CHAPTER XV.
PLAY COMES AFTER WORK.
The two cabins built, wood for the winter cut and hauled, and theplanting all done, there was now nothing left to do but to wait andsee the crop ripen. Their good friend Younkins was in the samefortunate condition, and he was ready to suggest, to the intensedelight of the boys, that they might be able to run into a herd ofbuffalo, if they should take a notion to follow the old Indian trailout to the feeding-grounds. In those days there was no hunting west ofthe new settlement, except that by the Indians. In that vague andmysterious way by which reports travel--in the air, as it were--amongall frontier settlements, they had heard that buffalo were plenty inthe vast ranges to the westward, the herds moving slowly northward,grazing as they went. It was now the season of wild game, and so theboys were sent across to Younkins's to ask him what he thought of abuffalo-hunting trip.
Reaching his cabin, the good woman of the house told them that he hadgone into the tall timber near by, thinking he heard some sort of wildbirds in the underbrush. He had taken his gun with him; in fact,Younkins was seldom seen without his gun, except when he was at workin the fields. The boys gleefully followed Younkins's trail into theforest, making for an opening about a half-mile away, where Mrs.Younkins thought he was most likely to be found. "Major," the bigyellow dog, a special pet of Sandy's, accompanied them, although hismistress vainly tried to coax him back. Major was fond of boys'society.
"There's Younkins now!" cried Oscar, as they drew near an opening inthe wood into which the hot sunlight poured. Younkins was halfcrouching and cautiously making his way into the nearer side of theopening, and the boys, knowing that he was on the track of game,silently drew near, afraid of disturbing the hunter or the hunted.Suddenly Major, catching sight of the game, bounded forward with aloud bark into the tangle of berry bushes and vines. There was aconfused noise of wings, a whistle of alarm which also sounded likethe gobble of a turkey, and four tremendous birds rose up, and with amotion, that was partly a run and partly a flying, they disappearedinto the depths of the forest. To their intense surprise, the usuallyplacid Younkins turned savagely upon the dog, and saying, "Drat thatfool dog!" fired one barrel loaded with fine bird-shot into poorMajor.
"Four as fine wild turkeys as you ever saw in your life!" heexplained, as if in apology to the boys. "I was sure of at least twoof 'em; and that lunkhead of a dog must needs dash in and scare 'emup. It's too pesky blamed bad!"
The boys were greatly mortified at the disaster that they had broughtupon Younkins and Major by bringing the dog out with them. But whenCharlie, as the eldest, explained that they had no idea that Majorwould work mischief, Younkins said, "Never mind, boys, for you did notknow what was going on-like."
Younkins, ashamed, apparently, of his burst of temper, stooped down,and discovering that Major's wounds were not very serious, extractedthe shot, plucked a few leaves of some plant that he seemed to knowall about, and pressed the juice into the wounds made by the shot. Theboys looked on with silent admiration. This man knew everything, theythought. They had often marvelled to see how easily and unerringly hefound his way through woods, streams, and over prairies; now he showedthem another gift. He was a "natural-born doctor," as his wife proudlysaid of him.
"No turkey for supper to-night," said Younkins, as he picked up hisshot-gun and returned with the boys to the cabin. He was "right glad,"he said, to agree to go on a buffalo hunt, if the rest of the partywould like to go. He knew there must be buffalo off to the westward.He went with Mr. Fuller and Mr. Battles last year, about this time,and they had great luck. He would come over that evening and set adate with the other men for starting out together.
THEY WERE FEASTING THEMSELVES ON ONE OF THE DELICIOUSWATERMELONS THAT NOW SO PLENTIFULLY DOTTED THEIR OWN CORN-FIELD.]
Elated with this ready consent of Younkins, the lads went across theford, eager to tell their elders the story of the wild turkeys andpoor Major's exploit. Sandy, carrying his shot-gun on his shoulder,lingered behind while the other two boys hurried up the trail to thelog-cabin. He fancied that he heard a noise as of ducks quacking, inthe creek that emptied into the Fork just below the ford. So, makinghis way softly to the densely wooded bank of the creek, he parted thebranches with great caution and looked in. What a sight it was! Atleast fifty fine black ducks were swimming around, feeding andquacking sociably together, entirely unconscious of the wide-open blueeyes that were staring at them from behind the covert of the thicket.Sandy thought them even more wonderful and beautiful than the youngfawn and his dam that he had seen on the Fort Riley trail. For amoment, fascinated by the rare spectacle, he gazed wonderingly at theducks as they swam around, chasing each other, and eagerly hunting forfood. It was but for a moment, however. Then he raised his shot-gun,and taking aim into the thickest of the flock, fired both barrels inquick succession. Instantly the gay clamor of the pretty creaturesceased, and the flock rose with a loud whirring of wings, and wheeledaway over the tree-tops. The surface of the water, to Sandy's excitedimagination, seemed to be fairly covered with birds, some dead, andsome struggling with wounded limbs. The other two boys, startled bythe double report from Sandy's gun, came scampering down the trail,just as the lad, all excitement, was stripping off his clothes to wadeinto the creek for his game.
