The Covered Wagon - Emerson Hough (ebook voice reader txt) 📗

when his arrows were out, and grumbled to himself that he had no more, so could count only a dozen fallen buffalo for his product. That others, wounded, carried off arrows, he called bad luck and bad shooting. When he trotted back on his reeking horse, his quiver dancing empty, he saw other black spots than his own on the short grass. His followers had picked up the art not so ill. There was meat in sight now, certainly--as well as a half dozen unhorsed riders and three or four wounded buffalo disposed to fight.

The old hunter showed his men how to butcher the buffalo, pulling them on their bellies, if they had not died thus, and splitting the hide down the back, to make a receptacle for the meat as it was dissected; showed them how to take out the tongue beneath the jaw, after slitting open the lower jaw. He besought them not to throw away the back fat, the hump, the boss ribs or the intestinal boudins; in short, gave them their essential buffalo-hunting lessons. Then he turned for camp, he himself having no relish for squaw's work, as he called it, and well assured the wagons would now have abundance.

Banion and Jackson, with their followers, held their hunt some miles below the scene of Bridger's chase, and had no greater difficulty in getting among the herds.

[pg 161]

"How're ye ridin', Will?" asked Jackson before they mounted for the start from camp.

Banion slapped the black stallion on the neck.

"Not his first hunt!" said he.

"I don't mean yore hoss, but yore shootin' irons. Whar's yore guns?"

"I'll risk it with the dragoon revolvers," replied Banion, indicating his holsters. "Not the first time for them, either."

"No? Well, maybe-so they'll do; but fer me, I want a hunk o' lead. Fer approachin' a buffler, still-huntin', the rifle's good, fer ye got time an' kin hold close. Plenty o' our men'll hunt thataway to-day, an' git meat; but fer me, give me a hunk o' lead. See here now, I got only a shotgun, cap an' ball, fourteen gauge, she is, an' many a hide she's stretched. I kerry my bullets in my mouth an' don't use no patchin'--ye hain't got time, when ye're runnin' in the herd. I let go a charge o' powder out'n my horn, clos't as I kin guess hit, spit in a bullet, and roll her home on top the powder with a jar o' the butt on top my saddle horn. That sots her down, an' she holds good enough to stay in till I ram the muzzle inter ha'r an' let go. She's the same as meat on the fire."

"Well," laughed Banion, "you've another case of de gustibus, I suppose."

"You're another, an' I call it back!" exclaimed the old man so truculently that his friend hastened to explain.

[pg 162]

"Well, I speak Blackfoot, Crow, Bannack, Grow Vaw, Snake an' Ute," grumbled the scout, "but I never run acrost no Latins out here. I allowed maybe-so ye was allowin' I couldn't kill buffler with Ole Sal. That's what I keep her fer--just buffler. I'll show ye afore long."

And even as Bridger had promised for his favorite weapon, he did prove beyond cavil the efficiency of Old Sal. Time after time the roar or the double roar of his fusee was heard, audible even over the thunder of the hoofs; and quite usually the hunk of lead, driven into heart or lights, low down, soon brought down the game, stumbling in its stride. The old halfbreed style of loading, too, was rapid enough to give Jackson as many buffalo as Bridger's bow had claimed before his horse fell back and the dust cloud lessened in the distance.

The great speed and bottom of Banion's horse, as well as the beast's savage courage and hunting instinct, kept him in longer touch with the running game. Banion was in no haste. From the sound of firing he knew his men would have meat. Once in the surge of the running herd, the rolling backs, low heads and lolling tongues, shaggy frontlets and gleaming eyes all about him, he dropped the reins on Pronto's neck and began his own work carefully, riding close and holding low, always ready for the sudden swerve of the horse away from the shot to avoid the usual rush of the buffalo when struck. Since he took few chances, his shot rarely failed. In a mile or so, using pains, he had exhausted all but two shots, one in each weapon, and of course no man could load the old cap-and-ball revolver while in the middle of a buffalo run. Now, out of sheer pride in his own skill with small arms, he resolved upon attempting a feat of which he once had heard but never had seen.

[pg 163]

Jackson, at a considerable distance to the rear, saw his leader riding back of two bulls which he had cut off and which were making frantic efforts to overtake the herd. After a time they drew close together, running parallel and at top speed. At the distance, what Jackson saw was a swift rush of the black horse between the two bulls. For an instant the three seemed to run neck and neck. Then the rider's arms seemed extended, each on its side. Two puffs of blue smoke stained the gray dust. The black horse sprang straight ahead, not swerving to either side. Two stumbling forms slowed, staggered and presently fell. Then the dust passed, and he saw the rider trot back, glancing here and there over the broad rolling plain at the work of himself and his men.

"I seed ye do hit, boy!" exclaimed the grizzled old hunter when they met. "I seed ye plain, an' ef I hadn't, an' ye'd said ye'd did hit, I'd of said ye was a liar."

"Oh, the double?" Banion colored, not ill pleased at praise from Sir Hubert, praise indeed. "Well, I'd heard it could be done."

