Wild Beasts and Their Ways - Sir Samuel White Baker (best romantic novels in english txt) 📗

consisting of two partners, Big Bill and Bob Stewart. The latter went by the name of Little Bob, in contrast to his enormous companion. Bob was of Scotch extraction; he was about 5 feet 5 inches in height, very slight, and as active as a cat. In his knowledge of every living creature upon the mountains he was perfect; from the smallest insect to the largest beast he was an infallible authority. Bob was a trapper and hunter; he followed the different branches of these pursuits according to the seasons; at one time he would be trapping beavers and red foxes, at another he would be shooting deer for the value of their hides. This cruel and wasteful practice I shall speak of in another portion of this work.

His only weapon was a single-barrelled Sharp's .450 rifle, and he possessed the most lovely mare, beautifully trained for shooting, and not exceeding 14 1/2 hands in height. Little Bob, on his little mare, would have formed a picture. On one occasion I had returned to camp a little after 5.30 P.M., and as the sun sank low, the deep shadows of the hills darkened our side of the narrow glen, and by 6 o'clock we were reduced to a dim twilight. Presently, in this uninhabited region, a figure halted within 15 paces of our tent, which was evidently Bob Stewart, mounted upon some peculiar animal of enormous bulk, but with a very lovely high-bred-looking head. This was Bob's pretty mare, loaded, and most carefully packed with the trophies of his day's sport, as a solitary hunter, quite alone and unaided since 8 A.M. His pony carried the skins of three bears and four black-tail deer, which he had shot, skinned, and packed upon his sturdy little companion.

The bears consisted of a mother and two half-grown young ones of the choice variety known as "silver-tipped." He had come across the family by chance while riding through the forest, and having shot the mother through the shoulder, she fell struggling between her cubs; these pugnacious brutes immediately commenced fighting, and a couple of shots from the rapid breechloading Sharp rifle settled their ill-timed quarrel.

Bob was the most dexterous skinner I ever saw; he would take off a skin from a deer or bear as naturally as most persons would take off their clothes; and the fact of a man, unassisted, flaying seven animals, and arranging them neatly upon the Mexican saddle, would have been a tolerable amount of labour without the difficulty of first finding and then successfully shooting them.

The hide of the largest bear would weigh fully 50 lbs., those of the smaller 25 lbs. each = 100 lbs. The four black-tail deer would weigh fully 50 lbs. Therefore the mare was carrying 150 lbs. of hides, in addition to Bob Stewart, who weighed about 9 stone, making a total of about 276 lbs., irrespective of his rifle and ammunition.

It was a strange country; the elevation of our camp was about 10,000 feet above the sea-level, although we were in a deep and narrow glen, close to a very small stream of beautifully clear water. Upon either side the valley, the hills rose about 1400 feet; at that season (September) the summits were in some places capped with snow. The sides of the hills, sloping towards the glen, were either covered with forests of spruce firs, or broken into patches of prairie grass and sage bush, the latter about as high as the strongest heather, and equally tough and tiresome.

The so-called camp was upon an extremely limited scale; a little sleeping tent only 7 feet by 7, and 5 feet 8 inches in the highest portion; this had no walls, but was simply an incline from the ridge-pole to the ground; it was a single cloth, without lining of any kind, and bitterly cold at night. This was rough work for a lady, especially as our people had no idea of making things comfortable, or of volunteering any service. If ordered to come, they came; to go, they went; to do this or that, they did it; but there was no attempt upon their part to do more than was absolutely required of them. Shooting in the Big Horn range is generally conducted upon this uncomfortable plan. It is most difficult to obtain either men or animals; but, although useless fellows for any assistance in camp, they were excellent for looking after the horses and mules, all of which require strict attention.

We had only four men, all told--my hunter Jem Bourne, the cook Henry (a German), Texas Bill, who was a splendid young fellow, and Gaylord.

Although I have travelled for very many years through some of the roughest portions of the world, I have always had a considerable following, and I confess to disliking so small a party. Including my wife, we were only six persons, and it was impossible to consume the flesh of the animals killed. I cannot shoot to waste; therefore upon many occasions I declined to take the shots, and thus lost numerous opportunities of collecting splendid heads; this destroyed much of the pleasure which I had anticipated. There were no Indians, as they are confined to their reservations; therefore it was almost criminal to destroy wantonly a number of splendid beasts, which would rot upon the ground and be absolutely wasted. Several parties of Englishmen had not been so merciful; therefore the Americans had no scruples, and commenced an onslaught, general and indiscriminate, shooting all animals, without distinction of age or sex, merely for the value of the skins; the carcases of magnificent fat deer were left to putrefy, or to become the food of the over-satiated bears, which themselves fell victims in their turn.

