by Zane Grey
Slowly Stronghurl rose, at last seriously concerned, but resigned and forceful. “Reckon you can lick me, Hudnall,” he said, “an’, if it’s goin’ to make you feel better, let’s get it over.”
For answer Hudnall seemed to change, to expand, and, throwing back his shaggy head, he let out a stentorian roar of laughter. That eased the situation. Pilchuck also broke out, and the others, except Dave, joined him to the extent of their mirth. Hudnall was the last to recover, following which he shoved a brawny hand at Stronghurl.
“Dave, I was mad, natural-like, but your takin’ me serious about fightin’ over Sally was funny. Why, bless your heart, I’m glad for Sally an’ you, even if you didn’t ask me, an’ I wish you prosperity an’ long life.”
Stronghurl’s armor of density was not proof against this bighearted and totally unexpected acceptance and approval, and he showed in his sudden embarrassment and halting response that he was deeply moved. Nor did he take the congratulations of the rest of the outfit as calmly as might have been supposed he would, from his announcement of his marriage. Ory Jacks showed to advantage in his sincere and manly overture of friendliness.
What with this incident, and the news of Sprague to be told to Hudnall and Pilchuck, and their recital of the hunting conditions to Tom and Dave, the outfit did not soon get the day’s hides pegged down, or to their much needed beds.
* * * * *
Next morning Hudnall made the suggestion that each and all of the outfit would ride out of their way to look over new camps and to inquire of hunters as to the whereabouts of Randall Jett.
“Tom, we can’t stop work altogether, but we can all spare some time,” he said. “An’ I’ll drive the wagon out an’ back, so you’ll have time to ride along the river. It’s my idea we’ll find Molly pronto.”
“Then what?” queried Tom, thrilling deeply with this good man’s assurance.
“Wal, you can leave that to me,” interposed Pilchuck dryly. Tom was quick to sense something in the scout’s mind that had not been spoken.
But that day and the next, and the following passed fleetly by without any trace of Jett’s outfit being discovered. Ten miles up and down the river, on the west bank, had been visited by someone of Hudnall’s outfit. No three-wagon camp had been located.
“Shore Jett must be across the river,” averred Pilchuck. “There’s outfits strung along, an’ enough buffalo for him.”
“What’ll I do?” queried Tom appealingly.
“Wal, son, you can’t work an’ do the job right,” replied the scout. “I’d take a couple of days off. Ride down the river twenty miles or so, then cross an’ come back on the other side. If that don’t fetch results, ride up the river, cross, an’ come back. Ask about Indians, too, an’ keep your eyes peeled.”
Tom’s saddle horse, Dusty, had been ridden by Burn Hudnall and Pilchuck, also, during Tom’s absence, and had developed into a fleet, tireless steed only second to Pilchuck’s best buffalo chaser. Next morning Tom set off, mounted on Dusty. Well-armed, with a small store of food, a canteen of water, and a field glass, he turned a resolute face to the task before him.
In less than two hours he had passed the ten-mile limit of his search so far, and had entered unfamiliar country, where camps were many, and buffalo apparently as thick as bees around a hive. But very few of the camps had an occupant; at that hour all the men of each outfit were engaged up on the prairie, as the incessant boom of guns proved. How Tom’s eyes strained and ached to catch a glimpse of the red scarf Molly said she would put up wherever she was! What bitter disappointment when he espied a blanket, or anything holding a touch of red.
From each camp Tom would ride up the prairie slope to a level and out toward the black-fringed, dust-mantled moving medium that was buffalo. Thus he came upon hunters, skinners, teamsters, all of whom gave him less cordial greeting than he had gotten from hide hunters before he went north. It took some moments for Tom to make his sincerity felt. These men were rushed for time, and a feeling of aloofness from strangers had manifestly passed south from camp to camp. Not one of them could or would give him any clue to Jett’s outfit.
“Air you lookin’ fer hide thieves?” queried one old grizzled hunter.
“No. I’m looking for a girl who has been brought down here by a man named Jett.”
“Sorry. Never heerd of him. But if you was lookin’ for hide thieves, I’d be damned interested,” replied the hunter.
“Why?” asked Tom curiously.
