by Zane Grey
“Pilchuck said this was only a little bunch,” soliloquized Tom as he scanned the plain-wide band of beasts.
Dismounting, he held his horse and stood at the edge of the timber, watching and listening. It was a wonderfully satisfying moment. He tried to be calm, but that was impossible. He recognized what had always been deep in him—the love of adventure and freedom—the passion to seek these in unknown places. Here, then, he stood at his post above the bank of a timber-bordered river in the Panhandle of Texas with a herd of buffalo in sight. He saw coyotes, too, and a larger beast, gray in color, that he was sure was a wolf. Hawks and buzzards sailed against the blue sky. Down through the trees, near the river, he espied a flock of wild turkeys. Then, in connection with all he saw, and the keenness of the morning which he felt, he remembered the scout’s caution about Indians. Tom thought that he ought to be worried, even frightened, but he was neither. This moment was the most mysteriously full and satisfying of his life.
Opposite his point the buffalo did not approach more closely; he observed, however, that to the eastward they appeared to be encroaching upon the river breaks.
Suddenly then he was thrilled by gunshots! Boom! Boom! Boom-boom! His comrades had opened the hunt.
What’ll I do now? he mused, gazing down the river, then out toward the herd. It presented no change that he could distinguish. I was told to stay here. But with shooting begun, I don’t think any buffalo will come now. Soon after that a gun roared out much closer, indeed just over the rise of plain below Tom.
“That’s a Big Fifty!” he ejaculated.
Far beyond, perhaps two miles distant, sounded a report of a Sharps, low but clear on the still morning air. Another and another! Tom began to tingle with anticipation. Most likely his comrades would chase buffalo his way. Next he heard a shot apparently between the one that had sounded close and the one far away. So all three of his comrades had gotten into action. Tom grew restive. Peering out at the herd, he discovered it was moving. A low trample of many hoofs assailed his ears. Dust partially obscured the buffalo. They appeared to be running back into the gray expanse. Suddenly Tom became aware of heavy and continuous booming of guns—close, medium, and far-away reports mingling. As he listened, it dawned upon him that all the reports were diminishing in sound. His comrades were chasing the buffalo and getting farther away. After a while he heard no more. Also the dust-shrouded buffalo opposite his position had disappeared. His disappointment was keen.
Presently he saw a horseman appear on the crest of the ridge that had hidden the chase from him. The white horse was Pilchuck’s. Tom saw the rider wave his hat, and, taking the action as a signal, he mounted and rode at a gallop to the ridge, striking its summit some few hundred yards to the right. Here he had unobstructed view. Wide gray-green barren rolling plain, hazy with dust! The herd of buffalo was not in sight. Tom rode in to meet Pilchuck.
“Tough luck for you,” said the scout. “They were workin’ in to the river below here.”
“Did you kill any?” queried Tom eagerly.
“I downed twenty-one,” replied Pilchuck. “An’ as I was ridin’ back, I met Stronghurl. He was cussin’ because he’d only got five. An’ Burn burned a lot of powder. But so far as I could see he got only one.”
“No,” Tom said. “Why, he was sure of dozens.”
“Reckon he knows more now,” returned Pilchuck. “You ride down there an’ see how many you can skin. I’ll go back to camp, hitch up a wagon, an’ try to come back across the river.”
The scout rode away, and Tom, turning his horse eastward, took to a trot down the immense gradual slope. After searching the plain, he espied a horse grazing, and then a dark shaggy mound that manifestly was a slain buffalo. Tom spurred his horse, rapidly covering the distance between. Soon he saw Burn at work skinning the buffalo.
“Good for you!” shouted Tom as he galloped up.
“Helluva job, this skinnin’!” yelled Burn, flashing a red and sweaty face toward Tom. “Hey . . . look out!”
But his warning came too late. Tom’s horse snorted furiously, as if expelling a new and hateful scent, and, rearing high, he came down and plunged so violently that Tom flew one way and his gun another.
Tom landed hard and rooted his face in the grass. The shock stunned him for a second. Then he sat up and found himself unhurt. The surprise, the complete victory of the horse, and the humiliation of being made to root the ground like a pig stirred Tom to some heat.
