by Zane Grey
CHAPTER 2.
THE RANGE
After a much-needed rest at Emmett's, we bade good-by to him and hishospitable family, and under the guidance of his man once more took tothe wind-swept trail. We pursued a southwesterly course now, followingthe lead of the craggy red wall that stretched on and on for hundredsof miles into Utah. The desert, smoky and hot, fell away to the left,and in the foreground a dark, irregular line marked the Grand Canyoncutting through the plateau.
The wind whipped in from the vast, open expanse, and meeting anobstacle in the red wall, turned north and raced past us. Jones's hatblew off, stood on its rim, and rolled. It kept on rolling, thirtymiles an hour, more or less; so fast, at least, that we were a longtime catching up to it with a team of horses. Possibly we never wouldhave caught it had not a stone checked its flight. Furthermanifestation of the power of the desert wind surrounded us on allsides. It had hollowed out huge stones from the cliffs, and tumbledthem to the plain below; and then, sweeping sand and gravel low acrossthe desert floor, had cut them deeply, until they rested on slenderpedestals, thus sculptoring grotesque and striking monuments to themarvelous persistence of this element of nature.
Late that afternoon, as we reached the height of the plateau, Joneswoke up and shouted: "Ha! there's Buckskin!"
Far southward lay a long, black mountain, covered with patches ofshining snow. I could follow the zigzag line of the Grand Canyonsplitting the desert plateau, and saw it disappear in the haze roundthe end of the mountain. From this I got my first clear impression ofthe topography of the country surrounding our objective point. Buckskinmountain ran its blunt end eastward to the Canyon--in fact, formed ahundred miles of the north rim. As it was nine thousand feet high itstill held the snow, which had occasioned our lengthy desert ride toget back of the mountain. I could see the long slopes rising out of thedesert to meet the timber.
As we bowled merrily down grade I noticed that we were no longer onstony ground, and that a little scant silvery grass had made itsappearance. Then little branches of green, with a blue flower, smiledout of the clayish sand.
All of a sudden Jones stood up, and let out a wild Comanche yell. I wasmore startled by the yell than by the great hand he smashed down on myshoulder, and for the moment I was dazed.
"There! look! look! the buffalo! Hi! Hi! Hi!"
Below us, a few miles on a rising knoll, a big herd of buffalo shoneblack in the gold of the evening sun. I had not Jones's incentive, butI felt enthusiasm born of the wild and beautiful picture, and added myyell to his. The huge, burly leader of the herd lifted his head, andafter regarding us for a few moments calmly went on browsing.
The desert had fringed away into a grand rolling pastureland, walled inby the red cliffs, the slopes of Buckskin, and further isolated by theCanyon. Here was a range of twenty-four hundred square miles without afoot of barb-wire, a pasture fenced in by natural forces, with thesplendid feature that the buffalo could browse on the plain in winter,and go up into the cool foothills of Buckskin in summer.
From another ridge we saw a cabin dotting the rolling plain, and inhalf an hour we reached it. As we climbed down from the wagon a brownand black dog came dashing out of the cabin, and promptly jumped atMoze. His selection showed poor discrimination, for Moze whipped himbefore I could separate them. Hearing Jones heartily greeting some one,I turned in his direction, only to be distracted by another dog fight.Don had tackled Moze for the seventh time. Memory rankled in Don, andhe needed a lot of whipping, some of which he was getting when Irescued him.
Next moment I was shaking hands with Frank and Jim, Jones's ranchmen.At a glance I liked them both. Frank was short and wiry, and had a big,ferocious mustache, the effect of which was softened by his kindlybrown eyes. Jim was tall, a little heavier; he had a careless, tidylook; his eyes were searching, and though he appeared a young man, hishair was white.
"I shore am glad to see you all," said Jim, in slow, soft, Southernaccent.
"Get down, get down," was Frank's welcome--a typically Western one, forwe had already gotten down; "an' come in. You must be worked out. Sureyou've come a long way." He was quick of speech, full of nervousenergy, and beamed with hospitality.
The cabin was the rudest kind of log affair, with a huge stonefireplace in one end, deer antlers and coyote skins on the wall,saddles and cowboys' traps in a corner, a nice, large, promisingcupboard, and a table and chairs. Jim threw wood on a smoldering fire,that soon blazed and crackled cheerily.