"Ducks! Black ducks! I've shot a million of 'em!" cried the boy,exultingly; and in another instant he plunged into the water up to hismiddle, gathering the ducks by the legs and bringing them to the bank,where Charlie and Oscar, discreetly keeping out of the oozy creek,received them, counting the birds as they threw them on the grass.
"Eighteen, all told!" shouted Oscar, when the last bird had beencaught, as it floundered about among the weeds, and brought ashore.
"Eighteen ducks in two shots!" cried Sandy, his freckled face fairlybeaming with delight. "Did ever anybody see such luck?"
They all thought that nobody ever had.
"What's that on your leg?" asked Oscar, stooping to pick from Sandy'sleg a long, brown object looking like a flat worm. To the boys'intense astonishment, the thing would not come off, but stretched outseveral inches in length, holding on by one end.
Sandy howled with pain. "It is something that bites," he cried.
"And there's another,--and another! Why, he's covered all over with'em!" exclaimed Oscar.
Sure enough, the lad's legs, if not exactly covered, were wellsprinkled with the things.
"Scrape 'em off with your knife!" cried Sandy.
Oscar usually carried a sheath-knife at his belt, "more for the styleof the thing, than use," he explained; so with this he quickly tookoff the repulsive creatures, which, loosening their hold, dropped tothe ground limp and shapeless.
"Leeches," said Charlie, briefly, as he poked one of them over with astick. The mystery was explained, and wherever one of them had beenattached to the boy's tender skin, blood flowed freely for a fewminutes, and then ceased. Even on one or two of the birds they found aleech adhering to the feathers where the poor thing's blood hadfollowed the shot. Picking up the game, the two boys escorted theelated Sandy to the cabin, where his unexpected adventures made himthe hero of the day.
"Couldn't we catch some of those leeches and sell them to thedoctors?" asked the practical Oscar.
His father shook his head. "American wild leeches like those are notgood for much, my son. I don't know why not; but I have been told thatonly the imported leeches are used by medical men."
"Well," said Sandy, tenderly rubbing his wounded legs, "if importedleeches can bite any more furiously than these Kansas ones do, I don'twant any of them to tackle me! I suppose these were hungry, though,not having had a taste of a fresh Illinois boy lately. But they didn'tmake much out of me, after all."
Very happy were those three boys that evening, as, filled with roastwild duck, they sat by and heard their elders discuss with Younkinsthe details of the grand buffalo hunt that was now to be organized.Younkins had seen Mr. Fuller, who had agreed to make one of the party.So there would be four men
and the three boys to compose theexpedition. They were to take two horses, Fuller's and Younkins's, toserve as pack-animals, for the way to the hunting-ground might belong; but the hunting was to be done on foot. Younkins was very surethat they would have no difficulty in getting near enough to shoot;the animals had not been hunted much in those parts at that time, andthe Indians killed them on foot very often. If Indians could do that,why could not white men?
The next two days were occupied in preparations for the expedition, tothe great delight of the boys, who recalled with amusement somethingof a similar feeling that they had when they were preparing for theirtrip to Kansas, long ago, away back in Dixon. How far off that allseemed now! Now they were in the promised land, and were going out tohunt for big game--buffalo! It seemed too good to be true.
Bread was made and baked; smoked side-meat, and pepper and saltpacked; a few potatoes taken, as a luxury in camp-life; blankets,guns, and ammunition prepared; and above all, plenty of coffee,already browned and ground, was packed for use. It was a merry and abuoyant company that started out in the early dawn of a Septembermorning, having snatched a hasty breakfast, of which the excited boyshad scarcely time to taste. Buffalo beef, they confidently said, wastheir favorite meat. They would dine on buffalo hump that very day.
Oscar, more cautious than the others, asked Younkins if they were sureto see buffalo soon.