“Hope you ain’t hurt?” called Burn anxiously, rising from his work.
“No, but I’m mad,” replied Tom.
Whereupon Burn fell back and rolled over in the grass, roaring with mirth. Tom paid no attention to his comrade. Dusty had run off a hundred or more paces, and was now walking, head to one side, dragging his bridle. Tom yelled to stop him. Dusty kept on. Thereupon Tom broke into a run and caught him.
“You’re a fine horse,” panted Tom as he mounted. “Now you’ll . . . go back . . . and rub your nose . . . on that buffalo.”
Dusty appeared placable enough, and trotted back readily until once again close to the buffalo. Tom spurred him on and called forcibly to him. Dusty grew excited as he came nearer. Still he did not show any ugliness.
“Don’t hurry him,” remonstrated Burn. “He’s just scared.”
But Tom, not yet cooled in temper, meant that Dusty should go right up to the buffalo. This he forced the horse to do. Then suddenly Dusty flashed down his head, and seemed to propel himself with incredible violence high into the air. He came down on stiff legs. The shock was so severe that Tom shot out of the saddle. He came down back of the cantle. Desperately he clung to the pommel, and, as Dusty pitched high again, his hold broke and he spun around like a top on the rump of the horse, and slid off. Dusty ceased his pitching and backed away from the dead buffalo.
Only Tom’s feelings were hurt. Burn Hudnall’s—Haw! Haw! Haw!—rolled out in great volume. Tom sat where he had been dumped, and, gazing at the horse, he gradually induced a state of mind bordering upon appreciation of how Dusty must have felt. Presently Burn got up and, catching Dusty, led him slowly and gently, talking soothingly the while, nearer to the buffalo, and held him there.
“He’s all right now,” said Burn.
Tom rose and went back to the horse, and patted him. “You bucked me off, didn’t you?”
“Tom, if I were you, I’d get off an’ lead him up to the dead buffalo till he gets over his scare,” suggested Burn.
“I will,” replied Tom, and then he gazed down at the shaggy carcass on the ground. “Whew . . . the size of him!”
“Looks big as a woolly elephant, doesn’t he? Big bull, Pilchuck said. He’s the only one I got, an’ sure he took a lot of shootin’. You see the buffalo were runnin’ an’ I couldn’t seem to hit one of them. Finally I plunked this bull. An’ he kept on runnin’ till I filled him full of lead.”
“Where are those Pilchuck got?” queried Tom, anxious to go to work.
“First one’s lyin’ about a quarter . . . there, to the left a little. You go tackle skinnin’ him. It’s an old bull like this. An’ if you get his skin off today, I’ll eat it.”
“I’ve skinned lots of cattle . . . steers an’ bulls,” replied Tom. “It wasn’t hard work. Why should this be?”
“Man, they’re buffalo, an’ their skin’s an inch thick, tougher than sole leather . . . an’ stick! Why, it’s riveted on an’ clinched.”
“Must be some knack about the job, then,” rejoined Tom, mounting Dusty. “Say, I nearly forgot my gun. Hand it up, will you? Burn, I’ll bet you I skin ten buffalo before dark, and peg them out, as Pilchuck called it, before I go to bed.”
“I’ll take you up,” said Burn with a grim laugh. “I just wish I had time to watch you. It’d be a circus. But I’ll be ridin’ by you presently.”
“All right. I’m off to win that bet,” replied Tom in cheery determination, and, touching Dusty with the spurs, he rode rapidly toward the next fallen buffalo.
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Chapter Four
Dusty evinced less fear of the second prostrate buffalo, which was even a larger bull than the huge tough old animal Burn was engaged in skinning.
This time Tom did not take any needless risks with Dusty. Riding to within fifty feet of the dead beast, he dismounted, led the nervous horse closer, and around and around, and finally up to it. Dusty behaved very well, considering his first performance; left to himself, however, he edged away to a considerable distance, and began to graze.
Tom lost no time in getting to work. He laid his gun near at hand, and, divesting himself of his coat, he took ripping and skinning knives from his belt. Determination was strong in him. He anticipated an arduous and perplexing job, yet felt fully capable of accomplishing it and winning his bet with Burn. This buffalo was a monster; he was old, and the burrs and matted hair appeared a foot deep at his forequarters; he was almost black.
