by Zane Grey
At sunset the Hudnall wagons began to draw near a richly green depression of the prairie, where a stream wound its way. And when Hudnall, now far in the lead, turned off the road, Tom was suddenly compelled to pay some attention to the foreground.
Horses were grazing in the grass; tents shone white against the background of green trees; a campfire sparkled, and around it stood men. Soldiers! Tom’s heart gave a leap. Captain Singleton and his men had forged ahead, probably during the delay caused by the buffalo herd.
Tom urged his team to a trot and soon caught up with Burn Hudnall, who turned off the main road toward the camp. Tom followed closely, to be annoyed by the fact that Burn’s wagon obstructed his view. Once or twice Tom caught a glimpse of the tents, and the fire; yet peer keenly as he could, he did not discern any women. His heart sank. If Molly were there, she would be out watching the wagons drive up. Tom passed from joy to sadness. Yet hope would not wholly die. He kept looking, and all the time, up to the very halt, Burn’s wagon prevented him from seeing everything. Therein lay his one hope.
“Hey, Burn, don’t you an’ Tom drive those smelly hides right in camp!” yelled Hudnall.
Thus admonished, Tom wheeled his team away from the camp, which act Burn was precisely emulating, and still obstructing Tom’s vision. But there had to be an end to it sometime. The next time Tom looked up, after he had halted the team, he was probably fifty yards from the campfire.
He saw soldiers in dusty blue; Hudnall’s stalwart form; all three of the Hudnall women, and then a girl in gray, waving an excited hand at him. Tom stared. But the gray dress, almost white and mightily stylish, could not disguise the form it covered. Molly! He recognized her before he saw her face.
With surging emotions Tom leaped off the wagon, and strode forward. In the acute moment, not knowing what to expect, trying to stifle his extraordinary agitation, Tom dropped his head until he came to the half circle of people before him. Their faces seemed a blur, yet intent, curious on him. Molly stepped into clear sight toward him. She was pale. Her eyes shone large and dark as night. A wonderful smile transfigured her. Tom felt the need of effort almost beyond him—to greet Molly without betraying their secret.
But Molly was not going to keep any secrets. He felt that, saw it, and consternation routed his already weakened control.
“Oh, Tom!” she cried radiantly, and, as once before, ran straight into his arms. Only this was terrible, because she forgot everybody present except him, and he could not forget them. She almost kissed him before he had wit enough to kiss her first. With that kiss his locked boyish emotions merged into one great gladness. Releasing Molly, he stepped beside her and, placing his arm around her, moved to face that broadly smiling amazed circle.
“Missus Hudnall, this is my . . . my girl, Molly Fayre,” he said.
“Tom Doan! For the lands’ sake!” ejaculated the kindly woman. “Your girl . . .! Well, Molly Fayre, I’m right happy to make your acquaintance.”
She warmly kissed Molly, and then introduced her to Sally and Mrs. Burn Hudnall. That appeared to be sufficient introduction for all present.
Hudnall was the most astonished of men, and certainly delighted.
“Wal, Molly, I reckon Tom Doan’s boss is sure glad to meet you,” he said, and shook his head with a quaint formality. “Would you mind tellin’ me where this scallywag ever found such a pretty girl?”
“He found me . . . out here,” replied Molly shyly.
“Ah,” cried Sally Hudnall, “now I know why Tom used to slip away from camp almost every night!”
“An’ leave off peggin’ buffalo hides till the gray mornin’,” swiftly added Hudnall. “I always wondered about that.”
Amid the laughter and banter of these good people Tom stood his ground as long as possible, then, seeing that in their kindly way they had taken Molly to their hearts, he left her with them, and hurried to unhitch the team he had driven.
Burn Hudnall followed him. “You buffalo-skinnin’ son-of-agun!” he exclaimed, in awe and admiration. “She’s a hummer! By gosh, you’re lucky. . . . Did you see Sally’s face? Say, Tom, she was half sweet on you. An’ now we know why you’ve been so shy of women.”
“Shy? Say, Burn, I’ve been a devil with the women,” lied Tom blissfully.