"Surely," replied he; "I was out to the bend of the Fork just abovethe bluffs, last night, and the plains were just full of 'em, justsimply black-like, as it were."
"What?" exclaimed all three boys, in a breath. "Plains full of them,and you didn't even mention it! What a funny man you are."
Mr. Howell reminded them that Mr. Younkins had been accustomed to seebuffalo for so long that he did not think it anything worth mentioningthat he had seen vast numbers of the creatures already. So, as theypressed on, the boys strained their eyes in the distance, looking forbuffalo. But no animals greeted their sight, as they passed over thelong green swales of the prairie, mile after mile, now rising to thetop of a little eminence, and now sinking into a shallow valley; butoccasionally a sneaking, stealthy coyote would noiselessly trot intoview, and then, after cautiously surveying them from a distance,disappear, as Sandy said, "as if he had sunk into a hole in theground." It was in vain that they attempted to get near enough to oneof these wary animals to warrant a shot. It is only by great good luckthat anybody ever shoots a coyote, although in countries where theyabound every man's hand is against them; they are such arrant thieves,as well as cowards.
But at noon, while the little party was taking a luncheon in the shadeof a solitary birch that grew by the side of a little creek, orrunlet, Sandy, the irrepressible, with his bread and meat in his hand,darted off to the next roll of the prairie, a high and swelling hill,in fact, "to see what he could see." As soon as the lad had reachedthe highest part of the swale, he turned around and swung his armsexcitedly, too far off to make his voice heard. He jumped up and down,whirled his arms, and acted altogether like a young lunatic.
"The boy sees buffalo," said Younkins, with a smile of calm amusement.He could hardly understand why anybody should be excited over socommonplace a matter. But the other two lads were off like a shot inSandy's direction. Reaching their comrade, they found him in a stateof great agitation. "Oh, look at 'em! Look at 'em! Millions onmillions! Did anybody ever see the like?"
Perhaps Sandy's estimate of the numbers was a little exaggerated, butit really was a wonderful sight. The rolls of the prairie, four orfive miles away, were dark with the vast and slow-moving herds thatwere passing over, their general direction being toward the spot onwhich the boys were standing. Now and again, some animals strayed offin broken parties, but for the most part the phalanx seemed to besolid, so solid that the green of the earth was completely hidden bythe dense herd.
The boys stood rooted to the spot with the intensity of their wonderand delight. If there were not millions in that vast army of buffalo,there were certainly hundreds of thousands. What would happen if thatgreat mob should suddenly take a notion to gallop furiously in theirdirection?
"You needn't whisper so," said Charlie, noticing the awe-struck tonesof the youngsters. "They can't hear you, away off there. Why, the verynearest of the herd cannot be less than five miles off; and they wouldrun from us, rather than toward us, if they were to see and hear us."
"I asked Younkins if he ever had any trouble with a buffalo when hewas hunting, and what do you suppose he said?" asked Oscar, who hadrecovered his voice. "Well, he said that once he was out on horseback,and had cornered a young buffalo bull in among some limestone ledgesup there on the Upper Fork, and 'the critter turned on him and made anasty noise with his mouth-like,' so that he was glad to turn and run.'Nasty noise with his mouth,' I suppose was a sort of a snort--asnort-like, as Younkins would say. There come the rest of the folks.My! won't daddy be provoked that we didn't go back and help hitchup!"
But the elders of the party had not forgotten that they were once boysthemselves, and when they reached the point on which the lads stoodsurveying the sight, they also were stirred to enthusiasm. The greatherd was still moving on, the dark folds of the moving mass undulatinglike the waves of a sea, as the buffalo rose and fell upon the surfaceof the rolling prairie.
As if the leaders had spied the hunters, the main herd now swung awaymore to the right, or northward, only a few detached parties comingtoward the little group of hunters that still watched them silentlyfrom its elevated point of observation.
Younkins surveyed the movement critically and then announced it as hisopinion that the herd was bound for the waters of the Republican Fork,to the right and somewhat to the northward of the party. The bestcourse for them to take now would be to try and cut off the animalsbefore they could reach the river. There was a steep and bluffy bankat the point for which the buffalo seemed to be aiming; that woulddivert them further up stream, and if the hunters could only creepalong in the low gullies of the prairie, out of the sight of the herd,they might reach the place where the buffalo would cross before theycould get there; for the herd moved slowly; an expert walker could farout-travel them in a direct line.
