genuine bisons beginning their
travels, and the first I have seen. You see Mr. White was right:
buffaloes and Indians. We saw only a footprint of the red men, but the
buffaloes are there before our eyes in all their strength. What do you
say about it?”
“We must go up to them.”
“Sure.”
“And study them.”
“Study them? Really study them?” he asked, glancing at me sidewise in
surprise.
“Yes; I never saw a buffalo, and I’d like to watch them.”
I felt the interest of a naturalist, which was perfectly
incomprehensible to little Sam. He rubbed his hands together, saying:
“Watch them, only watch them! Like a child putting his eye to a rabbit’s
hole to see the little bunnies! O you young tenderfoot, what I must put
up with in you! I don’t want to watch them or study them, I tell you,
hut hunt them. They mean meat—meat, do you understand? and such meat! A
buffalo-steak is more glorious than ambrosia, or ambrosiana, or whatever
you call the stuff the old Greeks fed their gods with. I must have a
buffalo if it costs me my life. The wind is towards us; that’s good. The
sun’s on the left, towards the valley, but it’s shady on the right, and
if we keep in the shade the animals won’t see us. Come on.”
He looked to see if his gun, “Liddy,” as he called it, was all right,
and I hastily overhauled my own weapon. Seeing this, Sam held up his
horse and asked: “Do you want to take a hand in this?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you let that thing alone if you don’t want to be trampled to
jelly in the next ten minutes. A buffalo isn’t a canary bird for a man
to take on his finger and let it sing.”
“But I will—”
“Be silent, and obey me,” he interrupted in a tone he had never used
before. “I won’t have your life on my conscience, and you would ride
into the jaws of certain death. You can do what you please at other
times, but now I’ll stand no opposition.”
Had there not been such a good understanding between us I would have
given him a forcible answer; but as it was, I rode after him in the
shadow of the hills without speaking, and after a while Sam said in his
usual manner: “There are twenty head, as I reckon. Once a thousand or
more browsed over the plains. I have seen early herds numbering a
thousand and upward. They were the Indians’ food, but the white men have
taken it from them. The redskin hunted to live, and only killed what he
needed. But the white man has ravaged countless herds, like a robber who
for very lust of blood keeps on slaying when he is well supplied. It
won’t be long before there are no buffaloes, and a little longer and
there’ll be no Indians, God help them! And it’s just the same with the
herds of horses. There used to be herds of a thousand mustangs, and even
more. Now a man is lucky if he sees two together.”
We had come within four hundred feet of the buffaloes unobserved, and
Hawkins reined in his horse. In the van of the herd was an old bull
whose enormous bulk I studied with wonder. He was certainly six feet
high and ten long; I did not then know how to estimate the weight of a
buffalo, but I should now say that he must have weighed sixteen hundred
pounds—an astounding mass of flesh and bone.
“That’s the leader,” whispered Sam, “the most experienced of the whole
crowd. Whoever tackles him had better make his will first. I will take
the young cow right back of him. The best place to shoot is behind the
shoulder-blade into the heart; indeed it’s the only sure place except
the eyes, and none but a madman would go up to a buffalo and shoot into
his eyes. You stay here, and hide yourself and your horse in the
thicket. When they see me they’ll run past here; but don’t you quit your
place unless I come back or call you.”
He waited until I had hidden between two bushes, and then rode slowly
forward. It seemed to me this took great courage. I had often read how
buffaloes were hunted, and knew all about it; but there is a great
difference between a printed page and the real thing. To-day I had seen
buffaloes for the first time in my life; and though at first I only
wished to study them, as I watched Sam I felt an irresistible longing to
join in the sport. He was going to shoot a young cow. Pshaw! that, I
thought, required no courage; a true man would choose the strongest
bull.
My horse was very restless; he, too, had never seen buffaloes before,
and he pawed the ground, frightened and so anxious to run that I could
scarcely hold him. Would it not be better to let him go, and attack the
old bull myself? I debated this question inwardly, divided between
desire to go and regard for Sam’s command, meantime watching his every
movement.
He had approached within a hundred feet of the buffaloes, when he
spurred his horse and galloped into the herd, past the mighty bull, up
to the cow which he had selected. She pricked up her ears, and started
to run. I saw Sam shoot. She staggered, and her head dropped, but I did
not know whether or not she fell, for my eyes were chained to another
spot.
The great bull, which had been lying down, was getting up, and turned
toward Sam Hawkins. What a mighty beast! The thick head with the
enormous skull, the broad forehead with its short, strong horns, the
neck and breast covered with the coarse mane, made a picture of the
greatest possible strength. Yes, it was a marvellous creature, but the
sight of him aroused a longing to measure human strength with this power
of the plains. Should I or should I not? I could not decide, nor was I
sure that my roan would take me towards him; but just then my frightened
horse sprang forth from our cover, and I resolved to try, and spurred
him towards the bull. He heard me coming, and turned to meet me,
lowering his head to receive horse and rider on his horns. I heard Sam
cry out something with all his might, but had no time even to glance at
him. It was impossible to shoot the buffalo, for in the first place he
was not in the right position, and in the second place my horse would
not obey me, but for very fear ran straight towards the threatening
horns. The buffalo braced his hind legs to toss us, and raised his head
with a mighty bellow. Exerting all my strength, I turned my horse a
little, and he leaped over the bull, while the horns grazed my leg.
My course lay directly towards a mire in which the buffalo had been
sleeping. I saw this, and fortunately drew my feet from the stirrups; my
horse slipped and we both fell.