I sank down into a chair with a feeling of blessed relief. Ten days ofdesert ride behind me! Promise of wonderful days before me, with thelast of the old plainsmen. No wonder a sweet sense of ease stole overme, or that the fire seemed a live and joyously welcoming thing, orthat Jim's deft maneuvers in preparation of supper roused in me a raptadmiration.
"Twenty calves this spring!" cried Jones, punching me in my sore side."Ten thousand dollars worth of calves!"
He was now altogether a changed man; he looked almost young; his eyesdanced, and he rubbed his big hands together while he plied Frank withquestions. In strange surroundings--that is, away from his NativeWilds, Jones had been a silent man; it had been almost impossible toget anything out of him. But now I saw that I should come to know thereal man. In a very few moments he had talked more than on all thedesert trip, and what he said, added to the little I had alreadylearned, put me in possession of some interesting information as to hisbuffalo.
Some years before he had conceived the idea of hybridizing buffalo withblack Galloway cattle; and with the characteristic determination andenergy of the man, he at once set about finding a suitable range. Thiswas difficult, and took years of searching. At last the wild north rimof the Grand Canyon, a section unknown except to a few Indians andmustang hunters, was settled upon. Then the gigantic task oftransporting the herd of buffalo by rail from Montana to Salt Lake wasbegun. The two hundred and ninety miles of desert lying between thehome of the Mormons and Buckskin Mountain was an obstacle almostinsurmountable. The journey was undertaken and found even more tryingthan had been expected. Buffalo after buffalo died on the way. ThenFrank, Jones's right-hand man, put into execution a plan he had beenthinking of--namely, to travel by night. It succeeded. The buffalorested in the day and traveled by easy stages by night, with the resultthat the big herd was transported to the ideal range.
Here, in an environment strange to their race, but peculiarlyadaptable, they thrived and multiplied. The hybrid of the Galloway cowand buffalo proved a great success. Jones called the new species"Cattalo." The cattalo took the hardiness of the buffalo, and neverrequired artificial food or shelter. He would face the desert storm orblizzard and stand stock still in his tracks until the weather cleared.He became quite domestic, could be easily handled, and grew exceedinglyfat on very little provender. The folds of his stomach were so numerousthat they digested even the hardest and flintiest of corn. He hadfourteen ribs on each side, while domestic cattle had only thirteen;thus he could endure rougher work and longer journeys to water. His furwas so dense and glossy that it equaled that of the unplucked beaver orotter, and was fully as valuable as the buffalo robe. And not to beoverlooked by any means was the fact that his meat was delicious.
Jones had to hear every detail of all that had happened since hisabsence in the East, and he was particularly inquisitive to learn allabout the twenty cattalo calves. He called different buffalo by name;and designated the calves by descriptive terms, such as "Whiteface" and"Crosspatch." He almost forgot to eat, and kept Frank too busy to getanything into his own mouth. After supper he calmed down.
"How about your other man--Mr. Wallace, I think you said?" asked Frank.
"We expected to meet him at Grand Canyon Station, and then atFlagstaff. But he didn't show up. Either he backed out or missed us.I'm sorry; for when we get up on Buckskin, among the wild horses andcougars, we'll be likely to need him."
"I reckon you'll need me, as well as Jim," said Frank dryly, with atwinkle in his eye. "The buffs are in good shape an' c
an get alongwithout me for a while."
"That'll be fine. How about cougar sign on the mountain?"
"Plenty. I've got two spotted near Clark Spring. Comin' over two weeksago I tracked them in the snow along the trail for miles. We'll oozeover that way, as it's goin' toward the Siwash. The Siwash breaks ofthe Canyon--there's the place for lions. I met a wild-horse wranglernot long back, an' he was tellin' me about Old Tom an' the colts he'dkilled this winter."
Naturally, I here expressed a desire to know more of Old Tom.
"He's the biggest cougar ever known of in these parts. His tracks arebigger than a horse's, an' have been seen on Buckskin for twelve years.This wrangler--his name is Clark--said he'd turned his saddle horse outto graze near camp, an' Old Tom sneaked in an' downed him. The lionsover there are sure a bold bunch. Well, why shouldn't they be? No oneever hunted them. You see, the mountain is hard to get at. But nowyou're here, if it's big cats you want we sure can find them. Only beeasy, be easy. You've all the time there is. An' any job on Buckskinwill take time. We'll look the calves over, an' you must ride the rangeto harden up. Then we'll ooze over toward Oak. I expect it'll be boggy,an' I hope the snow melts soon."
