Читать книгу Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace (Illustrated Edition) - John Crittenden Duval - Страница 18
ОглавлениеBELATED IN THE WOODS—WOLVES ON THE TRACK—ONE FELLOW OUT OF THE WAY—REINFORCEMENTS COMING UP—A HAND-TO-HAND FIGHT.
Have I ever told you, asked Big-Foot, about the “tussle” I had with the wolves a short time after I came to Texas? It was a sort of initiation fee paid for my entrance into the mysteries of border life, and I don’t think I have ever been as badly frightened before or since. It happened in this way:
One very cold evening, two or three hours, perhaps, before sundown, I concluded to take a little round in the woods, by way of exercise, and bring home some fresh venison for supper; so I picked up “sweet-lips,”5 and started for a rough, broken piece of country, where previously I had always found deer in abundance. But, somehow, the deer didn’t seem to be stirring that evening, and I walked two or three miles without finding a single one. After going so far, I hated to return without meat, and I kept on, still hoping to find the deer before it got too dark to shoot; but at last I had to give it up, and turned my course back toward home again.
By this time the sun was setting, and I hurried up as fast as possible, to get out of the chaparral and into the prairie before night came on. All the evening I had heard the wolves howling around in an unusual way, but I had no fear of them, as I had been told they seldom, if ever, attacked a man in Texas. When I had gone back perhaps a half mile or so, a large gray wolf trotted out into the path before me, and commenced howling in the most mournful manner; and, in an instant, he was answered by a dozen other wolves in the hills around us. Thinks I, old fellow, if you are hatching a plot for my benefit, I’ll make sure of you, anyhow; so I brought “sweet-lips” to range on his shoulder-blade, and at the crack of the gun he gave one spring into the air, and dropped as dead as a hammer in his tracks.
But, somehow, although I can’t say I felt any fear of them, my suspicions were aroused as to foul play on the part of the gentlemen who were answering him from the hills, and I loosened “old butch” in the sheath, rammed another bullet down “sweet-lips,” and as soon as I had done so, I put out for home again in double-quick time. But the faster I went, the faster the wolves followed me, and looking back after a little while, I saw twenty-five or thirty “lobos” (a large, fierce kind of wolf, found only in Mexico and Texas) trotting along after me at a rate I knew would soon bring them into close quarters; and in the bushes and chaparral, that bordered the trail I was travelling, I could see the gleaming eyes and pointed ears of at least a dozen others coming rapidly toward me.
I saw in a minute that they meant mischief, but I knew it was useless to try to beat a wolf in a foot-race. However, I resolved to keep on as long as they would let me, and when they closed in, that I would give them the best ready-made fight I had “in the shop.” So I stepped out as briskly as I could, and the wolves trotted after me, howling in a way that made my hair stand on end and my very blood run cold. A dozen times I wished myself back again safe in “old Virginny,” where a man might travel for a hundred miles without meeting up with anything more dangerous than a ’possum; but wishing didn’t stop the wolves, so I let out my “best licks,” hoping that I could make home before they could muster up courage enough to attack me.
But, I “reckoned without my host,” for one big fellow, more daring or hungry than the rest, made a rush at me, and I barely had time to level my gun and fire, for he was touching the muzzle of it when I pulled the trigger. He fell dead at my feet, but, as if this had been the signal for a general attack, in an instant the whole pack were around me, snarling and snapping, and showing their white teeth in a way that was anything but pleasant.
I fought them off with the breech of my gun, for they didn’t give me any chance to load it, retreating all the while as rapidly as I could. Once so many of them rushed in upon me at the same time that, in spite of all my efforts, I failed to keep them at bay, and they dragged me to the ground. I thought for an instant that it was all up with me, but despair gave me the strength of half a dozen men, and I used “old butch” to such a good purpose that I killed three outright and wounded several others, which appeared somewhat to daunt the balance, for they drew off a short distance and began to howl for reinforcements.
