The Great Sioux Trail Part 28

"Where?"

"In the southeast."

"I can't see it and I have pretty keen eyes."

"The naked eye won't reach so far, but the dust cloud is there just the same. It's moving in a course almost parallel with us and it grows every second I look at it. It may be the dust kicked up by a band of Sioux hors.e.m.e.n. Take a look, Jim, and tell us what you make of it."

Boyd looked through the gla.s.ses, at first with apprehension that soon changed to satisfaction.

"The cloud of dust is growing fast, just as you told us, Will," he said, "and, while it did look for a moment or two like Indian hors.e.m.e.n, it isn't. It's a buffalo herd, and the tail of it runs off into the southeast, clean down under the horizon. Buffaloes move in two kinds of herds, the giant herds, and the little ones. This is a giant, and no mistake. In a few minutes you'll be able to see 'em, plain, with your own eyes."

"I kin see thar dust cloud now," exclaimed the Little Giant. "Looks ez ef they wuz cuttin' 'cross our right o' way."

They rode forward at ease and gradually a mighty cloud of dust, many miles in length and of great width, emerged from the plain, moving steadily toward the northwest. Will, with his gla.s.ses, now saw the myriads of black forms that trampled up the dusty typhoons, and was even able to discern the fierce wolves hanging on the flanks in the hope of pulling down a calf or a decrepit old bull.

"They must number millions," he said.

"Like ez not they do," said the Little Giant. "You kin tell tales 'bout the big herds o' bufflers on the plains that n.o.body will b'lieve, but they're true jest the same. Once at the Platte I saw a herd crossin' fur five days, an' it stretched up an' down the river ez fur ez the eye could see."

"How do they all live? Where do they find enough gra.s.s to eat?" asked Will.

"I dunno, but bunch gra.s.s is pow'ful fillin' an' fattenin', an' when a country runs fifteen or eighteen hundred miles each way, thar's a lot o'

gra.s.s in it. The Sioux, the Cheyennes, the p.a.w.nees an' all the plains Indians live on the buffler."

"And in my opinion," said Brady, "the buffalo must have been increasing until the white man came with firearms. Their increase was greater than the toll taken by Indians with bows and arrows and by the wolves. No wonder the Indians fight so hard to retain the plains and the buffalo.

With an unlimited meat supply on the hoof, and with limited needs, they undoubtedly lived a happy, nomadic life. If your health is good and your wants are few it's not hard to be happy. The Biblical people were nomadic for a long time, and some of the world's greatest men and women moved with herds and lived in tents. My mind often reverts to those old days and the simplicity of life."

"I've allers thought thar wuz somethin' o' the old Bible 'bout you, Steve," said the Little Giant. "You ain't no prophet. n.o.body is nowadays, but you talk like them fightin' an' prayin' old fellers, an'

you wander 'roun' the West jest ez they wandered 'bout the land o'

Canaan, but sh.o.r.e that you will git to your journey's end at last. An' I know, too, Steve, that when you come to a fight you're jest ez fierce an' terrible ez old Joshua hisself ever wuz, an' ef I ain't mistook it wuz him that wuz called the sword o' the Lord. Ain't I right, young William?"

"I'm not sure," replied the lad, "but if you'll read the Book of Joshua you'll find his sword was a great and terrible weapon indeed."

"What do you think we'd better do, Boyd," asked Brady. "If we keep going we'll find the herd crossing our path, and it will be no use fur us to try to break through it."

"We can move on until we come close up," replied the hunter, "and then wait for the herd to go by. Maybe we might strike a clump of trees in which we could camp. Pick out the country with your gla.s.ses, Will, and see if you can find any trees on our side of the moving buffalo line."

Will, after much searching, was able to identify the tops of some trees standing in a dip where, sheltered from the winds that blew unceasingly, they had been able to obtain good size.

"We'll ride fur 'em," said Boyd. "There may be a pool of water in the dip, too."

"But won't the buffaloes stop and drink it up?" asked Will.

"No, they're bearing straight ahead, looking neither to the right nor to the left, going I've no idea where."

"Two million hearts that beat as one," said Will.

They reached the dip in due time, finding it a shallow depression of a half acre, well grown with substantial cottonwoods and containing, as they had surmised, a pool of good water, perhaps twenty feet each way, and two feet deep. Here the animals drank freely, enabling them to save the store they carried for more stringent times, and then all rested among the trees, while myriads of buffaloes thundered by.

Hour after hour they marched past, not a single one stopping for the water and deep gra.s.s they must have smelled so near. At times, they were half hidden by the vast cloud of dust in which they moved, and which was of their own making, and at other times the wind of the plains blew it away, revealing the lowered heads and huge black forms, pressing on with some sort of instinct to their unknown destination.

Will watched them a long time and the tremendous sight at last laid a spell upon him. Apparently they had no leaders. What power moved them out of a vast and unknown region into another region, alike vast and unknown? Leaderless though they were, they advanced like the columns of an army and with a single purpose. He climbed into a fork of one of the cottonwoods and used his gla.s.ses once more.