“Damn if I don’t believe you,” replied Burn. “Take a hunch from me an’ hang on to this one.”
Upon returning to camp, Tom met Captain Singleton, who had a smile and a cordial handshake for him.
“Well, lad, I fetched her, but it was no easy job,” he said. “She’s a sweet and pretty girl. You’re to be congratulated.”
“Was Jett hard to manage?” queried Tom, intensely interested.
“Yes, at first. I had trouble with him. Rough sort of man! Finally he agreed to let her come to the freighting post until the Indian scare quieted down. He wouldn’t let his wife come and she didn’t want to. She struck me as being almost as able to take care of herself as any man.”
“Well,” responded Tom bluntly.
“Lad, don’t worry,” replied the officer, understanding Tom’s sudden check of enthusiasm and warmth. “This Indian scare will last. It’ll grow from scare to panic. Not until the buffalo are gone will the Indians quit the warpath. Maybe not till they’re dead.”
On the second day following, about noon, the Hudnall outfit, with their escort, arrived at Sprague’s Post, which was situated on a beautiful creek some miles below Fort Elliott. Here the soldiers left the party and went on their way.
Sprague was one of the mushroom frontier posts that had sprung up overnight. It consisted mainly of a huge one-story structure built of logs, and served as a sutler’s store, as well as protection against possible Indian attacks. The short street was lined with cabins, tents, and shacks, and adjacent to the store were acres and acres of buffalo hides piled high. There was a dance hall, several saloons, a hotel, and restaurant, all in the full blast. Buffalo outfits, coming and going, freighters doing the same, in considerable number, accounted for the activity of this post. The sutler’s store, which was owned by Sprague, was a general supply center for the whole northern section of Texas.
Hudnall engaged quarters for the womenfolk, including Molly, that were almost luxurious compared to those they had been living in out on the prairie. Sally Hudnall was to share her room, which had board floor and frame, roofed by canvas, with Molly, and the other Hudnall women had two rooms adjoining, one of which would serve as a kitchen. Hudnall had only to buy stove, utensils, supplies, and fuel, to establish his wife and companions to their satisfaction.
Tom could hardly have hoped for any more, and felt that he would be always indebted to the Hudnalls. Fortune had indeed favored him by throwing his lot in with theirs.
Hudnall sold his hides to Sprague, getting $3 for the best robe cowhides, $2.50 for the bulls, and $1.75 for the rest. His profits were large, as he frankly admitted, and told Tom he thought it only fair to pay more for skinning. As for Tom, the roll of bills given to him for his earnings was such that it made him speechless. At the store he bought himself much-needed clothing and footgear, and a new rifle with abundance of cartridges. Nor did he forget to leave some money with Mrs. Hudnall, for Molly’s use, after he had gone. But he did not tell Molly of this.
“Tom,” said Hudnall seriously, where they had turned the horses loose in the fine grama grass outside of town, “I never saw the beat of this place right here for a ranch. Did you? Look at that soil!”
Tom certainly had not. It was rich prairie land, rolling away to the horizon, and crossed by several winding, green-lined streams.
“Gee! I’d like to shove a plow into that,” added Hudnall, picking up the turf. “Someday, Tom, all this will be in wheat or corn, or pasture for stock. Take my hunch, boy, we haven’t seen its beat. We’ll run up a cabin at the end of this hunt, an’ winter here. Then by another spring we can tell.”
Tom found Sprague’s Post the most interesting place that he had ever visited, and cons
iderably much too wild, even in daytime. Dance hall and gambling hall, however, had only momentary attraction for him. Sprague’s store was the magnet that drew him. Here he learned a great deal.
The buffalo south on the Brazos and Pease Rivers had at last turned north, and would soon fall in with the great herd along the Red River. This meant that practically all the buffalo in the Southwest would concentrate between the Red River and the Staked Plains—an innumerable tremendous mass. The Comanches were reported to be south of this herd, traveling toward the Red, and the Kiowas were up on the Staked Plains, chasing buffalo out; Cheyennes and Arapahoes, whose hunting ground had always been north of this latitude, were traveling south, owing to the fact that the annual migration of buffalo had failed this year. Failed because of the white hunters! An Indian war was inevitable.