"One of you boys will have to stay here by the stuff; the rest of uswill press on in the direction of the river as fast as may be," saidUncle Aleck. The boys looked at each other in dismay. Who would bewilling to be left behind in a chase so exciting as this? Sandybravely solved the puzzle.
"Here, you take my shot-gun, Charlie," he said. "It carries fartherthan yours; I'll stay by the stuff and the horses; I'm pretty tired,anyhow." His father smiled approvingly, but said nothing. He knew howgreat a sacrifice the boy was making for the others.
Left alone on the hill-top, for the rest of the party moved silentlyand swiftly away to the northward, Sandy felt the bitterness ofdisappointment as well as of loneliness while he sat on the grasswatching with absorbed attention the motions of the great herds. Alltrace of his companions was soon lost as they passed down into thegullies and ravines that broke the ground adjacent to the Fork to thewestward of the stream. Once, indeed, he saw the figures of thehunters, painted dark against the sky, rise over a distant swell anddisappear just as one of them turned and waved a signal in dumb showto the solitary watcher on the hill.
"If those buffalo should get stampeded," mused Sandy, "and make abreak in this way, it would be 'all day' with those horses and thecamp stuff. I guess I had better make all fast, for there may be agale of wind, or a gale of buffalo, which is the same thing." Sosaying, the thoughtful lad led the animals down into the gully wherethe noon luncheon had been taken, removed their packs, tethered themto the tree, and then ran back to the hill-top and resumed his watch.
There was no change in the situation except that there were, ifpossible, more buffalo moving over the distant slopes of the rollingprairie. The boy stood entranced at the sight. More, more, and yetmore of the herds were slowly moving into sight and then disappearingin the gullies below. The dark brown folds seemed to e
nvelop the faceof the earth. Sandy wondered where so many creatures could findpasturage. Their bodies appeared to cover the hills and valleys, sothat there could not be room left for grazing. "They've got such bigfeet," he soliloquized aloud, "that I should think that the groundwould be all pawed up where they have travelled." In the ecstasy ofhis admiration, he walked to and fro on the hill-top, talking tohimself, as was his wont.
"I wonder if the other fellows can see them as I do?" he asked. "Idon't believe, after all, that it is one-half so entertaining for themas it is for me. Oh, I just wish the folks at home could be here now,and see this sight. It beats all nature, as Father Dixon used to say.And to think that there are thousands of people in big cities whodon't have meat enough to eat. And all this buffalo-meat runningwild!" The boy laughed to himself at the comicality of the thought."Fresh beef running wild!"
The faint report of a gun fired afar off now reached his ear and hesaw a blue puff of smoke rising from the crest of a timber-borderedhill far away. The herd in that direction seemed to swerve somewhatand scatter, but, to his intense surprise, there was no hurry in theirmovements; the brown and black folds of the great mass of animalsstill slowly and sluggishly spread out and flowed like the tides ofthe sea, enveloping everything. Suddenly there was another report,then another, and another. Three shots in quick succession.
"Now they are getting in their work!" shouted the boy, fairly dancingup and down in his excitement. "Oh, I wish I was there instead of herelooking on!"
Now the herds wavered for a moment, then their general direction waschanged from the northward to the eastward. Then there was a swift andsudden movement of the whole mass, and the vast dark stream flowed ina direction parallel with the Fork instead of toward it, asheretofore.
"They are coming this way!" shouted Sandy, to the empty, silent airaround him. "I'll get a shot at 'em yet!" Then, suddenly recollectingthat his gun had been exchanged for his brother's, he added, "AndCharlie's gun is no good!"
In truth, the herd was now bound straight for the hill on which theboy maintained his solitary watch. Swiftly running down to the gullyin which the horses were tethered, Sandy got out his brother's gun andcarefully examined the caps and the load. They had run some heavyslugs of lead in a rude mould which they had made, the slug being justthe size of the barrel of the shot-gun. One barrel was loaded with aheavy charge of buckshot, and the other with a slug. The latter was anexperiment, and a big slug like that could not be expected to carryvery far; it might, however, do much damage at short range.
Running up to the head of the gully, which was in the nature of ashallow ravine draining the hill above, Sandy emerged on the highestpoint of land, a few hundred feet to the right and north of his formerpost of observation. The herd was in full drive directly toward him.Suppose they should come driving down over the hills where he was!They would sweep down into the gully, stampede the horses, andtrample all the camp stuff into bits! The boy fairly shook withexcitement as the idea struck him. On they came, the solid groundshaking under their thundering tread.