First he looked into the northwest, where they were going, and he could not now see the head of the s.h.a.ggy army or of the dust column that hung above it, as both had pa.s.sed long since under the horizon. And looking into the southeast he could not see, either, the end of the coming army or of its dust cloud. It emerged continually from under the rim of the horizon, and there was such an effect of steadiness and permanency that it seemed to the lad as if that vast column, black and wide, would be coming on forever.

Then he caught a glimpse of something glinting through the dust and from the other side of the herd a full two miles away. Only good eyes and the most powerful gla.s.ses of the time could have detected it at such a moment, but he saw it twice, and then thrice and once more. Then, waiting for the dust to lift a little, he discerned a brilliant ray of sunlight striking on the head of a lance. Looking further and searchingly he was able to note the figures of Indians on their ponies, armed with lances, and cutting out from the herd as many of its choicest members as they wanted, which were always the young and fat cows.

He descended the tree hastily and related what he had seen to the others, who, however, were not stirred greatly by the narration.

"The buffaloes are a river, two miles wide, flowing between us and the savage hunters," said Boyd, "and not having trees to climb and gla.s.ses to look through they won't see us."

"Besides, they're taking meat for their village, wherever it may be,"

said Brady, "and they're not dreaming that white men whose heads can furnish nice scalps are near."

Will shivered a little, and clapped one hand to his hair, which was uncommonly thick and fine.

"Your scalp is thar, right an' tight, young William," said the Little Giant, "but ef the Sioux got up close to you, you'd hev to hold it on with both han's 'stead o' one. Hev any o' you fellers noticed that all of us hev pow'ful thick, strong hair that would make splendid scalps fit to hang in the tepees o' the head chiefs theirselves? It's remarkyble how fine they are, speshully on the heads o' old men like Jim an'

Steve."

"Thomas Bent, you irreverent and chunky imp," said Brady, "I, the oldest of this party, am but thirty-eight. I have not yet reached the full prime of my physical powers, and if I should be put to it I could administer to you the thrashing you need."

"And I'm only thirty-six," said Boyd, "and I've licked Tom often and often, though sometimes, when he's feeling right peart, I'd have to use both hands to do it. But I don't have any feeling against him when I do the job. It's just to improve his language and manners. These boys of thirty-two or three are so pesky full of life and friskiness that you have to treat 'em as you would young lions. Before we met you in the mountains, Steve, I generally gave him his thrashing in the morning before breakfast."

He reached a large palm for the Little Giant, who leaped lightly away and laughed.

"Lend me your gla.s.ses, young William," he said. "I'd like to climb one o' the cotton woods myself an' take a look at the Indian hunters. O'

course you're a bright boy, young William, an' Jim an' Steve are so old they're boun' to hev some intelligence forced upon 'em, but ez fur me brightness an' intelligence come nateral, an' though mighty modest 'bout it, I reckon I'm a kind o' Napoleon o' the West. They say our figgers are tremenjeously alike, though, o' course, I'm thicker an' much stronger than he wuz, an' perhaps a lot brighter in some ways."

"Go on, you supreme egotist," said Brady in his usual solemn tones, "climb the tree, where I cannot hear your voice, and stay there a long time."

The Little Giant was more serious than he pretended to be. He was fully aware that they had lost at least seventy-five per cent of their security when they descended from the high mountains. On the plains it was difficult to fortify against attack, and he did not like the appearance of the Indians, even as hunters on the far side of the buffalo herd. Hence, when he had made himself comfortable in one of the highest forks of a cottonwood, his examination through the gla.s.ses was long and critical. He saw, just as Will had seen, the herd coming forever from under the southeastern rim of the horizon and disappearing forever under the northwestern rim. Then he caught glimpses of the hunters still pursuing and cutting out the fat young cows, but instead of being parallel with the little party in the dip they had now pa.s.sed far beyond it. Then he descended the tree and spoke what he thought.

"Jim Boyd, hunter, Steve Brady, trapper, an' young William," he said, "I'm of the opinion that we'd better stay here at least one day an'

night. The river o' buffaloes will be flowin' by at least that long, but ef we wuz to go on an' they wuz to pa.s.s us, we might meet the warriors with no river in between, an' we ain't looking fur that."

"Good advice," said Brady. "When the conquerors went down into the land of Canaan they used every chance that nature or circ.u.mstance offered them, and why shouldn't we, even though three thousand years or so have elapsed? We will build no fire, but repose calmly in our little clump of trees."

"Good judgment," said Boyd.

"Pleases me," said Will.

All day long and all that night the herd, as wide and dense as ever, was pa.s.sing. They might have slain enough to feed a great army, but they did not fire a shot. The sight, whether by daylight or moonlight, did not lose its romance and majesty for the lad. It was a black sea, flowing and living, one of the greatest spectacles of the mighty western wilderness, and it was given to him to look upon it.

He grew so used to it by and by that he had no thought of its turning from its course or of its throwing out stragglers like little, diverging currents. It would go on in a vast flood, straight into the unknown, wherever it intended to go.

The horses and mules themselves, though at first uneasy, soon grew used to the pa.s.sage of the living river, and, since no harm came from it, evidently concluded that none would come. Will walked among them more than once and stroked their manes and then their noses, which they rubbed confidingly against him.

The moon shining that night was very bright, and, the heavens being starred in such brilliant splendor, they saw almost as well as by day.