First Tom attempted to turn the beast over into a more favorable position for skinning. He found, however, that he could scarcely bridge the enormous bulk. That was a surprise. There appeared nothing to do but go to work as best he could, and wait for help to move the animal. Forthwith he grasped his ripping knife and proceeded to try following the instructions given him. It took three attempts to get the knife under the skin, and, when he essayed to rip, he found that a good deal of strength was required. He had calculated that he must expend considerable energy to make any speed, until practice had rendered him proficient. The considerable energy grew into the utmost he could put forth. After the ripping came the skinning, and in very short time he appreciated all Burn had said. “Helluva job is right,” Tom commented, remembering his comrade’s words. But he did not spare himself, and by tremendous exertions he had the buffalo skinned before Burn finished his. Tom could not vouch for the merit of the job, but the skin was off. He could vouch, however, for his breathlessness and the hot sweat that bathed his body. Plowing corn or pitching wheat, jobs he had imagined were hard work, paled into insignificance.
“Say . . . wonder what pegging out the hide . . . will be like,” he panted as he sheathed his knives and picked up his gun. Mounting Dusty, he rode eastward, scanning the plain for the next dead buffalo.
Presently he spied it, and, galloping thither, he found it to be another bull, smaller and younger than the others, and he set to work with renewed zeal. He would have to work like a beaver to win that bet. It took violence to make a quick job of this one. That done, Tom rode on to the third.
While he was laboring here, Burn rode by and paid him a hearty compliment, which acted upon Tom like a spur. He could not put forth any great zeal: indeed he would do wonders if he kept to the pace he had set himself. But as he progressed, he learned. This advantage, however, was offset by the gradual dulling of his knives. He had forgotten to bring his steel.
He toiled from one dead buffalo to another. The breeze died away, the sun climbed high and blazed down upon the plain. His greatest need was water to drink. Hour by hour his thirst augmented. His shirt was so wet with perspiration that he could have wrung it out. The heat did not bother him so much. Gradually his clothes became covered with a lather of sweat, blood, grease, and dust. This, and the growing pangs in his body, especially hands and forearms, occasioned him extreme annoyance. He did not note the passing of time. Only now and then did he scan the plain for sign of his comrades. Indians he had completely forgotten. Burn and Stronghurl were to be seen at intervals, and Pilchuck, driving the wagon, was with them. Once from a high knoll Tom thought he espied another wagon miles down the river, but he could not be sure. He did, however, make out a dim black blur to the southward, and this he decided was the buffalo herd, ranging back toward the river.
During this strenuous time there were incidents of much interest, if he could only have given them due attention. Buzzards swooped down over him, closer and closer, till he felt the wind of their wings. A lean gray wolf came within range of his gun, but Tom had no time for shooting. He toiled on and the hours flew.
When, late in the afternoon, he tore off the hide that assured him of winning the wager, he was exultant. He was now two miles from the wagon, which he made out was approaching. Only one more buffalo did he find and this he skinned by the time Pilchuck drove up.
“Wal, if you ain’t a Kansas cyclone!” ejaculated the scout, with undisguised admiration. “Seventeen skinned your first day! Doan, I never seen the beat of it.”
“I had a bet with Burn,” replied Tom, wiping his hot face.
“If you can keep that lick up, young man, you’ll make a stake out of this hide huntin’,” returned Pilchuck seriously.
“Wait till I learn how!” exclaimed Tom, fired by the praise, and the hopes thus engendered.
“Reckon I’ll cut the hump off this young bull,” remarked the scout as he climbed out of the seat. “Buffalo steak for supper, hey!”
“I could eat hoofs. And I’m spitting cotton,” said Tom.
“You forgot a canteen. Son, you mustn’t forget anythin’ in this game,” admonished Pilchuck. “Rustle back to camp.”
Tom was interested, however, to learn how Pilchuck would cut the desirable hump from the carcass. Long had Tom heard of the savory steaks from the buffalo. The scout thrust his big knife in near the joining of the loin, ripped forward along the lower side as far as the ribs ran, then performed a like operation on the upper side. That done he cut the ends loose and carved out a strip over three feet long and so thick that it was heavy.