"I must try to head 'em off," said the boy to himself. "The least Ican do is to scare them a good bit, and then they'll split in two andthe herd will divide right here. But I must get a shot at one, or theother fellows will laugh at me."
The rushing herd was headed right for the spot where Sandy stood,spreading out to the left and right, but with the centre of thephalanx steering in a bee-line for the lad. Thoroughly alarmed now,Sandy looked around, and perceiving a sharp outcropping of theunderlying stratum of limestone at the head of the little ravine, heresolved to shelter himself behind that, in case the buffalo shouldcontinue to come that way. Notwithstanding his excitement, the lad didnot fail to note two discharges, one after the other, in the distance,showing that his friends were still keeping up a fusillade against theflying herds.
At the second shot, Sandy thought that the masses in the rear swungoff more to the southward, as if panic-stricken by the firing, but theadvance guard still maintained a straight line for him. There was noescape from it now, and Sandy looked down at the two horses tetheredin the ravine below, peacefully grazing the short, thick grass,unconscious of the flood of buffalo undulating over the prairie abovethem, and soon to swoop down over the hill-side where they were. Inanother instant the lad could see the tossing, shaggy manes of theleaders of the herd, and could even distinguish the redness of theireyes as they swept up the incline, at the head of which he stood. Hehastily dodged behind the crag of rock; it was a small affair, hardlyhigher than his head, but wide enough, he thought, to divide the herdwhen they came to it. So he ducked behind it and waited for comingevents.
Sandy was right. Just beyond the rock behind which he was crouched,the ground fell off rapidly and left a stiff slope, up which even astampeded buffalo would hardly climb. The ground trembled as the vastarmy of living creatures came tumbling and thundering over theprairie. Sandy, stooping behind the outcropping, also trembled, partlywith excitement and partly with fear. If the buffalo were to plungeover the very small barrier between him and them, his fate was sealed.For an instant his heart stood still. It was but for an instant, for,before he could draw a long breath, the herd parted on the two sidesof the little crag. The divided stream poured down on both sides ofhim, a tumultuous, broken, and disorderly torrent of animals, makingno sound except for the ceaseless beat of their tremendous hoofs.Sandy's eyes swam with the bewildering motion of the living stream.For a brief space he saw nothing but a confused mass of heads, backs,and horns, hundreds of thousands flowing tumultuously past. Graduallyhis sense of security came back to him, and, exulting in his safety,he raised his gun, and muttering under his breath, "Right behind thefore-shoulder-like, Younkins said," he took steady aim and fired. Ayoung buffalo bull tumbled headlong down the ravine. In their madhaste, a number of the animals fell over him, pell-mell, but,recovering themselves with incredible swiftness, they skipped to theirfeet, and were speedily on their way down the hill. Sandy watched,with a beating heart, the young bull as he fell heels over head two orthree times before he could rally; the poor creature got upon hisfeet, fell again, and while the tender-hearted boy hesitated whetherto fire the second barrel or not, finally fell over on his sidehelpless.
Meanwhile the ranks of buffalo coming behind swerved from the fallenanimal to the left and right, as if by instinct, leaving an open spaceall around the point where the boy stood gazing at his fallen game. Hefired, almost at random, at the nearest of the flying buffalo; but thebuckshot whistled hurtlessly among the herd, and Sandy thought tohimself that it was downright cruelty to shoot among them, for thescattering shot would only wound without killing the animals.
It was safe now for Sandy to emerge from his place of concealment,and, standing on the rocky point behind which he had been hidden, hegazed to the west and north. The tumbling masses of buffalo werescattered far apart. Here and there he could see wide stretches ofprairie, no longer green, but trampled into a dull brown by the treadof myriads of hurrying feet; and far to the north the land was clear,as if the main herd had passed down to the southward. Scattered bandsstill hurried along above him, here and there, nearer to the Fork, butthe main herd had gone on in the general direction of the settlers'home.
"What if they have gone down to our cabin?" he muttered aloud. "It'sall up with any corn-field that they run across. But, then, they musthave kept too far to the south to get anywhere near our claim." Andthe lad consoled himself with this reflection.
