Part 20 (1/2)
The Wingate train leaders therefore looked to Bridger as their safest counsel in the matter of getting meat. That worthy headed a band of the best equipped men and played his own part in full character. A wild figure he made as he rode, hatless, naked to the waist, his legs in Indian leggings and his feet in moccasins. His mount, a compact cayuse from west of the Rockies, bore no saddle beyond a folded blanket cinched on with a rawhide band.
For weapons Bridger carried no firearms at all, but bore a short buffalo bow of the p.a.w.nees--double-curved, sinew-backed, made of the resilient _bois d'arc_, beloved bow wood of all the Plains tribes. A thick sheaf of arrows, newly sharpened, swung in the beaver quiver at his back.
Lean, swart, lank of hair, he had small look of the white man left about him as he rode now, guiding his horse with a jaw rope of twisted hair and playing his bow with a half dozen arrows held along it with the fingers of his left hand.
”For buffler the bow's the best,” said he. ”I'll show ye before long.”
They had not too far to go. At that time the short-gra.s.s country of the Platte Valley was the great center of the bison herds. The wallows lay in thousands, the white alkali showing in circles which almost touched edge to edge. The influx of emigrants had for the time driven the herds back from their ancient fords and watering places, to which their deep-cut trails led down, worn ineradicably into the soil. It was along one of the great buffalo trails that they now rode, breasting the line of hills that edged the Platte to the south.
When they topped the flanking ridge a marvelous example of wild abundance greeted them. Bands of elk, yet more numerous bands of antelope, countless curious gray wolves, more than one grizzly bear made away before them, although by orders left unpursued. Of the feathered game they had now forgot all thought. The buffalo alone was of interest.
The wild guide rode silent, save for a low Indian chant he hummed, his voice at times rising high, as though importunate.
”Ye got to pray to the Great Speret when-all ye hunt, men,” he explained. ”An' ye got to have someone that can call the buffler, as the Injuns calls that when they hunt on foot. I kin call 'em, too, good as ary Injun. Why shouldn't I?
”Thar now!” he exclaimed within the next quarter of an hour. ”What did Jim Bridger tell ye? Lookee yonder! Do-ee say Jim Bridger can't make buffler medicine? Do-ee see 'em over yan ridge--thousands?”
The others felt their nerves jump as they topped the ridge and saw fully the vast concourse of giant black-topped, beard-fronted creatures which covered the plateau in a body a mile and more across--a sight which never failed to thrill any who saw it.
It was a rolling carpet of brown, like the prairie's endless wave of green. Dust clouds of combat rose here and there. A low muttering rumble of hoa.r.s.e dull bellowing came audible even at that distance. The spectacle was to the novice not only thrilling--it was terrifying.
The general movement of the great pack was toward the valley; closest to them a smaller body of some hundreds that stood, stupidly staring, not yet getting the wind of their a.s.sailants.
Suddenly rose the high-pitched yell of the scout, sounding the charge.
Snorting, swerving, the horses of the others followed his, terror smitten but driven in by men most of whom at least knew how to ride.
Smoothly as a bird in flight, Bridger's trained buffalo horse closed the gap between him and a plunging bunch of the buffalo. The white savage proved himself peer of any savage of the world. His teeth bared as he threw his body into the bow with a short, savage jab of the left arm as he loosed the sinew cord. One after another feather showed, clinging to a heaving flank; one after another muzzle dripped red with the white foam of running; then one after another great animal began to slow; to stand braced, legs apart; soon to begin slowly kneeling down. The living swept ahead, the dying lay in the wake.
The insatiate killer clung on, riding deep into the surging sea of rolling humps. At times, in savage sureness and cruelty, he did not ride abreast and drive the arrow into the lungs, but shot from the rear, quartering, into the thin hide back of the ribs, so that the shaft ranged forward into the intestines of the victim. If it did not bury, but hung free as the animal kicked at it convulsively, he rode up, and with his hand pushed the shaft deeper, feeling for the life, as the Indians called it, with short jabs of the imbedded missile. Master of an old trade he was, and stimulated by the proofs of his skill, his followers emulated him with their own weapons. The report of firearms, m.u.f.fled by the rolling thunder of hoofs, was almost continuous so long as the horses could keep touch with the herd.
Bridger paused only 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 gra.s.s.
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 a.s.sured 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.
”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. .h.i.t, spit in a bullet, and roll her home on top the powder with a jar o' the b.u.t.t 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.”