“Reckon we can rustle back to camp now,” he said, throwing the meat on the pile of hides in the wagon.
“Is that the herd coming back?” queried Tom, pointing from his horse.
“Yes. They’ll be in tonight yet to drink. We’ll find them here tomorrow mornin’. Did you hear the Big Fifties of the other hunters?”
“You mean others besides our outfit? No, I didn’t.”
“There’s a couple of outfits down the river. But that’s lucky for us. Probably will be hunters all along here soon. Reckon there’s safety in numbers an’ sure the buffalo are plenty enough.”
Tom rode back to camp facing a sunset that emblazoned the western ramparts in gold and purple. The horizon line was far distant and lifted high, a long level upland at that moment singularly wild and beautiful. Tom wondered if it could be the eastern extension of the great Staked Plains he had heard mentioned so often. Weary as he was from his extraordinary exertions, he yet had spirit left to look and feel and think. The future seemed like that gold-rimmed horizon line.
He reached camp before dusk, there to receive the plaudits of his comrades and also the womenfolk. Burn was generous in his eulogy, but he created consternation in Tom’s breast by concluding: “Wait till you try peggin’ out a hide!”
“Aw, I forgot there was more. I’ve not won that bet yet,” he rejoined dejectedly.
After attending to his horse Tom had just about enough energy left to drink copiously and stretch out with a groan under a tree. Never before in his life had he throbbed and ached and burned so exceedingly. An hour’s rest considerably relieved him. Then supper, which he attacked somewhat as if he were a hungry wolf, was an event to be remembered. If all his comrades had not been equally as ravenous, he would have been ashamed. Pilchuck got much satisfaction out of the rapid disappearance of many buffalo steaks.
“Meat’s no good when so fresh,” he averred. “After bein’ hung up a few days an’ set, we call it, an’ fried in tallow, it beats beef all hollow.”
Before darkness set in, Tom saw Pilchuck peg out a hide. First the scout laid the hide flat and proceeded to cut little holes in it all around the edge. Next with axe and knife he sharpened sticks nearly a foot long. Three of these he drove through the neck of the hide and deep enough into the ground to hold well. Then he proceeded to the tail end and stretched the skin. Tom could well see that skill was required here. Pilchuck held the skin stretched and, at the same time, drove one peg, then another, at this end. Following that he began to
stretch and peg the side, eventually going all around. The whole operation did not take long and did not appear difficult.
Tom essayed it with a vim that made up for misgivings. Like the skinning it was vastly more difficult than it looked. Cutting the holes and making the pegs was easy; however, when it came to stretching the hide and holding it and pegging it all by himself, he found it a most deceiving and irksome task.
Sally Hudnall offered to help Tom, but he declined with thanks, explaining that he had a wager to win. The girl hovered around Tom and curiously watched him, much to his annoyance. He saw that she was laughing at him.
“What’s so funny?” he queried, nettled.
“You look like a boy tryin’ to play mumblety-peg an’ leap-frog at once,” she replied with a giggle.
Tom had to laugh, in good-natured acknowledgment to that, and then he deftly turned the tables on her by making a dry casual remark about Stronghurl. The girl blushed and let him alone to ponder over the intricacies of this hide pegging. No contortionist ever performed more marvels of stretching his body than Tom achieved. Likewise no man ever so valiantly stifled back speech that would have been unseemly, to say the least, in the hearing of women. His efforts, however, were crowned with the reward of persistence. By midnight he had the job done, and, utterly spent, he crawled into his bed, where at once his eyes seemed to glue shut.
Next morning he readily answered Pilchuck’s call, but his body was incapable of a like alacrity. He crawled out of his blankets as if he were crippled. A gradual working of his muscles, however, loosened the stiffness and warmed the cold soreness to the extent that he believed he could begin the day with some semblance to service.
It was again, in Pilchuck’s terse terms, every man for himself. Tom welcomed this for two reasons, first that he could go easy, and secondly that he wanted to revel in and prolong his first real encounter with the buffalo.