But his game was more engrossing of his attention just now thananything else. He had been taught that an animal should not bleed todeath through a gunshot wound. His big leaden slug had gone directlythrough the buffalo's vitals somewhere, for it was now quite dead.Sandy stood beside the noble beast with a strange elation, looking atit before he could make up his mind to cut its throat and let out theblood. It was a young bull buffalo that lay before him, the short,sharp horns ploughed into the ground, and the massive form, so latelybounding over the rolling prairie, forever still. To San
dy it allseemed like a dream, it had come and gone so quickly. His heartmisgave him as he looked, for Sandy had a tender heart. Then he gentlytouched the animal with the toe of his boot and cried, "All by my ownself!"
HE GENTLY TOUCHED THE ANIMAL WITH THE TOE OF HIS BOOT ANDCRIED, "ALL BY MY OWN SELF."]
"Well done, Sandy!" The boy started, turned, and beheld his cousinOscar gazing open-mouthed at the spectacle. "And did you shoot him allby your very own self? What with? Charlie's gun?" The lad poured fortha torrent of questions, and Sandy proudly answered them all with,"That is what I did."
As the two boys hung with delight over the prostrate beast, Oscar toldthe tale of disappointment that the others had to relate. They hadgone up the ravines that skirted the Fork, prowling on their hands andknees; but the watchers of the herd were too wary to let the huntersget near enough for a good shot. They had fired several times, but hadbrought down nothing. Sandy had heard the shots? Yes, Sandy had heard,and had hoped that somebody was having great sport. After all, hethought, as he looked at the fallen monarch of the prairie, it wasrather cruel business. Oscar did not think so; he wished he had hadsuch luck.
The rest of the party now came up, one after another, and all gave awhoop of astonishment and delight at Sandy's great success as soon asthey saw his noble quarry.
The sun was now low in the west; here was a good place for camping; alittle brush would do for firing, and water was close at hand. So thetired hunters, after a brief rest, while they lay on the trampledgrass and recounted the doings of the day, went to work at the game.The animal was dressed, and a few choice pieces were hung on the treeto cool for their supper. It was dark when they gathered around theircheerful fire, as the cool autumnal evening came on, and cooked andate with infinite zest their first buffalo-meat. Boys who have neverbeen hungry with the hunger of a long tramp over the prairies, hungryfor their first taste of big game of their own shooting, cannotpossibly understand how good to the Boy Settlers was their supper onthe wind-swept slopes of the Kansas plains.
Wrapping themselves as best they could in the blankets and buffalo-robesbrought from home, the party lay down in the nooks and corners ofthe ravine, first securing the buffalo-meat on the tree that madetheir camp.
"What, for goodness' sake, is that?" asked Charlie, querulously, as hewas roused out of his sleep by a dismal cry not far away in thedarkness.
"Wolves," said Younkins, curtly, as he raised himself on one elbow tolisten. "The pesky critters have smelt blood; they would smell it ifthey were twenty miles off, I do believe, and they are gathering roundas they scent the carcass."
By this, all of the party were awake except Sandy, who, worn out withexcitement, perhaps, slept on through all the fearful din. The meanlittle prairie-wolves gathered, and barked, and snarled, in thedistance. Nearer, the big wolves howled like great dogs, their longhowl occasionally breaking into a bark; and farther and farther off,away in the extremest distance, they could hear other wolves, whosehollow-sounding cry seemed like an echo of their more fortunatebrethren, nearer the game. A party of the creatures were busy at theoffal from the slain buffalo, just without the range of the firelight,for the camp-fire had been kept alight. Into the struggling, snarlinggroup Younkins discharged his rifle. There was a sharp yell of pain, aconfused patter of hurrying feet, and in an instant all was still.
Sandy started up. "Who's shot another buffalo?" he asked, as ifstruggling with a dream. The others laughed, and Charlie explainedwhat had been going on, and the tired boy lay down to sleep again. Butthat was not a restful night for any of the campers. The wolvesrenewed their howling. The hunters were able to snatch only a fewbreaths of sleep from time to time, in moments when the dismalululation of the wolf-chorus subsided. The sun rose, flooding therolling prairies with a wealth of golden sunshine. The weary camperslooked over the expanse around them, but not a remnant of therejected remains of the buffalo was to be seen; and in all thelandscape about, no sign of any living thing was in sight, save wheresome early-rising jack-rabbit scudded over the torn sod, hunting forhis breakfast.
Fresh air, bright sunlight, and a dip in a cool stream are the bestcorrectives for a head heavy with want of sleep; and the hunters,refreshed by these and a pot of strong and steaming coffee, were soonready for another day's sport.
Boy Settlers: A Story of Early Times in Kansas Page 16