The reinforcements were on their way, for I could hear them howling in every direction, and I knew that I had no time to lose. So I put off at the top of my speed, and in those days it took a pretty fast Spanish pony to beat me a quarter when I “let out the kinks.” I let ’em out this time with a will, I tell you, and fairly beat the wolves for half a mile or so, but my breath then began to fail me, and I could tell by their close angry yelps that the devils were again closing in upon me.
By this time I was so much exhausted that I knew I should make a poor fight of it, more especially as I could perceive, from the number of dark forms behind me, and the gleaming eyes and shining teeth that glistened out of every bush on the wayside, that the wolves had had a considerable addition to their number. It may be thought strange that I didn’t “take to a tree,” but there were no trees there to take to—nothing but stunted chaparral bushes, not much higher than a man’s head.
I thought my time had come at last, and I was almost ready to give up in despair, when all at once I remembered seeing, as I came out, a large lone oak-tree, with a hollow in it about large enough for a man to crawl into, which grew on the banks of a small cañon not more than three or four hundred yards from where I then was. I resolved to make one more effort, and, if possible, to reach this tree before the wolves came up with me again; and if ever there was good, honest running done, without any throw-off about it, I did it then. The fact is, I believe a man can’t tell how fast he can run until he gets a pack of wolves after him in this way. A fellow will naturally do his best when he knows that, if he doesn’t, in twenty minutes he will be “parcelled out” among as many ravenous wolves, a head to one, a leg to another, an arm to a third, and so on. At least that was the effect it had on me, and I split the air so fast with my nose that it took the skin off of it, and for a week afterward it looked like a peeled onion.
However, I beat the wolves once more fairly and squarely, and not much time to spare either, for just as I crawled into the hollow of the tree, (which was about as high as my head from the ground,) the ravenous creatures were howling all around me. At the bottom of the hollow I found a “skunk” snugly stowed away, but I soon routed him out, and the wolves gobbled him up in an instant. He left a smell behind him, though, that was anything but agreeable in such close quarters. However, I was safe there, at any rate, from the attacks of the wolves, and all the smells in the city of New Orleans couldn’t have driven me from my hole just at that time.
The wolves could only get at me one at a time, and with “old butch” in my hand, I knew I could manage a hundred in that way. But such howling and yelling I never heard before or since but once, and that was when I was with the Keechies, and a runner came in and told them their great chief, “Buffalo Hump,” had been killed in a fight with the Lipans! They bit, and gnawed, and scratched, but it wasn’t any use, and every now and then a fellow would jump up and poke his nose into the hollow of the tree; but just as sure as he did it, he caught a wipe across it with “old butch” that generally satisfied his curiosity for a while. All night long they kept up their serenade, and, as you may well suppose, I didn’t get much sleep. However, the noise didn’t matter, for I had got several severe bites on my arms and legs, and the pain I suffered from them would have kept me awake anyhow.
Just at daylight the next morning the wolves began to sneak off, and when the sun rose not one was to be seen, except three dead ones at the root of the tree, that had come in contact with “old butch.” I waited a while longer, to be certain they had all left, when I crawled out of my den, gave myself a shake, and found I was all right, except a pound or so of flesh taken out of one of my legs, and a few scratches on my arms. I hobbled back home; and for a long time afterward, whenever I heard the howling of wolves, I always felt a little uneasy.
I found out, the next day, why the wolves had attacked me in the way they did. I had a bottle of assafœtida in my trunk, which somehow had got broken and run out among my clothes, and when the wolves pitched into me I had on a coat that had been wet with the confounded stuff, and smelt worse than a polecat. I had often heard that assafœtida would attract wolves, but I always thought, before this, that it was a sort of old-woman’s yarn; but it’s a fact, and if you don’t believe it, go some dark night into a thick chaparral, where wolves are numerous, and pour about a gill over your coat, and then wait a little, and see what will turn up; and if you don’t hear howling, and snapping, and snarling, I’ll agree to be stung to death by bumble-bees.
5. His rifle.