"The snow hadn't melted on Greenland point," replied Jones. "We sawthat with a glass from the El Tovar. We wanted to cross that way, butRust said Bright Angel Creek was breast high to a horse, and that creekis the trail."
"There's four feet of snow on Greenland," said Frank. "It was too earlyto come that way. There's only about three months in the year theCanyon can be crossed at Greenland."
"I want to get in the snow," returned Jones. "This bunch of long-earedcanines I brought never smelled a lion track. Hounds can't be trainedquick without snow. You've got to see what they're trailing, or youcan't break them."
Frank looked dubious. "'Pears to me we'll have trouble gettin' a lionwithout lion dogs. It takes a long time to break a hound off of deer,once he's chased them. Buckskin is full of deer, wolves, coyotes, andthere's the wild horses. We couldn't go a hundred feet without crossin'trails."
"How's the hound you and Jim fetched in las' year? Has he got a goodnose? Here he is--I like his head. Come here, Bowser--what's his name?"
"Jim named him Sounder, because he sure has a voice. It's great to hearhim on a trail. Sounder has a nose that can't be fooled, an' he'lltrail anythin'; but I don't know if he ever got up a lion."
Sounder wagged his bushy tail and looked up affectionately at Frank. Hehad a fine head, great brown eyes, very long ears and curlybrownish-black hair. He was not demonstrative, looked rather askance atJones, and avoided the other dogs.
"That dog will make a great lion-chaser," said Jones, decisively, afterhis study of Sounder. "He and Moze will keep us busy, once they learnwe want lions."
"I don't believe any dog-trainer could teach them short of six months,"replied Frank. "Sounder is no spring chicken; an' that black and dirtywhite cross between a cayuse an' a barb-wire fence is an old dog. Youcan't teach old dogs new tricks."
Jones smiled mysteriously, a smile of conscious superiority, but saidnothing.
"We'll shore hev a storm to-morrow," said Jim, relinquishing his pipelong enough to speak. He had been silent, and now his meditative gazewas on the west, through the cabin window, where a dull afterglow fadedunder the heavy laden clouds of night and left the horizon dark.
I was very tired when I lay down, but so full of excitement that sleepdid not soon visit my eyelids. The talk about buffalo, wild-horsehunters, lions and dogs, the prospect of hard riding and unusualadventure; the vision of Old Tom that had already begun to haunt me,filled my mind with pictures and fancies. The other fellows dropped offto sleep, and quiet reigned. Suddenly a succession of queer, sharpbarks came from the plain, close to the cabin. Coyotes were paying us acall, and judging from the chorus of yelps and howls from our dogs, itwas not a welcome visit. Above the medley rose one big, deep, fullvoice that I knew at once belonged to Sounder. Then all was quietagain. Sleep gradually benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamilydrifted to and fro in my mind: "Jones's wild range--OldTom--Sounder--great name--great voice--Sounder! Sounder! Sounder--"
Next morning I could hardly crawl out of my sleeping-bag. My bonesached, my muscles protested excruciatingly, my lips burned and bled,and the cold I had contracted on the desert clung to me. A good briskwalk round the corrals, and then breakfast, made me feel better.
"Of course you can ride?" queried Frank.
My answer was not given from an overwhelming desire to be truthful.Frank frowned a little, as it wondering how a man could have the nerveto start out on a jaunt with Buffalo Jones without being a goodhorseman. To be unable to stick on the back of a wild mustang, or acayuse, was an unpardonable sin in Arizona. My frank admission was maderelatively, with my mind on what cowboys held as a standard ofhorsemanship.
The mount Frank trotted out of the corral for me was a pure white,beautiful mustang, nervous, sensitive, quivering. I watched Frank puton the saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to catch a coverttwinkle in his merry brown eyes. Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain,which was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said to myself:"This may be where you get on, but most certainly it is where you getoff!"