How it all happened so quickly is incomprehensible to me now, but the
next moment I stood upright beside the morass, my gun still in my hand.
The buffalo turned on the horse, which had also risen quickly, and came
on him in ungainly leaps, and this brought his flank under my fire. I
took aim. One more bound and the buffalo would reach my horse. I pulled
the trigger; he stopped, whether from fear or because he was hit I did
not know, but I fired again, two shots in rapid succession. He slowly
raised his head, froze my blood with a last awful roar, swayed from side
to side, and fell where he stood.
I might have rejoiced over this narrow escape, but I had something else
to attend to. I saw Sam Hawkins galloping for dear life across the
valley, followed by a steer not much smaller than my bull had been.
When the bison is aroused his speed is as great as that of a horse; he
never gives up his object, and shows a courage and perseverance one
would not have expected of him. So this steer was pressing the rider
hard, and in order to escape him Sam had to make many turns, which so
wearied his horse that he could not hold out as long as the buffalo, and
it was quite time that help arrived.
I did not stop to see whether or not my bull was dead. I quickly
reloaded both chambers of my gun, and ran across the grass towards Sam.
He saw me, and turned his horse in my direction. This was a great
mistake, for it brought the horse’s side towards the steer behind him. I
saw him lower his horns, and in an instant horse and rider were tossed
in the air, and fell to the ground with a dreadful thud. Sam cried for
help as well as he could. I was a good hundred and fifty feet away, but
I dared not delay, though the shot would have been surer at shorter
range. I aimed at the steer’s left shoulder-blade and fired. The buffalo
raised his head as if listening, turned slowly, then ran at me with all
his might. Luckily for me, his moment of hesitation had given me time to
reload, and therefore I was ready for him by the time the beast had made
thirty paces towards me. He could no longer run; his steps became slow,
but with deep-hanging head and protruding, bloodshot eyes he came nearer
and nearer to me, like some awful, unavoidable fate. I knelt down and
brought my gun into position. This movement made the buffalo halt and
raise his head a little to see me better, thus bringing his eyes just in
range of both barrels. I sent one shot into the right, another into the
left eye; a quick shudder went through his body, and the beast fell
dead.
Springing to my feet, I rushed toward Sam; but it was not necessary, for
I saw him approaching.
“Hallo!” I cried, “are you alive?”
“Very much so, only my left hip pains me, or the right; I’m sure I can’t
tell which.”
“And your horse?”
“Done for; he’s still alive, but he’s torn past help. We’ll have to
shoot him to put him out of his misery, poor fellow. Is the buffalo
dead?”
I was not able to answer this question positively, so we made sure that
there was no life in my former foe, and Hawkins said: “He treated me
pretty badly, this old brute; a cow would have been gentler, but I
suppose you can’t expect such an old soldier to be lady-like. Let us go
to my poor horse.”
We found him in a pitiable condition, torn so that his entrails
protruded, and groaning with agony. Sam loaded, and gave the poor
creature the shot that ended his suffering, and then he removed the
saddle and bridle, saying: “I’ll be my own horse, and put these on my
back.”
“Where will you get another horse?” I asked.
“That’s the least of my troubles; I’ll find one unless I’m mistaken.”
“A mustang?”
“Yes. The buffaloes are here; they’ve begun travelling southward, and
soon we’ll see the mustangs, I’m sure of that.”
“May I go with you when you catch one?”
“Sure; you’ll have to learn to do it. I wonder if that old bull is dead;
such Methuselahs are wonderfully tough.”
But the beast was dead, as we found on investigation; and as he lay
there I realized more fully what a monster he was. Sam looked him over,
shook his head, and said: “It is perfectly incredible. Do you know what
you are?”
“What?”
“The most reckless man on earth.”
“I’ve never been accused of recklessness before.”
“Well, now you know that ‘reckless’ is the word for you. I forbade you
meddling with a buffalo or leaving your hiding-place; but if you were
going to disobey me, why didn’t you shoot a cow?”
“Because this was more knightly.”
“Knightly! Great Scott! This tenderfoot wants to play knight!” He
laughed till he had to take hold of the bushes for support, and when he
got his breath he cried: “The true frontiersman does what is most
expedient, not what’s most knightly.”
“And I did that, too.”
“How do you make that out?”
“That big bull has much more flesh on him than a cow.”
Sam looked at me mockingly. “Much more flesh!” he cried. “And this
youngster shot a bull for his flesh! Why, boy, this old stager had
surely eighteen or twenty years on his head, and his flesh is as hard as
leather, while the cow’s flesh is fine and tender. All this shows again
what a greenhorn you are. Now go get your horse, and we’ll load him with
all the meat he can carry.”
In spite of Sam’s mocking me, that night as I stood unobserved in the
door of the tent where he and Stone and Parker sat by their fire I heard
Sam say: “Yes, sir, he’s going to be a genuine Westerner; he’s born one.
And how strong he is! Yesterday he drew our great ox-cart alone and
single-handed. Now to-day I owe him my life. But we won’t let him know
what we think of him.”
“Why not?” asked Parker.
“It might swell his head,” replied Sam. “Many a good fellow has been
spoiled by praise. I suppose he’ll think I’m an ungrateful old
curmudgeon, for I never even thanked him for saving my life. But
to-morrow I’ll give him a treat; I’ll take him to catch a mustang, and,
no matter what he thinks, I know how to value him.”
I crept away, pleased with what I had heard, and touched by the loving
tone of my queer friend’s voice as he spoke of me.
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