“Because I had eleven hundred hides stole from my camp,” he replied, “an’ ain’t never heerd of them since, let alone seein’ hide or hair.”
“Too bad. Is there much of this dirty work going on?”
“How’n hell can we tell thet?” retorted the man. “Thar’s forty square miles of buffler, millin’ an’ movin’. Thar’s a lot of hunters millin’ an’ movin’, too. Nobody can keep track of anyone. It’s all mad rush. But some dirty sneaks air gittin’ rich on other men’s work.”
Very few men Tom encountered, however, had any words to spare, and before that day was over he decided not to interrogate any more. It went against his grain to be regarded with hard cold suspicious eyes. There was no recourse for him but to search till he met Jett or found his camp. That struck him as far from a hopeless task, yet his longing and dread were poignant. He went on, until he had passed the zone of camps, and had drawn out of hearing of the boom-boom-boom of the Big Fifties. Not by many miles, though, had he come to the end of the buffalo herd.
It was the middle of the afternoon, too late for Tom to reach camp that day. He crossed the stream, now a clear shallow sandy-bottomed little water course, running quite swiftly. He was probably not many leagues from its source up in the bluffs of the Staked Plains, a stark bald-faced heave of country, frowning down on the prairie.
Tom took the precaution to sweep all open stretches in front with his field glass, and this resulted in him being cognizant of all moving bodies for miles. All that he did see were buffalo, near and far, everywhere, dots and strings and bands, just straggling remnants of the immense herd back over the stream.
A good trail, with horse tracks in it, followed the course of the water east, and led along the edge of the timber and sometimes through open groves. But Tom did not come to a road or see a camp or man or horse. The prairie was a beautiful grassy level, growing brown from the hot sun. Bands of antelope grazed within range of his gun, as tame as cattle; deer trotted ahead of him through the timber; wild turkeys by the hundreds looked up at his trotting approach and made no effort to run. He saw bear and panther tracks in the dust of the trail.
Sunset overtook Tom and still he rode on. Before dark, however, he espied a thick clump of timber in which he decided to spend the night. Finding a suitable place, well down from the trail, he unsaddled Dusty and led him to the stream to drink, then picketed him with a long lasso in a grass plot.
Twilight stole down into the grove while Tom ate some of the meat and bread he had taken precaution to bring. No fire was necessary; besides, it might have attracted attention to his camp. He spread his saddle blankets for a bed, placed his saddle for a pillow, and with weapon at his side he lay down to sleep.
This was the first night he had been alone on the Texas prairies. It was novel, strange, somehow exhilarating, and yet disturbing. His anxiety to find Molly had led him far from the hunters’ camps, into wild country, where he must run considerable risk. His state of mind, therefore, rendered him doubly susceptible to all around him.
How beautifully dusk mantled the river breaks! The night insects had begun their incessant song, low, monotonous, plaintive. And frogs had begun their sweet mellow melodious trill. In spite of these sounds silence seemed to reign. Solitude was omnipresent there. Tom found it hard to realize that the extermination of America’s most numerous and magnificent game beast was in frenzied operation along this river, that bands of Indians were on the warpath, and hide robbers foraging secretly. Here the night and the place were lonel
y, sad, provocative of such thoughts as Tom had never had before.
By and by his attention was attracted at intervals by soft padded steps somewhere near, and the cracking of things down in the breaks, and the squalling of raccoons. Once a wild cry startled him, so near like a woman’s scream was it, and he recognized it as the rare cry of a panther. He had heard hunters at the camps tell of it. Gradually his nervousness wore away. These creatures of the wilderness would not harm him; he had only to fear those beings made in his own image.
The night, the stars, the insects, the stealthy denizens of the brush, the soft, drowsy, sultry summer darkness with its dim flare of sheet lightning along the horizon, the loneliness and freedom of the open country—these worked in Tom’s mind as never in his life, and from them he gathered a subtle confidence that there was something stronger than evil men. Molly would not be lost to him.
At last Tom slept. He was awakened by the scratching and clucking of wild turkeys, so close that he could have tossed his hat among them. The sun was red in the east. He had slept late. To eat his meager breakfast, water and saddle his horse, fill his canteen, were but the work of a few moments, and then he was on his way again, alert, cautious, not to be mislead by his ardor.