Tom heard that Indian Territory was now being guarded by United States marshals; Kansas had passed laws forbidding the killing of buffalo; Colorado had done likewise. This summer would see all the buffalo hunters congregated in Texas. That meant the failure of the great herds to return north into Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado. The famous hunting grounds along the Platte and Republican Rivers would be barren. It seemed a melancholy thing, even to Tom, who had been so eager to earn his share of the profits. It was a serious matter for the state legislatures to pass laws such as this. No doubt Texas would do the same.
Tom reasoned out this conclusion before he learned that at this very time the Texas Legislature were meeting to consider a bill to protect buffalo in their state. So far it had been held up by remarks credited to General Phil Sheridan, who was then stationed at San Antonio, in command of the military department of the Southwest. Sprague gave Tom a newspaper to read, and spoke forcibly.
“Sheridan went to Austin an’ shore set up thet meetin’. Told the senators an’ representatives they were a lot of sentimental old women. They’d make a blunder to protect the buffalo! He said the hunters ought to have money sent them, instead of discouragement. They ought to have medals with a dead buffalo on one side an’ a dead Injun on the other.”
Tom was strongly stirred by the remarks credited to General Sheridan, and he took the newspaper to the Hudnalls, and read the passage.
These buffalo hunters have done more in the last year to settle the Indian trouble than the entire regular army has done in thirty years. They are destroying the Indians’ commissary. Send them powder and lead! . . . Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then the prairie can be covered with speckled cattle.
“Great!” boomed Hudnall, slapping his big hand down. “But darn it . . . tough on the Indians!”
Tom was confronted then with a strange thought; he like Hudnall felt pity for the Indians, yet none for the buffalo. There was something wrong in that. Later, when he told Molly about what he had heard, and especially Hudnall’s expression of sympathy, she said: “Tom, it’s because of the money. You men can’t see right. Would you steal money from the Indians?”
“Why, certainly not,” declared Tom, with uplift of hand.
“You are stealing their food,” she went on seriously. “Their meat . . . out of their mouths. Not because you’re hungry, but to get rich. Oh, Tom, it’s wrong.”
Tom felt troubled for the first time. He could not laugh this off and he did not have any argument prepared to defend his case.
“Tom Doan,” she added very sweetly and gravely, “I’ll have something to say to you . . . about killing buffalo . . . when you come to me on my eighteenth birthday.”
Tom could only kiss her for that speech, subtle, yet wonderful with its portent as to her surrender to him, but he knew then, and carried away with him next morning, the conviction that Molly would not marry him unless he promised to give up buffalo hunting.
Chapter Nine
As Tom drove his team after the Hudnalls, southward along the well-beaten military road, he carried also with him a thought of his parting from Molly—and something about her words or looks was like the one bitter drop in his sweet cup.
Early as had been the hour, Molly with the Hudnall women had arisen to prepare breakfast and see their menfolk off. Hudnall and Burn were having their troubles breaking away from wives, daughter, and sister, so they had no time to note the poignancy of Molly’s farewell to Tom.
At the last she had come close to Tom, fastening her trembling hands to his hunting coat. She looked up into his eyes, suddenly mournful, strange.
“Tom, you are all I have in the world,” she said.
“Well, dear, I’m all yours,” he had replied tenderly.
“You must not stay away long.”
“I’ll come back the very first chance,” Tom had promised.
“You should not leave me . . . at all,” she had whimpered then, very low.
“Why, Molly . . . you’re safe here now,” he expostulated.
“I’ll never be safe until . . . until Jett has no right over me.”
“But he will not come for you. Captain Singleton and Sprague say the Indian scare has just begun.”
“Tom . . . I’ll never be safe . . . until you take me.”
“Dearest . . .” he had entreated, and then Hudnall boomed out: “Come on, break away, you young folks!” And there had been only time for a last embrace.
