Altsheler, Joseph - [Great West 01]

by The Great Sioux Trail (lit)

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  precipitous there and the forest heavier, giving better hiding for the great wild beasts, and hence making them much more dangerous. But with his magnifi- cent new bow on his shoulder and his stout comrades beside him Will was not afraid.

  The cold was less intense than it had been for some time and the exercise of walking with the snowshoes gave them plenty of warmth. The snow itself, which had now begun to soften at the surface, lay to a depth of about three feet, hiding the river save where the Indians had cut holes through ice and snow to capture fish.

  Pehansan, an inveterate hunter who would willingly have passed a thousand years of good life in such pursuits, had an idea that elk might be found in some of the secluded alcoves to the north. His mind was full of such thoughts, but Will, exhilarated by motion, was looking at the mountain tops which, like vast white pillars, were supporting a sky of glittering blue. He swept his hand in a wide gesture.

  "It's a fit place up there for Manitou to live/' he said.

  "Beyond the blue the hunting grounds go on for- ever," said Pehansan.

  "I can understand and appreciate your belief," said Will in his enthusiasm. "Think of it, Pehansan, to be strong and young forever and forever; never to know wounds or weariness; to hunt the game over thousands and tens of thousands of miles; to find buffaloes and bears and elk and moose twice, yes, three times as big as any here on earth; to discover and

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  cross rivers and lakes and seas and always to come back safe! To sleep well every night and to wake every morning as keen for the chase as ever! to have your friends with you always, and to strive with them in the hunt in generous emulation! Aye, Pehansan, that would be the life!"

  "Some day I shall find the life of which you speak so well, Waditaka! A happy death on the battlefield and lo ! I have it !"

  "Think you that the snow is now too soft to bear the weight of the wolves?" asked Roka, breaking into plain prose.

  "Not yet," replied Pehansan, the mighty hunter, "but it may be soon. Hark to their howling on the slopes among the dwarf trees !"

  Will heard a long, weird moaning sound, but he only laughed. It was the voice of the great wolves, but they and the bears had been defeated so often that he did not fear them. He swung the magnificent bow jauntily and was more than willing to put it to deadly use.

  As the bird flies, the valley might have had a length of twenty miles, but following its curves it was nearer forty, and as the three had no reason for haste they took their time, traveling over the river bed, because it was free from obstruction. At noon they ate pem- mican, and, after a rest of a half hour, pushed on again. The valley at this point was not more than two miles wide, and Pehansan had his eyes set on a deep gorge to the left, where the cedars and pines sheltered from the winds seemed to have grown to an uncommon size.

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  "May find elk in here, where snow is not deep. Best place to look. Don't you think?" he said.

  "I agree with you," replied Will.

  "Pehansan speaks well," said Roka.

  Then they left the river bed and, bearing away to- ward the west, approached the gorge which Will could now see was very deep, and with a comparatively easy slope. He had an idea that many of the great carnivora came into the valley by this road, but he did not speak of it to the other two.

  About an hour after noon they came to the edge of the forest and Pehansan, searching in the snow, found large tracks which were evidently those of hoofs.

  "Elk ?" said Will, "and a big one, too, I suppose.

  "No," replied Pehansan, "not elk. Something big- ger."

  "What can it be? Moose, then?"

  "No, not moose. Bigger still !"

  "I give it up. What is it?"

  "A mountain buffalo, a bigger beast than those we find in the great herds on the plains, which you know, Waditaka, are very big, too."

  "Then this giant is ours. He has come in here for food and shelter, and we ought not to have much trouble in finding him. Lead on, Pehansan, and Til get a chance to use this grand bow sooner than I had thought."

  The tracks were deep sunken in the snow, but he was not yet expert enough to tell their probable age.

  "How old would you say they are, Pehansan?" he asked.

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  "Made to-day," replied the Indian, bending his glow- ing eyes upon the trail. "Two, three hour ago. He not far away."

  "Then he's ours. A big mountain buffalo fresh on the hoof will be welcome in the village."

  "Be careful about the snowshoes," said Roka. "The buffalo will be among the trees and bushes and when we wound him he will charge. The snowshoes must not become entangled."

  Will knew that it was excellent advice and he re- solved to be exceedingly cautious. He could walk well on the snowshoes though he was not as expert as the Indians, but he held himself steady and made no noise among the bushes as they advanced, Pehansan leading, with Roka next.

  "Very near now," whispered Pehansan, looking at the deep tracks, his eyes still glowing. It was a great triumph to kill a mountain buffalo, above all at such a time, and it was he, Pehansan, who led the way. If the other two shared in the triumph so much the better. There was no jealous streak in the Crane.

  Pehansan knew also that the quest was not without danger. Wounded, the buffalo could become very dan- gerous and on snowshoes, among the thick bushes, it would be difficult for the hunters to evade the crashing charges of that mighty beast.

  He came to a wide and deep depression in the snow.

  "He lie down here and rest a while," he said. "Just beyond he dig in the snow for bunches of the sweet grass that grow here in summer and that keep alive under the snow."

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  "Then he is not a half hour away," said Roka.

