At the risk of being tedious, I will tell of one more day’s buffalo hunting, to show the vicissitudes of this kind of sport. Before doing so we will glance at another important feature of prairie life, a camp of Sioux Indians.

One evening, after halting on the banks of the Platte, we heard distant sounds of tomtoms on the other side of the river. Jim, the half-breed, and Louis differed as to the tribe, and hence the friendliness or hostility, of our neighbours. Louis advised saddling up and putting the night between us; he regaled us to boot with a few blood-curdling tales of Indian tortures, and of nous autres en haut. Jim treated these with scorn, and declared he knew by the ‘tunes’ (!) that the pow-wow was Sioux. Just now, he asserted, the Sioux were friendly, and this ‘village’ was on its way to Fort Laramie to barter ‘robes’ (buffalo skins) for blankets and ammunition. He was quite willing to go over and talk to them if we had no objection.

Fred, ever ready for adventure, would have joined him in a minute; but the river, which was running strong, was full of nasty currents, and his injured knee disabled him from swimming. No one else seemed tempted; so, following Jim’s example, I stripped to my flannel shirt and moccasins, and crossed the river, which was easier to get into than out of, and soon reached the ‘village.’ Jim was right,—they were Sioux, and friendly. They offered us a pipe of kinik (the dried bark of the red willow), and jabbered away with their kinsman, who seemed almost more at home with them than with us.

Seeing one of their ‘braves’ with three fresh scalps at his belt, I asked for the history of them. In Sioux gutturals the story was a long one. Jim’s translation amounted to this: The scalps were ‘lifted’ from two Crows and a Ponkaw. The Crows, it appeared, were the Sioux’ natural enemies ‘anyhow,’ for they occasionally hunted on each other’s ranges. But the Ponkaw, whom he would not otherwise have injured, was casually met by him on a horse which the Sioux recognised for a white man’s. Upon being questioned how he came by it, the Ponkaw simply replied that it was his own. Whereupon the Sioux called him a liar; and proved it by sending an arrow through his body.

I didn’t quite see it. But then, strictly speaking, I am no collector of scalps. To preserve my own, I kept the hair on it as short as a tooth-brush.

Before we left, our hosts fed us on raw buffalo meat. This, cut in slices, and dried crisp in the sun, is excellent. Their lodges were very comfortable, most of them large enough to hold a dozen people. The ground inside was covered with buffalo robes; and the sewn skins, spread tight upon the converging poles, formed a tent stout enough to defy all weathers. In winter the lodge can be entirely closed; and when a fire is kindled in the centre, the smoke escaping at a small hole where the poles join, the snugness is complete.

At the entrance of one of these lodges I watched a squaw and her child prepare a meal. When the fuel was collected, a fat puppy, playing with the child, was seized by the squaw, and knocked on the throat—not head—with a stick. The puppy was then returned, kicking, to the tender mercies of the infant; who exerted its small might to add to the animal’s miseries, while the mother fed the fire and filled a kettle for the stew. The puppy, much more alive than dead, was held by the hind leg over the flames as long as the squaw’s fingers could stand them. She then let it fall on the embers, where it struggled and squealed horribly, and would have wriggled off, but for the little savage, who took good care to provide for the satisfactory singeing of its playmate.

Considering the length of its lineage, how remarkably hale and well preserved is our own barbarity!

We may now take our last look at the buffaloes, for we shall see them no more. Again I quote my journal:

‘July 5th.—Men sulky because they have nothing to eat but rancid ham, and biscuit dust which has been so often soaked that it is mouldy and sour. They are a dainty lot! Samson and I left camp early with the hopes of getting meat. While he was shooting prairie dogs his horse made off, and cost me nearly an hour’s riding to catch. Then, accidentally letting go of my mustang, he too escaped; and I had to run him down with the other. Towards evening, spied a small band of buffaloes, which we approached by leading our horses up a hollow. They got our wind, however, and were gone before we were aware of it. They were all young, and so fast, it took a twenty minutes’ gallop to come up with them. Samson’s horse put his foot in a hole, and the cropper they both got gave the band a long start, as it became a stern chase, and no heading off.

‘At length I managed to separate one from the herd by firing my pistol into the “brown,” and then devoted my efforts to him alone. Once or twice he turned and glared savagely through his mane. When quite isolated he pulled up short, so did I. We were about sixty yards apart. I flung the reins upon the neck of the mustang, who was too blown to stir, and handling my rifle, waited for the bull to move so that I might see something more than the great shaggy front, which screened his body. But he stood his ground, tossing up the sand with his hoofs. Presently, instead of turning tail, he put his head down, and bellowing with rage, came at me as hard as he could tear. I had but a moment for decision,—to dig spurs into the mustang, or risk the shot. I chose the latter; paused till I was sure of his neck, and fired when he was almost under me. In an instant I was sent flying; and the mustang was on his back with all four legs in the air.