"Once is enough. Let 'em call ye a liar atter this! Ef ary one o' them bulls had hit ye ye'd have had no hoss; an' ary one was due to hit ye, or drive ye against the other, an' then he would. That's a trap I hain't ridin' inter noways, not me!"

[pg 164]

He looked at his own battered piece a trifle ruefully.

"Well, Ole Sal," said he, "'pears like you an' me ain't newfangled enough for these times, not none! When I git to Oregon, ef I ever do, I'm a goin' to stay thar. Times back, five year ago, no one dreamed o' wagons, let alone plows. Fust thing, they'll be makin' plows with wheels, an' rifles that's six-shooters too!"

He laughed loud and long at his own conceit.

"Well, anyways," said he, "we got meat. We've licked one red nation an' got enough meat to feed the white nation, all in a couple o' days. Not so bad--not so bad."

And that night, in the two separate encampments, the white nation, in bivouac, on its battle ground, sat around the fires of bois des vaches till near morning, roasting boss ribs, breaking marrowbones, laughing, singing, boasting, shaking high their weapons of war, men making love to their women--the Americans, most terrible and most successful of all savages in history.

But from one encampment two faces were missing until late--Banion and Jackson of the Missourians. Sam Woodhull, erstwhile column captain of the great train, of late more properly to be called unattached, also was absent. It was supposed by their friends that these men might be out late, superintending the butchering, or that at worst they were benighted far out and would find their way to camp the next morning.

[pg 165]

Neither of these guesses was correct. Any guess, to be correct, must have included in one solution the missing men of both encampments, who had hunted miles apart.

[pg 166]

CHAPTER XXI -THE QUICKSANDS

As Banion and Jackson ended their part in the buffalo running and gave instructions to the wagon men who followed to care for the meat, they found themselves at a distance of several miles from their starting point. They were deep into a high rolling plateau where the going was more difficult than in the level sunken valley of the Platte. Concluding that it would be easier to ride the two sides of the triangle than the one over which they had come out, they headed for the valley at a sharp angle. As they rode, the keen eye of Jackson caught sight of a black object apparently struggling on the ground at the bottom of a little swale which made down in a long ribbon of green.

"Look-ee yan!" he exclaimed. "Some feller's lost his buffler, I expect. Let's ride down an' put him out'n his misery afore the wolves does."

They swung off and rode for a time toward the strange object. Banion pulled up.

"That's no buffalo! That's a man and his horse! He's bogged down!"

"You're right, Will, an' bogged bad! I've knew that light-green slough grass to cover the wurst sort o' quicksand. She runs black sand under the mud, God knows how deep. Ye kain't run a buffler inter hit--he knows. Come on!"

[pg 167]

They spurred down a half mile of gentle slope, hard and firm under foot, and halted at the edge of one of the strange man-traps which sometimes were found in the undrained Plains--a slough of tall, coarse, waving grass which undoubtedly got its moisture from some lower stratum.

In places a small expanse of glistening black mud appeared, although for the most part the mask of innocent-looking grass covered all signs of danger. It was, in effect, the dreaded quicksand, the octopus of the Plains, which covered from view more than one victim and left no discoverable trace.

The rider had attempted to cross a narrow neck of the slough. His mount had begun to sink and flounder, had been urged forward until the danger was obvious. Then, too late, the rider had flung off and turned back, sinking until his feet and legs were gripped by the layer of deep soft sand below. It was one of the rarest but most terrible accidents of the savage wilderness.

Blackened by the mud which lay on the surface, his hat half buried, his arms beating convulsively as he threw himself forward again and again, the victim must in all likelihood soon have exhausted himself. The chill of night on the high Plains soon would have done the rest, and by good fortune he might have died before meeting his entombment. His horse ere this had accepted fate, and ceasing to struggle lay almost buried, his head and neck supported by a trembling bit of floating grass roots.

[pg 168]

"Steady, friend!" called out Banion as he ran to the edge. "Don't fight it! Spread out your arms and lie still! We'll get you out!"

"Quick! My lariat, Jackson, and yours!" he added.

The scout was already freeing the saddle ropes. The two horses stood, reins down, snorting at the terror before them, whose menace they now could sense.

"Take the horse!" called Banion. "I'll get the man!"

He was coiling the thin, braided hide reata, soft as a glove and strong as steel, which always hung at the Spanish saddle.

He cast, and cast again--yet again, the loop at forty feet gone to nothing. The very silence of the victim nerved him to haste, and he stepped in knee deep, finding only mud, the trickle of black sands being farther out. The rope sped once more, and fell within reach--was caught. A sob or groan came, the first sound. Even then from the imprisoned animal beyond him came that terrifying sound, the scream of a horse in mortal terror. Jackson's rope fell short.

"Get the rope under your arms!" called Banion to the blackened, sodden figure before him. Slowly, feebly, his order was obeyed. With much effort the victim got the loop below one arm, across a shoulder,