  "Not more than that/ 1 said Pehansan. "We barely creep now."

  Will began to feel excitement. He had killed big buffaloes before, but then he had his repeating rifle, now he was to meet a monster of the mountains only with the bow and arrow. Even in that moment he remembered that man did not always have the bow and arrow. His primitive ancestors were compelled to face not only buffaloes but the fierce carnivora with the stone axe and nothing more.

  The great trail rapidly grew fresher. Among the pines and cedars, the snow was not more than a foot deep and the three hunters had much difficulty in mak- ing their way noiselessly where the brush was so dense. But the footprints were monstrous. The great hoofs had crushed down through the snow, and had even bit- ten into the earth. Will had a curious idea that it might not be a mountain buffalo, large as they grew, but some primordial beast, a survivor of a prehistoric time, a mammoth or mastodon, the pictures of which he recalled in his youthful geography. If America it- self had so long passed unknown to the white man, why could not these vast animals also be still living, hidden in the secluded valleys of the great Northwest?

  Pehansan paused and turned upon the other two eyes that glowed from internal fires. He, too, had been impressed by the enormous size of the hoof prints, the largest that he had ever seen, but there was no fear, nor even apprehension in his valiant soul.

  "It is the king of them all," he said. "Pteha (the 324

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  buffalo) in these mountains has grown to twice the usual size, and attacked by cold and hunger he has the temper of the grizzly bear. He is but a little distance away, and we need rifles to go against him, but we do not turn back! Do we, Roka? Do we, Waditaka?"

  "We do not," whispered Roka.

  "Not thinking of such a thing," whispered Will.

  They pushed their way farther, crossed a small ra- vine and, resting a moment or two on the other side, heard a puffing, a low sound but of great volume.

  "Pteha," whispered Pehansan.

  "Among the cedars, scarce fifty yards away," said Rok
a. "Now suppose we separate and approach from three points. It will give us a better chance to plant our arrows in him, and he cannot charge more than one at a time."

  "Good tactics, Roka," whispered Will.

  Roka, as the oldest, took the center, Pahansan turned to the right and Will to the left. The white youth held his great elkhorn bow ready and the quiver of arrows was over his shoulder, but, after the Sioux fashion, he carried five or six also in his left hand that he might fire them as quickly as one pulls the trigger of a re- peating rifle. The figures of Roka and Pehansan were hidden from him almost instantly by the bushes and he went forward slowly, picking his dangerous way on the snowshoes, his heart beating hard. He still had the feeling that he was creeping upon a mammoth or mastodon, and the low puffing and blowing increased in volume, indicating very clearly that it came from mighty lungs.

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  The feeling that he had been thrown back into a distant past grew upon Will. He was in the deep snow, armed only with bow and arrows, around him were the huge, frozen mountains, desolate and awful in their majesty, and before him, only a few yards away, was the great beast, the puffings and blowings of which filled his ears. He fingered the elkhorn bow and then recalled his steadiness and courage. A few steps farther and he caught a glimpse of a vast hairy back. Evidently the animal was lying down and it would give the hunters an advantage, as they could fire at least one arrow apiece before it rose to its feet.

  Another long, sliding step on the snowshoes and he saw more clearly the beast, on its side in a great hol- low it had made for itself in the snow. But as he looked the huge bull lurched upward and charged to- ward the right, from which point Pehansan was com- ing. Evidently a shift of the wind had brought it the odor of the Crane, and it attacked at once with all the ferocity of a mad elephant.

  Will had a clear view of a vast body, great humped shoulders, and sharp, crooked horns. But now that the danger had come his pulses ceased to leap and hand and heart were steady. The arrow sang from the bow and buried itself deep in the great bull's neck. Another and another followed until a full dozen were gone, every one sunk to the feather in the animal's body. Roka and Pehansan were firing at the same time, sending in arrows with powerful arms and at such close range that not one missed. They stood. out all over his body and he streamed with blood.

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  But the bull did not fall. No arrow had yet touched a vital spot. Bellowing with pain and rage, he whirled, and catching sight of Will, who was only a few yards away, charged. Pehansan and Roka uttered warn- ing shouts, and the youth, who in his enthusiasm had gone too near, made a convulsive leap to one side. Had he been on hard ground and in his moccasins he might easily have escaped that maddened rush, but the long and delicate snowshoes caught in a bush, and he fell at full length on his side. Then it was the very completeness of his fall that saved him. The in- furiated beast charged directly over him, trampling on the point of one snowshoe and breaking it, but miss- ing the foot. Will was conscious of a huge black shape passing above him and of blood dripping down on his body, but he was not hurt and he remembered to cling to his bow.

  The raging bull, feeling that he had missed his prey, turned and was about to charge again. Will would not have been missed by him a second time. The youth would have been cut to pieces as he struggled for his balance, but Pehansan did a deed worthy of the brav- est of the brave. Far more agile on the snowshoes than Will, he thrust himself in front of the animal, waved his bow and shouted to attract his attention. The bull, uttering a mighty bellow, charged, but the brave Crane half leaped, half glided aside, and his arrows thudded in the great rough neck as the beast rushed by.