This was the slaughter in which Bob Stewart and Big Bill were engaged in partnership. They never shot in company, but each started upon his independent course at 8 or 9 o'clock A.M., after having employed themselves since daylight in pegging out the skins to dry, that had been shot on the previous day. The most valuable of the deer-skins was the black-tail, which realised, at a price per lb., 11s. This hide is used for making a very superior quality of glove, much prized in California.

I strolled over to the camp of the two partners one morning, as I was on the way to shoot, and I found them engaged in arranging their vast masses of skins, all of which were neatly folded up, perfectly dry, without any other preparation than exposure to the keen dry air of this high altitude.

Upon my inquiry of Big Bill respecting his operations on the previous day, he replied that he "guessed he had been occupied in running away from the biggest grizzly bear that ever was cubbed."

Big Bill was a Swede by parentage, born in the States. By trade he was a carpenter, but he had of late years taken to skin-hunting. He was an enormous fellow, about 6 feet 3 or 4, with huge shoulders and long muscular arms and hands. There was no harm in Bill; he was a first-rate shot with his .450 Sharp rifle, which appeared to be the weapon in general favour; but he had met with an adventure during the previous year which made him rather suspicious of strangers.

Somewhere, not far from his present camp, a mounted stranger dropped in late one evening. The man was riding a good horse, but was quite alone; so also was Big Bill. The camp of the skin-hunter was then the same in appearance as when I saw him and his partner Bob Stewart--simplicity itself; a long spruce pole was lashed at either end to two spruce firs; against this, leaning at an angle of about 45 degrees, were sixty or seventy straight poles laid close together, and upon these were arranged spruce boughs to form a thatch. This lean-to provided a tolerable shelter within the forest, when the wind was sufficiently considerate to blow at the back against the thatch, instead of direct towards the open face. The ground in the acute angle was strewed with branches of spruce, and a large fire was kept burning during night, exactly in front, the whole arrangement exhibiting the principle of a Dutch oven.

In such a camp, Big Bill received the stranger with the hospitality of the wilderness, and they laid themselves down to rest in the close companionship of newly-made friends.

The morning broke, and as Big Bill rubbed his eyes with mute astonishment, he could not see his friend. He rose from his sleeping-place, and went outside in the cold morning air; he could not see his horses. A horrible suspicion seized upon him; he searched the immediate neighbourhood; the animals had vanished, both horses and mules were gone, together with the unknown stranger, to whom he had given food and shelter for the night.

Fortunately there was a particular horse which Big Bill for special reasons kept separate from the rest; this animal was picqueted by itself among the spruce firs at some little distance, and had been unobserved by the departed stranger. To saddle the horse, and to follow in pursuit at the highest speed upon the trail of the horse-stealer, was the work of only a few minutes. The track was plain enough in the morning dew, where ten or a dozen mules and horses had brushed through the low prairie grass. Big Bill went at a gallop, and he knew that he must quickly overtake them; his only doubt lay in the suspicion that there might be confederates, and that a strong party might have joined together to secure the prize, instead of the solitary stranger being in charge. However, at all hazards he pushed on at best speed in chase; at the same time, the horse-stealer, thoroughly experienced in his profession, was driving his ill-gotten herd before him at a gentle trot, thoroughly convinced that it would be impossible to be overtaken, as the owner had been left (as he supposed) without a horse.

At length, after a pursuit of some hours, upon attaining the summit of a broad eminence, Big Bill's eyes were gladdened by the sight of some distant objects moving upon the horizon, and he at once redoubled his speed.

The stranger, innocent of suspicion, trotted leisurely forward, whistling, and driving his newly acquired animals with professional composure, without condescending to look back, as he felt certain of security, having left his hospitable friend of the preceding night with nothing better than his own legs for locomotion.

In the meantime, Big Bill was coming up at a gallop; he was boiling with indignation at the treacherous conduct of his uninvited guest; and being fully alive to the manners and customs of the West, he placed his Sharp rifle upon full-cock to be in readiness for an explanation.

A few minutes sufficed to shorten the distance to 100 yards, when the astonished horse-stealer was surprised by the sound of hoofs upon the stony soil, and, turning round, he was almost immediately confronted with the threatening figure of Big Bill. The dialogue which ensued has not been historically described; there was none of the bombast that generally preceded the combats of Grecian heroes; but it appears that the horse-stealer's right hand instinctively grasped the handle of his revolver, not unseen by the vigilant eyes of Big Bill, who with praiseworthy decision sent a bullet through his adversary's chest from the already prepared Sharp .450; leaving the lifeless body where it fell, he not only recovered all his stolen animals, but also possessed himself of the horse and saddle which only recently belonged to the prairie horse-stealer without a name.

The gigantic Swede returned to his solitary camp, well satisfied with his morning's