Jones was already riding far beyond the corral, as I could see by acloud of dust; and I set off after him, with the painful consciousnessthat I must have looked to Frank and Jim much as Central Parkequestrians had often looked to me. Frank shouted after me that hewould catch up with us out on the range. I was not in any great hurryto overtake Jones, but evidently my horse's inclinations differed frommine; at any rate, he made the dust fly, and jumped the little sagebushes.
Jones, who had tarried to inspect one of the pools--formed of runningwater from the corrals--greeted me as I came up with this cheerfulobservation.
"What in thunder did Frank give you that white nag for? The buffalohate white horses--anything white. They're liable to stampede off therange, or chase you into the canyon."
I replied grimly that, as it was certain something was going to happen,the particular circumstance might as well come off quickly.
We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, bracing breeze in ourfaces. The sky was dull and mottled with a beautiful cloud effect thatpresaged wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me anddescanted upon the nutritive value of three different kinds of grass,one of which he called the Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for a beautiful blueblossom. Soon we passed out of sight of the cabin, and could see onlythe billowy plain, the red tips of the stony wall, and theblack-fringed crest of Buckskin. After riding a while we made out somecattle, a few of which were on the range, browsing in the lee of aridge. No sooner had I marked them than Jones let out another Comancheyell.
"Wolf!" he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he was off like the wind.
A single glance showed me several cows running as if bewildered, andnear them a big white wolf pulling down a calf. Another white wolfstood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot; and therealization darted upon me that here was where the certain somethingbegan. Spot--the mustang had one black spot in his pure white--snortedlike I imagined a blooded horse might, under dire insult. Jones's bayhad gotten about a hundred paces the start. I lived to learn that Spothated to be left behind; moreover, he would not be left behind; he wasthe swiftest horse on the range, and proud of the distinction. I castone unmentionable word on the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, thenput mind and muscle to the sore task of remaining with Spot. Jones wasborn on a saddle, and had been taking his meals in a saddle for aboutsixty-three years, and the bay horse could run. Run is not a felicitousword--he flew. And I was rendered mentally deranged for the moment tosee that hundred paces between the bay and Spot materially lessen atevery jump. Spot lengthened out, seemed to go down near the ground, andcut the air like a high-geared auto. If I had not heard the fastrhythmic beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the air atevery jump, I would have been sure I was riding a bird. I tried to stophim. As well might
I have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a thread.Spot was out to overhaul that bay, and in spite of me, he was doing it.The wind rushed into my face and sang in my ears. Jones seemed thenucleus of a sort of haze, and it grew larger and larger. Presently hebecame clearly defined in my sight; the violent commotion under mesubsided; I once more felt the saddle, and then I realized that Spothad been content to stop alongside of Jones, tossing his head andchamping his bit.
"Well, by George! I didn't know you were in the stretch," cried mycompanion. "That was a fine little brush. We must have come severalmiles. I'd have killed those wolves if I'd brought a gun. The big onethat had the calf was a bold brute. He never let go until I was withinfifty feet of him. Then I almost rode him down. I don't think the calfwas much hurt. But those blood-thirsty devils will return, and like asnot get the calf. That's the worst of cattle raising. Now, take thebuffalo. Do you suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calfout from under the mother? Never. Neither could a whole band of wolves.Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray. Whendanger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and fights. That iswhat is grand about the buffalo and what made them once roam theprairies in countless, endless droves."
From the highest elevation in that part of the range we viewed thesurrounding ridges, flats and hollows, searching for the buffalo. Atlength we spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an undulating mound,then big black dots hove in sight.
"Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it this way. We'llwait," said Jones.
Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, a long time elapsedbefore they reached the foot of our outlook. They lumbered along in acompact mass, so dense that I could not count them, but I estimated thenumber at seventy-five. Frank was riding zigzag behind them, swinginghis lariat and yelling. When he espied us he reined in his horse andwaited. Then the herd slowed down, halted and began browsing.
"Look at the cattalo calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. "See howshy they are, how close they stick to their mothers."
The little dark-brown fellows were plainly frightened. I made severalunsuccessful attempts to photograph them, and gave it up when Jonestold me not to ride too close and that it would be better to wait tillwe had them in the corral.
He took my camera and instructed me to go on ahead, in the rear of theherd. I heard the click of the instrument as he snapped a picture, andthen suddenly heard him shout in alarm: "Look out! look out! pull yourhorse!"
Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accompanied his words. I saw abig bull, with head down, tail raised, charging my horse. He answeredFrank's yell of command with a furious grunt. I was paralyzed at thewonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute, and I sat helpless. Spotwheeled as if he were on a pivot and plunged out of the way with acelerity that was astounding. The buffalo stopped, pawed the ground,and angrily tossed his huge head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, andstruck him with the lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of hishorns, and then returned to the herd.
"It was that darned white nag," said Jones. "Frank, it was wrong to putan inexperienced man on Spot. For that matter, the horse should neverbe allowed to go near the buffalo."
"Spot knows the buffs; they'd never get to him," replied Frank. But theusual spirit was absent from his voice, and he glanced at me soberly. Iknew I had turned white, for I felt the peculiar cold sensation on myface.
"Now, look at that, will you?" cried Jones. "I don't like the looks ofthat."
He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, and were uneasilyshifting to and fro. The bull lifted his head; the others slowlygrouped together.
"Storm! Sandstorm!" exclaimed Jones, pointing desert-ward. Dark yellowclouds like smoke were rolling, sweeping, bearing down upon us. Theyexpanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and whirled and mergedinto one another, all the time rolling on and blotting out the light.
"We've got to run. That storm may last two days," yelled Frank to me."We've had some bad ones lately. Give your horse free rein, and coveryour face."
A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, came on puffs of wind,as the horses got into their stride. Long streaks of dust whipped up indifferent places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; roundbunches of sage went rolling before us. The puffs grew longer,steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast howled on our trail, seemingto swoop down on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut my eyes andcovered my face with a handkerchief. The sand blew so thick that itfilled my gloves, pebbles struck me hard enough to sting through mycoat.
Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, which was the mostcomfortable motion for me. But I began to get numb, and could hardlystick on the saddle. Almost before I had dared to hope, Spot stopped.Uncovering my face, I saw Jim in the doorway of the lee side of thecabin. The yellow, streaky, whistling clouds of sand split on the cabinand passed on, leaving a small, dusty space of light.
"Shore Spot do hate to be beat," yelled Jim, as he helped me off. Istumbled into the cabin and fell upon a buffalo robe and lay thereabsolutely spent. Jones and Frank came in a few minutes apart, eachanathematizing the gritty, powdery sand.
All day the desert storm raged and roared. The dust sifted through thenumerous cracks in the cabin burdened our clothes, spoiled our food andblinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and rainstorms are discomfortingenough under trying circumstances; but all combined, they are nothingto the choking stinging, blinding sandstorm.
"Shore it'll let up by sundown," averred Jim. And sure enough the roardied away about five o'clock, the wind abated and the sand settled.
Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily o the cabin door. Jimopened it to admit one of Emmett's sons and a very tall man whom noneof us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed a space ortwo of corduroy, a big bone-handled knife, a prominent square jaw andbronze cheek and flashing eyes.
"Get down--get down, an' come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.
"How do you do, sir," said Jones.
"Colonel Jones, I've been on your trail for twelve days," announced thestranger, with a grim smile. The sand streamed off his coat in littlewhite streak. Jones appeared to be casting about in his mind.
"I'm Grant Wallace," continued the newcomer. "I missed you at the ElTovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where I was one day behind. Washalf a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your train cross MoncaupieWash, and missed you because of the sandstorm there. Saw you from theother side of the Big Colorado as you rode out from Emmett's along thered wall. And here I am. We've never met till now, which obviouslyisn't my fault."
The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace's neck. Frank manifested his usualalert excitation, and said: "Well, I guess he won't hang fire on a longcougar chase." And Jim--slow, careful Jim, dropped a plate with theexclamation: "Shore it do beat hell!" The hounds sniffed round Wallace,and welcomed him with vigorous tails.
Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was ajoyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky and light; the bacon fragrantand crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by subtle cunningI had been able to secrete from the Mormons on that dry desert ride,and it was greeted with acclamations of pleasure. Wallace, divested ofhis sand guise, beamed with the gratification of a hungry man once morein the presence of friends and food. He made large cavities in Jim'sgreat pot of potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way thatwould not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Canyon he dug in myjar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished by legerdemain.
Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses and buffalo. Jones toldof our experience out on the range, and concluded with some salientremarks.