  When the monster turned again, Will, although he was compelled to lean against a bush for support, had

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  drawn a fresh sheaf of arrows from the quiver, and he sent them home in a stream. Roka from another point was doing the same and Pehansan from a third place was discharging a volley. The great beast, en- circled by stinging death, threw up his head, uttered a tremendous bellow of agony and despair and crashed to the earth, where he breathed out his life.

  Will, trembling from his exertions and limping from the oroken snowshoe approached cautiously, still view- ing that huge, hairy form with wonder and some ap- prehension. Nor were Roka and Pehansan free from the same nervous strain and awe.

  "What is it?" asked Will, "a mammoth or a masto- don?"

  "Don't know mammoth and don't know mastodon," replied Pehansan, shaking his head, "but do know it is the biggest of all animals my eyes have ever seen."

  "It is a woods or mountain buffalo that has far out- grown its kind, just as there are giants among men," said Roka.

  "If this were a man and he bore the same relation to his species he would be thirteen or fourteen feet tall," said Will, his voice still shaking a little. "Why, he'd make most elephants ashamed to be so puny and small."

  "He, too, like the bears, came out of the far North," said Pehansan. "Maybe there is not another in the world like him."

  "That hide of his is thick with arrows," said Will, "but in so big a skin I don't think the arrow holes will amount to much. We ought to have it. We must

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  carry so grand a trophy back to the village to-night."

  Roka shook his head.

  "Not to-night," he said. "We three be strong, but we cannot move the body of this mighty beast, and so we cannot take off the skin."

  "I will go to the village and bring many people," said Pehansan.

  Again the wise Roka shook his head.

  "No," he said, "we three will stay by the bull. You are fast on your snowshoes, Pehansan, and you can shoot your arrows swift, hard and true, but you would never reach the village, which is many miles from here. The fierce wild animals would devour you. We must clear the snow away as fast as we can and build fires all about us. The beasts have already scented the dead bull, and will come to eat him and us."

  The shadows of the twilight were falling already, and they heard the faint howls of the meat-eaters on the slopes. Will and his comrades, taking off their snowshoes, worked with frantic energy, clearing away the snow with their mittened hands, bringing vast quantities of the dead wood, lighting several fires in a circle about the bull, and keeping themselves, with the surplus wood, inside the circle. Then, while Will fed the fires, Roka and Pehansan carefully cut the arrows out of the body.

  "We may need them all before morning," said Roka.

  "It is so, if the growling be a true sign," said Pe- hansan.

  The two warriors partly skinned the body and cut off great chunks of meat, which they broiled over the

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  fires, and all three ate. Meanwhile, Will, bow and ar- rows ready, watched the bushes beyond the circle of flame. If his situation had been nearly primitive in the day it was wholly primitive at night. The mighty bull buffalo was to him truly a mammoth, and beyond the circle of fire, which they dreaded most of all things, the fierce carnivora were waiting to devour the hunt- ers and their giant prize alike. When a pair of green eyes came unusually near Will fired an arrow at a point midway between them, and a terrific howling and shrieking followed.

  "It was one of the great wolves, I think," said Roka, "and your arrow sped true. The others are devouring him now. Listen, you can hear his big bones cracking !"

  Will shuddered and threw more wood on the fires. What a blessed thing fire was! It saved them from the freezing night and it saved them from the teeth of the wild beasts, which he knew were gathering in a great circle, mad with hunger. The flames leaped higher, and he caught glimpses of dusky figures hov- ering among the bushes, wolves, bears and he knew not what, because imagination was very lively within him then and he had traveled back to a primordial time.

  The night became very dark and the snow hardened ag
ain under the cold that came with it. Will, crouched by one of the fires with his bow and arrows ever ready in his hands, heard the sounds of heavy bodies, either sinking into the snow or crushing their way through it. The wind rose and cut like a knife. De- spite his heavy buffalo robe overcoat he moved a little

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  closer to the fire, and Pehansan and Roka almost un- consciously did the same. They were all sitting, and the great body of the slain bull towered above them. The sound of the wind, as it swept through the gorges, was ferocious like the growling of the beasts with which it mingled.

  "The spirits of evil are abroad to-night," said Roka. "The air is full of them and they rush to destroy us, but Manitou has given us the fire with which to defend

  us."

  A long yell like that of a cat, but many times louder, came from a point beyond and above them, where a tree of good size grew about fifty yards away. Roka seized a piece of burning wood and held it aloft.

  "It's a monstrous mountain lion stretched along a bough," he said. "Look closely, Waditaka, and you will see. At a long distance you are the best bowman of us all. Can you not reach him with an arrow from your great elkhorn bow ?"

  "I think so," replied Will, concentrating his gaze until he could make out clearly the outlines of the giant cat. "He's a monster of his kind. All the ani- mals in this region seem to be about twice the size of ordinary types."

  "But if the arrow touches the heart the big as well as the little will fall."

  "True, Roka, and while you hold that torch aloft I can mark the spot on his yellowish hide beneath which his heart lies. Steady, now, don't let the light waver and I think I can reach the place."