Tom traveled ten miles farther east before his ears again throbbed to the boom of the big buffalo guns. Scattered herds of buffalo grazed out on the prairie, but appeared unmolested by hunters. The shooting came from across the river. Five miles farther on, however, Tom reached the zone of camps on that side, and heard the boom of guns.
Between that point and the river bluffs, which he recognized as landmarks near Hudnall’s present location, he found and rode through seven camps of buffalo hunters. Wagons, tents, reloading kits, mess boxes, bales of hides, squares and squares of hides pegged out—these were in nowise different from the particulars of the camps opposite.
But Tom did not find what he sought. He crossed the river and rode toward his camp with a heavy heart.
The afternoon was far spent, still it was too early not to be surprised to see his comrades in camp. There appeared to be other hunters—a group, talking earnestly.
Tom urged his tired horse to a trot, then a lope. Something was wrong at Hudnall’s. He felt it. There came a cold tightening around his heart. Reaching camp, Tom flung himself out of the saddle.
Ory Jacks, the nearest to Tom, as he advanced toward the man, was crying. Dunn sat near him, apparently dazed. Burn Hudnall’s head was buried in his arms. Stronghurl and Pilchuck were in conversation with a group of seven or eight men, among whom Tom recognized hunters from adjoining camps. It was significant to behold these men all carrying their rifles. More significant was Pilchuck’s face, hard, cold, forbidding, with his thin lips set in tight line and his eyes almost narrowed shut.
“What’s . . . happened?” burst out Tom breathlessly.
Burn Hudnall raised a face Tom would never forget.
“Father was murdered by Indians.”
“Oh, my God . . . no!” cried Tom in distress.
“Yes. . . . I saw him killed . . . an’ I just got away . . . by the skin of my teeth,” replied Burn in dreadful voice.
“How? When? Where?” panted Tom, shocked to his depths.
“It was father’s carelessness. Oh, if he had only listened to Pil-chuck! Mebbe two hours ago. I was west of here, four or five miles, when I saw a band of Indians. They were ridin’ toward us. I was skinnin’ a bull an’ was concealed behind the carcass. Father was off a quarter of a mile ridin’ around a small bunch of buffalo, shootin’ fast, an’ blind to anythin’ else but buffalo. I yelled my lungs out. No use! He couldn’t hear. I got to my horse, an’ was thinkin’ of runnin’ over to save Father when I saw I was too late. . . . The Indians rode like the wind. They ran down on Father. I saw puffs of smoke an’ heard shots. Father fell off his horse. Then the Indians circled around him, shootin’, yellin’, ridin’ like naked, painted devils. . . . Presently they quit racin’, an’ rode into a bunch, around where he lay. Some of them dismounted. Others rode toward the wagon an’ team. These Indians saw me an’ started for me. I tell you I had to ride, an’ they chased me almost into camp. . . . Tom, I know what it is to hear the whistle of bullets.”
“He’s out there . . . on the prairie . . . dead?” gasped Tom.
“Certain as death,” replied Burn solemnly. “Who’s to tell Mother an’ Sally?”
“But . . . but we must go out there . . . to see . . . to find out. . . .”
“Pilchuck’s taken charge, Tom,” interrupted the other. “He says the Indians were Comanches an’ in pretty strong force. We’re to wait till morning, get a bunch of men together, an’ then go out to bury Father.”
Tom was stunned. The catastrophe as persistently portended by Pilchuck and corroborated by Sprague had at last fallen. Splendid, fine, kindly Hudnall was dead at the hands of revengeful savages. It was terrible. To be warned of such a thing was nothing, but the fact itself stood out in appalling vividness.
“Let’s rustle supper while it’s daylight,” said Pilchuck, coming over. “We don’t want a campfire tonight. Reckon there’s hardly any danger of attack, but we want to stand guard an’ not take any chances.”
Camp tasks had to go on just the same, and Tom helped Dunn and Ory Jacks. The other hunters turned to leave with an understanding that they were to stand guard at their camps, and return in the morning.
“Starwell, we’ll plan tomorrow after we bury Hudnall,” said the scout.
“One only plan,” replied the other, a lean, dark, forceful-looking Westerner who Tom felt he would not care to cross. “We buff’ hunters must band together an’ trail them Comanches.”