"A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of beasts. My old friend,Dick Rock, a great hunter and guide out of Idaho, laughed at my advice,and got killed by one of his three-year-old bulls. I told him they knewhim just well enough to kill him, and they did. My friend, A. H. Cole,of Oxford, Nebraska, tried to rope a Weetah that was too tame to besafe, and the bull killed
him. Same with General Bull, a member of theKansas Legislature, and two cowboys who went into a corral to tie up atame elk at the wrong time. I pleaded with them not to undertake it.They had not studied animals as I had. That tame elk killed all ofthem. He had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his greatantlers. You see, a wild animal must learn to respect a man. The way Iused to teach the Yellowstone Park bears to be respectful and safeneighbors was to rope them around the front paw, swing them up on atree clear of the ground, and whip them with a long pole. It was adangerous business, and looks cruel, but it is the only way I couldfind to make the bears good. You see, they eat scraps around the hotelsand get so tame they will steal everything but red-hot stoves, and willcuff the life out of those who try to shoo them off. But after a bearmother has had a licking, she not only becomes a good bear for the restof her life, but she tells all her cubs about it with a good smack ofher paw, for emphasis, and teaches them to respect peaceable citizensgeneration after generation.
"One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that of supplying thebuffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up a magnificent 'king' buffalo bull,belligerent enough to fight a battleship. When I rode after him thecowmen said I was as good as killed. I made a lance by driving a nailinto the end of a short pole and sharpening it. After he had chased me,I wheeled my broncho, and hurled the lance into his back, ripping awound as long as my hand. That put the fear of Providence into him andtook the fight all out of him. I drove him uphill and down, and acrosscanyons at a dead run for eight miles single handed, and loaded him ona freight car; but he came near getting me once or twice, and onlyquick broncho work and lance play saved me.
"In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have become docile,excepting the huge bull which led them. The Indians call the buffaloleader the 'Weetah,' the master of the herd. It was sure death to gonear this one. So I shipped in another Weetah, hoping that he mightwhip some of the fight out of old Manitou, the Mighty. They cametogether head on, like a railway collision, and ripped up over a squaremile of landscape, fighting till night came on, and then on into thenight.
"I jumped into the field with them, chasing them with my biograph,getting a series of moving pictures of that bullfight which was surethe real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing thatneither bull dared take his eyes off his adversary for a second, I feltreasonably safe. The old Weetah beat the new champion out that night,but the next morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo finallywhipped the old one into submission. Since then his spirit has remainedbroken, and even a child can approach him safely--but the new Weetah isin turn a holy terror.
"To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get into sympathy with theirmethods of reasoning. No tenderfoot stands any show, even with the tameanimals of the Yellowstone."
The old buffalo hunter's lips were no longer locked. One after anotherhe told reminiscences of his eventful life, in a simple manner; yet sovivid and gripping were the unvarnished details that I was spellbound.
"Considering what appears the impossibility of capturing a full-grownbuffalo, how did you earn the name of preserver of the American bison?"inquired Wallace.
"It took years to learn how, and ten more to capture the fifty-eightthat I was able to keep. I tried every plan under the sun. I ropedhundreds, of all sizes and ages. They would not live in captivity. Ifthey could not find an embankment over which to break their necks, theywould crush their skulls on stones. Failing any means like that, theywould lie down, will themselves to die, and die. Think of a savage wildnature that could will its heart to cease beating! But it's true.Finally I found I could keep only calves under three months of age. Butto capture them so young entailed time and patience. For the buffalofight for their young, and when I say fight, I mean till they drop. Ialmost always had to go alone, because I could neither coax nor hireany one to undertake it with me. Sometimes I would be weeks getting onecalf. One day I captured eight--eight little buffalo calves! Never willI forget that day as long as I live!"
"Tell us about it," I suggested, in a matter of fact,round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman ever told a completeand full story of his adventures? I doubted it. He was not the man toeulogize himself.
A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and warm; the ruddy embersglowed; one of Jim's pots steamed musically and fragrantly. The houndslay curled in the cozy chimney corner.
Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, of his famousexploit; and as he went on so modestly, passing lightly over featureswe recognized as wonderful, I allowed the fire of my imagination tofuse for myself all the toil, patience, endurance, skill, herculeanstrength and marvelous courage and unfathomable passion which heslighted in his narrative.
