The Hunters of the Ozark Part 22

And with this high flown counsel, Terry with his gun in position began moving toward an enormous bull. The latter really was not so close to him as was a cow, but he thought it beneath his dignity to spend his ammunition on such game as had served for their dinner.

Although Terry Clark's natural love of humor often led him to a.s.sume what he failed to feel, he was hopeful in the present instance that he would be able to carry out the little scheme in mind. He knew that the weapon in his hand was a good one, and he was already so close to the buffalo that he was sure of bringing it down at the first fire.

While he was willing to admit that Fred's shot could not have been improved, so far as effectiveness was concerned, yet he was in earnest in his intention of firing at the head. He knew that no animal is of any account after its brain has been perforated, and it seemed to him that it was more appropriate for a true sportsman to bring down his game by that means instead of firing at its body.

Terry made a mistake from which his experience on the border ought to have saved him. Had he driven his bullet into the eye of the buffalo, he could have slain him, but he was almost certain to fail by firing simply at the head. It would have been far better had he followed the example that his companion set.

The bull upon which he had cast his eyes was about twenty yards from the wood. He did not raise his head until this distance was diminished by one half. Just then a cow showed some alarm of the approaching figure and walked hastily away. This caused the bull to throw up his head and stare at Terry.

"Obsarve!" called the latter to his friend, who began to feel uneasy over the appearance of things.

A dozen spears of gra.s.s seemed to be dripping from the mouth of the magnificent bull, who glared at the figure of the young man in the act of leveling his gun as though he had some curiosity to know what was going on.

Terry aimed at the head, making the part between and above the eyes his target. This was probably the most invulnerable spot of the animal.

The bull was still staring at the intruder, when the latter, aiming at the point named, fired. The bullet struck the bony ridge at the upper part of the head and glanced off into s.p.a.ce, inflicting no more real injury than a paper wad.

But the impingement of the lead must have given the stupid brute an idea that harm was meant. His anger was roused, and, dropping his head with a savage bellow, he charged the young hunter at full speed.

This was giving the matter an unpleasant turn, but there was no time to argue, and flinging his gun aside, Terry gave the finest exhibition of running he had ever shown. No one could have realized better than did he that the bull "meant business" and it would never do to allow himself to be caught.

Fred Linden himself was so startled by the sudden onslaught of the animal that he was flurried and fired without taking proper aim. He struck him, but he was unable to check his charge: indeed he rather added to his fury. Stepping back, so as to shield himself as much as he could behind the nearest tree, he began reloading his weapon with the utmost haste.

Meantime Terry, by desperate running, reached the tree at which he aimed a few steps in advance of his formidable foe. He had no time to climb the trunk, but believing the lowermost limb was within reach, he made a leap, seized it with both hands and swung himself out of reach, just as the bull thundered beneath like a runaway engine.

Finding he had missed his victim, the savage beast snorted with rage, wheeled about, came back a few paces and was pa.s.sing beneath the limb again, when a singular accident gave an astonishing turn to the whole business.

The limb which afforded Terry Clark his temporary safety was unable to bear his weight, and, while he was struggling to raise himself to the upper side and it was bending low with him, it broke like a pipe stem close to the body of the tree.

This took place so suddenly that the youth had not the slightest warning. Indeed it would not have availed him had he known what was coming, for the time was too brief in which to help himself.

Down he came with the limb grasped in both hands and fell squarely on the back of the buffalo bull. Fortunately the bewildered animal had just shifted his position, so that the lad fell with his face turned toward the head instead of in "reverse order."

Even in that exciting moment Terry saw the grotesqueness of the situation. His legs were stretched apart so as to span the animal just back of his enormous neck. Letting go of the branch that had played him the trick, he grasped the bushy mane with both hands and yelled in a voice that might have been heard a mile away:

"_All aboard! off wid ye!_"

So far as a bull is capable of feeling emotion, that particular specimen must have been in a peculiar frame of mind. He glared about him, here and there, turned part way round, as if the whole thing was more than he could understand, and then as his bulging eyes caught sight of the remarkable load on his back and he felt the weight of the burden, he was seized with a panic.

He emitted a single whiffing snort, and flinging his tail high in air, made for the other side of the prairie as if Death himself was racing at his heels. His actions were of that p.r.o.nounced character that his fright communicated itself to the rest of the herd. There was a general uplifting of heads, and then, as the bulls and cows saw their most eminent leader tearing across the prairie with a live boy astride of his back, the sight was too much for them. A wholesale series of snorts and bellows followed, tails were flirted aloft, and away the whole herd went, fairly making the ground tremble beneath their tread.

By the time the alarmed Fred Linden had his rifle reloaded there was not a buffalo within a hundred yards of him. The one that bore his friend on his back was making as good time as the fleetest and was well toward the head of the drove. The panic began like an eddy of the sea; there was a surging of the animals toward the other side of the prairie and away they went, as I have said, with their tails and heels in the air, as if they meant to keep up their headlong flight for twenty miles, as is sometimes the case, when an immense drove become stampeded on the great plains of the west.

Whatever feelings of amus.e.m.e.nt might have been first aroused by the figure that Terry cut on the back of the terrified bull were lost in the dreadful fear of Fred that it would prove a fatal ride for his friend.

He could see him plainly for a fourth of a mile, but by that time the trampling hoofs raised a dust in the dry gra.s.s which partly obscured the herd and made it impossible to distinguish the figure of the lad clinging to the mane of his novel charger.