“Reckon you’re right, Star,” returned Pilchuck grimly. “But there’s no rush. Them redskins have done more’n kill Hudnall, I’ll bet you. They’ve been raidin’. An’ they’ll strike for the Staked Plains. That means we’ve got to organize. If there’s a hell of a place in the world, it’s shore the Staked Plains.”
Supper without the cheerful presence of Hudnall would have been a loss, but the fact that he lay dead, murdered, surely mutilated, out there in the prairie, was monstrous to Tom. He could not eat. He wandered about camp, slowly realizing something beyond the horror of the calamity, a gradual growth from shock to stern purpose. No need to ask Pilchuck what was in his mind.
The plainsman loomed now in Tom’s sight, big and strong, implacable and infallible.
Tom stood guard with Stronghurl during the earlier watches of the night, and the long-drawn mournful howl of the prairie wolf had in it a new significance. This Wild West was beginning to show its teeth.
Chapter Eleven
Morning came, and Pilchuck had the men stirring early. When Tom walked out to the campfire, dawn was brightening, and there was a low roll of thunder from the eastward.
“We’re in for a thunderstorm,” he said to the scout, who was cooking breakfast.
“Storm mebbe, but not a thunder-an’-lightnin’ storm,” replied Pilchuck. “That sound you hear is new to you. It’s a stampede of buffalo.”
“Is that so. Say, how like thunder.”
“Yep, we plainsmen call it the thunderin’ herd. But this isn’t the main herd on the rampage. Somethin’, most likely Indians, has scared the buffalo across the river. They’ve been runnin’ south for an hour. More buffalo over there than I had an idee of.”
“Yes, I saw miles of scattered herds as I rode up the river,” said Tom.
“I smell smoke, too, an’ fact is, Doan, I don’t like things a damn’ bit. If the main herd stampeded . . . holy Moses! I want to be on top of the Staked Plains. Reckon though that’s just where we’ll be.”
“You’re going after the Comanches?” inquired Tom seriously.
“Wal, I reckon. It’s got to be done if we’re to hunt buffalo in peace.”
Burn Hudnall presented himself at the campfire, his face haggard with grief, but he was now composed. He sat at breakfast as usual, and later did his share o
f the tasks. Not long afterward Starwell and his men rode into camp, heavily armed and formidable in appearance.
“Jude, what you make of that stampede across the river?” he asked, after greetings were exchanged.
“Wal, I ain’t makin’ much, but I don’t like it.”
“We heerd shootin’ yesterday at daylight down along the river from our camp,” returned Starwell. “Small bore guns, an’ I don’t calkilate hunters was shootin’ rabbits for breakfast.”
“Ahuh. Wal, after we come back from buryin’ Hudnall, we’ll take stock of what’s goin’ on,” said Pilchuck. “By that time camp will be full of hunters, I reckon.”
“Hardy rode twenty miles an’ more down the river, gettin’ back late last night. He said there’d be every outfit represented here this mornin’.”
“Good. We kept the hosses picketed last night, an’ we’ll be saddled in a jiffy.”
Burn Hudnall led that band of mounted men up on the prairie and southwest toward the scene of yesterday’s tragedy. The morning was hot; whirlwinds of dust were rising, like columns of yellow smoke; the prairie looked lonesome and vast; far out toward the Staked Plains showed a dim ragged line of buffalo. Across the river the prairie was obscured in a low covering of dust, like rising clouds. The thunder of hoofs had died away.
Tom Doan, riding with these silent somber men, felt a strong beat of his pulse that was at variance with the oppression of his mind. He was to be in the thick of wild events.
In perhaps half an hour the trotting horses drew within sight of black dots on the prairie, and toward these Burn Hudnall headed. They were dead and unskinned buffalo. Presently Burn halted alongside the first carcass, that of a bull, half skinned.
“Here’s where I was . . . when the Indians came in sight over that ridge,” said Burn huskily. “Father must be lyin’ over there.”
He pointed toward where a number of black woolly dead buffalo lay scattered over the green plain, and rode toward them. Presently Pilchuck took the lead. His keen eye no doubt had espied the corpse of Hudnall, for, as he passed Burn, he said: “Reckon it’d be more sense for you not to look at him.”