‘The bull was probably as much astonished as we were. His charge had carried him about thirty yards, at most, beyond us. There he now stood; facing me, pawing the ground and snorting as before. Badly wounded I knew him to be,—that was the worst of it; especially as my rifle, with its remaining loaded barrel, lay right between us. To hesitate for a second only, was to lose the game. There was no time to think of bruises; I crawled, eyes on him, straight for my weapon: got it—it was already cocked, and the stock unbroken—raised my knee for a rest. We were only twenty yards apart (the shot meant death for one of the two), and just catching a glimpse of his shoulder-blade, I pulled. I could hear the thud of the heavy bullet, and—what was sweeter music—the ugh! of the fatal groan. The beast dropped on his knees, and a gush of blood spurted from his nostrils.

‘But the wild devil of a mustang? that was my first thought now. Whenever one dismounted, it was necessary to loosen his long lariat, and let it trail on the ground. Without this there was no chance of catching him. I saw at once what had happened: by the greatest good fortune, at the last moment, he must have made an instinctive start, which probably saved his life, and mine too. The bull’s horns had just missed his entrails and my leg,—we were broadside on to the charge,—and had caught him in the thigh, below the hip. There was a big hole, and he was bleeding plentifully. For all that, he wouldn’t let me catch him. He could go faster on three legs than I on two.

‘It was getting dark, I had not touched food since starting, nor had I wetted my lips. My thirst was now intolerable. The travelling rule, about keeping on, was an ugly incubus. Samson would go his own ways—he had sense enough for that—but how, when, where, was I to quench my thirst? Oh! for the tip of Lazarus’ finger—or for choice, a bottle of Bass—to cool my tongue! Then too, whither would the mustang stray in the night if I rested or fell asleep? Again and again I tried to stalk him by the starlight. Twice I got hold of his tail, but he broke away. If I drove him down to the river banks the chance of catching him would be no better, and I should lose the dry ground to rest on.

‘It was about as unpleasant a night as I had yet passed. Every now and then I sat down, and dropped off to sleep from sheer exhaustion. Every time this happened I dreamed of sparkling drinks; then woke with a start to a lively sense of the reality, and anxious searches for the mustang.

‘Directly the day dawned I drove the animal, now very stiff, straight down for the Platte. He wanted water fully as much as his master; and when we sighted it he needed no more driving. Such a hurry was he in that, in his rush for the river, he got bogged in the muddy swamp at its edge. I seized my chance, and had him fast in a minute. We both plunged into the stream; I, clothes and all, and drank, and drank, and drank.’

That evening I caught up the cavalcade.

How curious it is to look back upon such experiences from a different stage of life’s journey! How would it have fared with me had my rifle exploded with the fall? it was knocked out of my hands at full cock. How if the stock had been broken? It had been thrown at least ten yards. How if the horn had entered my thigh instead of the horse’s? How if I had fractured a limb, or had been stunned, or the bull had charged again while I was creeping up to him? Any one, or more than one, of these contingencies were more likely to happen than not. But nothing did happen, save—the best.

Not a thought of the kind ever crossed my mind, either at the time or afterwards. Yet I was not a thoughtless man, only an average man. Nine Englishmen out of ten with a love of sport—as most Englishmen are—would have done, and have felt, just as I did. I was bruised and still; but so one is after a run with hounds. I had had many a nastier fall hunting in Derbyshire. The worst that could happen did not happen; but the worst never—well, so rarely does. One might shoot oneself instead of the pigeon, or be caught picking forbidden fruit. Narrow escapes are as good as broad ones. The truth is, when we are young, and active, and healthy, whatever happens, of the pleasant or lucky kind, we accept as a matter of course.

Ah! youth! youth! If we only knew when we were well off, when we were happy, when we possessed all that this world has to give! If we but knew that love is only a matter of course so long as youth and its bounteous train is ours, we might perhaps make the most of it, and give up looking for—something better. But what then? Give up the ‘something better’? Give up pursuit,—the effort that makes us strong? ‘Give up the sweets of hope’? No! ’tis better as it is, perhaps. The kitten plays with its tail, and the nightingale sings; but they think no more of happiness than the rose-bud of its beauty. May be happiness comes not of too much knowing, or too much thinking either.