"He will fall off," was the exclamation of Fred, "and will be trampled to death by the others."

He recalled that the bull must have been wounded by his own shot, but that knowledge gave him concern instead of relief; for if the bull should give out, he would be trampled by those who were thundering so close at his heels.

The buffaloes did not preserve the open order which marked them when they were grazing, but crowded together, so that their backs looked like brown dusty waves, rising and falling rapidly from the motions of their bodies.

Fred quickly recovered from his astonishment. He had reloaded his gun, but when ready to fire, was afraid to do so. Too many other buffaloes interposed between him and the bull, and had he discharged his weapon, he would have been as likely to hit Terry as to wound the brute that was carrying him away with such speed.

Running to where the rifle of the boy lay, Fred picked it up, hastily reloaded it, and started after the herd. He broke into a loping trot such as an Indian shows when hurriedly following a trail. He kept his eyes on the fast receding animals, his interest being now centered on the moment when they should reach the wood on the other side of the prairie.

"It will be the death of him if they dash among the trees," he thought; "for he will be struck by some limb and have his brains dashed out."

But such a catastrophe did not take place. The fleeing animals must have known that their headlong speed could not be kept up among the trees and undergrowth; so, when those at the head of the drove were close to the edge of the wood they swerved to the left, and the others followed with the same furious swiftness with which they had sped across the open.

Fred Linden at this time was not a third of the way across the prairie, and he stopped and viewed the sight. He could distinguish the animals much better than when they were tearing straight away from him. They ran, so to speak, from under the cloud of dust that had obscured his vision, which, sweeping backward, left all in plain view.

What he saw, too, showed that the buffaloes possessed varying rates of speed. A dozen were well to the front, still crowding close together, while the rest, also in close order, were strung along at different distances. Still, they were so far from Fred that his view was any thing but satisfactory. Shading his eyes with his hand, he peered through the autumn air in the search for his friend.

"There he is!" he exclaimed, but the words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw he was mistaken. The distance was too great for him to see clearly.

"How long will this keep up?" was the question which he would have been glad to answer, for it included the fate of Terence Clark. If his steed should grow weary and fall behind the others, possibly he would give his rider a chance to leap to the ground and make off; but the likelihood of that taking place was so remote that Fred could feel no hope.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A YOUNG HUNTER'S STRATEGY.

Fred Linden walked rapidly forward until he reached the middle of the prairie, when he paused and bent his eyes on the swiftly vanishing drove of buffaloes. They were speeding at right angles to the course he had been following, and, so far as he could judge at the distance, were on the same dead run with which they started.

He was convinced that he was mistaken a brief while before, when, for a moment, he thought he caught a glimpse of Terry on the back of the terrified bull. He was unable to distinguish any thing that looked like him. He might--and it was not at all improbable--be still clinging to his steed, but he was too far off and too mixed up with the others for even the keen eyes of Fred Linden to identify him.

There seemed but the one thing to do: that was to follow the drove until he learned the fate of his friend. Certain that he would find him sooner or later, Fred resorted again to his loping trot, which he could keep up for several hours without great fatigue.

But he had not gone twenty steps at this gait, when, to his astonishment and alarm, he observed three Indian warriors, each mounted on a horse, issue from the wood at the point where the buffaloes would have entered it had they not turned to the left. The red men headed their animals directly toward Fred, and advanced at a moderate gallop.

The sight was enough to make the bravest person thoughtful; for you will readily see the critical situation of the boy. It was useless to turn and run, for they would overhaul him before he could get half way to cover. He was in the middle of a gra.s.sy prairie, where there was not the slightest object which could be used as a screen in a fight with them.

He glanced quickly about, but did not see a stone as large as his hand.

Except so far as his weapons were concerned, he was absolutely helpless.

Never did Fred Linden display more coolness and knowledge of Indian character than he did at this time when caught at such fearful disadvantage. He knew that if he showed any timidity, the red men would attack him at once, while, if he could deceive them, as he hoped, there was a possibility that he would escape.

Two hundred yards away, the Indians drew their cantering horses down to a walk: they evidently saw there was no call for haste and they could afford to take all the time they wished. They were riding beside each other, instead of in Indian file, and being nigh enough to be observed distinctly, showed that they were dressed precisely like the Winnebagos whom he had noticed the night before around their camp-fire. This might have been, had they belonged to another totem, for there is a similarity in the dress of different tribes, but Fred had no doubt that these were Winnebagos. It began to look indeed as if there was an irruption of them into that section of the Louisiana Territory.

During those trying moments, when Fred calmly watched the approach of the dusky hors.e.m.e.n, he was observant of the smallest things. He recalled that they were the same in number as the party which he and Terry so narrowly missed the night before on the edge of the stream and he half suspected they were the same, though such supposition did not correspond with the theories formed and accepted at the time.

He saw the middle horse, which was darker in color than the others, slightly stumble; then the rider turned his head and said something to the warrior on his left, who made answer without taking his eyes from Fred; then the one on the right said something, his painted features relaxing into a frightful grin, the guttural words being plainly audible: all these points being noticed, as I have said, by the young hunter who had so much more important matters to engage his thoughts.

He recalled with relief that on picking up the gun of Terry he had reloaded it, so that he now had two weapons ready for use. With these he could make a brave resistance, and you may depend upon it that the last thing he thought of doing was to surrender. He might easily be shot down where he stood, but he would die fighting.