Molly’s last look haunted Tom. How big, black, staring, tragic her eyes! How beautiful, too—and their expression was owing to love of him. His heart swelled until it pained. Was it right to leave her? He could have found work at Sprague’s. A remorse began to stir in him. If he had only not been so poor—if he only had not been compelled to hunt buffalo! He realized that he was returning to the buffalo fields no longer free, bearing the weight of a terrible responsibility, a good, lonely girl’s happiness, perhaps her life.
The summer morning was warm, colorful, fragrant with soft breeze off the prairie, full of melody of birds, and bright with the rising sun. But Tom did not respond as usual. The morning passed, and the hot afternoon was far spent before he could persuade and argue himself into something of his old mood. Common sense helped him. The chances of his returning to find Molly safe and well were very much greater than otherwise, yet he could not forget the last few moments they had been together, when under stress of fear and sorrow she had betrayed Jett’s real status and her own fatalism. All that day Molly was in his thoughts, and afterward, when he lay in his bed, with the dark-blue star-studded sky open to his sleepless gaze, and later in his troubled dreams.
* * * * *
It took Hudnall only ten days and a half, hauling wagons, to return to the Red River camp. Conditions were identically the same as before the trip. Pilchuck and his three helpers had killed and skinned three hundred and twenty-five buffalo during Hudnall’s absence. The chief of the outfit was delighted, and late in the afternoon as it was, he wanted to go right at the slaughter.
“Take it easy,” growled Pilchuck. “We want some fresh grub an’ some news.”
Manifestly Pilchuck, and his associates, had not fared well since the departure of the womenfolk. “Damn the pesky redskins, anyhow,” he complained to Hudnall. “Who’s goin’ to cook?”
“We’ll take our turn,” replied Hudnall cheerfully.
“Lot of fine cooks we got in this outfit,” he growled. “Wal, there’s one consolation, anyway . . . reckon we won’t have to eat much longer.”
“An’ why not?” demanded Hudnall in surprise. “I fetched back a wagon load of grub.”
“Wal, we’re goin’ to be scalped by Comanches directly.”
“Bosh!” boomed Hudnall, half in anger. “You plainsmen make me sick. You’re worse than the soldiers. All this rant about Indian raids! We’ve been out over two months an’ haven’t seen a single Indian, tame or wild.”
The scout gazed steadfastly at Hudnall, and the narrow slits of his eyes emitted a gray-blue flash, cold as light on steel.
“It’s men like you who can’t savvy the West, an’ won’t listen, that get scalped b
y Indians,” he said with a ring in his voice.
Hudnall fumed a moment, but his good nature prevailed, and he soon laughed away the effect of Pilchuck’s hard speech. Dread he seemed to lack.
Next morning Tom followed the others of the Hudnall outfit out to the chase, which they returned to with redoubled energy and a fiercer determination. Concrete rewards in shape of gold and greenbacks paid to them by Hudnall were the spurs to renewed strength.
Tom started that day badly. Just as he came within range of the first buffalo and aimed at it, he thought of Molly’s reproachful dark eyes and he wavered so that he crippled the beast. It escaped into the herd. Tom was furious with himself for wounding a buffalo that could only limp away to die a lingering death. After that he put squeamishness out of his mind and settled down into the deadly and dangerous business of hide hunting.
The day was one of ceaseless and strenuous labors, extending long after dark. Bed was a priceless boon; memory had little opportunity; sleep was something swift and irresistible.
Thus was ushered in the second phase of Tom Doan’s buffalo hunting.
* * * * *
The vast herd of buffalo, reported by Pilchuck to be several miles wide and more miles in length than any conservative scout would risk estimating, never got farther north than the vicinity of the Red River.
Gradually it was driven west along the river to the North Fork, which it crossed, and then, harassed by the hunters behind and flanked on the west by the barren rise of the Staked Plains, it turned south, grazing and traveling steadily, to make the wide and beautiful Pease River divide in ten days.
Here began a fearful carnage. Hudnall’s outfit fell in with the thick of the buffalo hunters, many of whom had been a year at the game. They were established in name and manifestly proud of that fact.
