Читать книгу Texas Man - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 5

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BOONE was the handy lad about camp. He hoppled horses, helped hitch the teams, flunkied for the cook, and did odd jobs. The hunters called him Pocket Change and made him the victim of their harmless jokes. But they watched over him, curbed his adventurous spirit, and would have protected him with their lives. The pioneer settlers of the Western frontier were fearless, independent, and generous. Each was a personality in his own right, but all accepted the common code of hospitality and friendliness, of standing by each other in trouble, of going the limit to help a neighbour. As an old-timer put it once, there were mighty few cutbacks in the herd.

The lad was a willing worker and soon became popular in the camp. He did cheerfully whatever task was assigned him, and he was so self-contained that the men did not realize what a surge of homesickness sometimes swept over him. It was chiefly at night, when he was in bed under a buffalo robe, that the lonesome child in him was uppermost and cried out for his mother’s arms and her warm smile of understanding sympathy.

Sometimes the boy rode out with the men and helped skin the dead buffaloes. He held the reins while the hides were loaded into the wagon to be brought to the camp, and later he joined those who pegged down the pelts to sun-dry on a knoll. Under the direction of the old Confederate soldier Keener, who had taken a fancy to him, he spent days scraping away drying bits of flesh still clinging to the hides. The smell from the improvised drying yard rose to heaven, but Boone became used to it in time so that he was scarcely aware of it.

He was eager to go hunting with the others, but there was less danger in camp, and Lemley left him with those detailed to guard it. Strict instructions were given him never to wander away into the shinnery in the sandhills. Plenty of prairie chickens fed among the oak bushes, but there was always the chance that Comanches or Kiowas might be lurking there waiting for an opportunity to drive away the stock or to jump the camp.

From listening to so many stories by the hunters, Boone knew just how the buffaloes were killed. Early in the morning the men would take their big fifty Sharp’s rifle, loaded with long shells carrying one hundred and ten grains of powder, and ride toward the feeding ground. They approached on the windward side of the herd, keeping out of sight and dismounting a quarter of a mile or more away. From this point they crept closer, picked out a victim, and shot it just back of the fore shoulder from such an angle that the ball would penetrate the lungs.

The report of the gun would frighten the herd and the leaders would start a run. A bullet would kick up the dirt in front of them and turn the moving mass. This would be repeated. Presently the herd began to mill round and round, after which the animals could be shot at leisure.

Boone’s chance came one day. A stampeded herd came thundering past the camp, shaking the earth with the impact of their tread. The boy seized his rifle and ran out to a small rise. The sight was one to inspire awe. There were thousands upon thousands of the bison. They were packed close, and their backs lifted and fell like the waves of an undulating sea. The sheer momentum of their rush would have swept into kindling the frame walls of a house had there been one in their path.

“Golly, they’re comin’ lickety brindle,” the boy called to Keener.

They were scarcely a hundred yards from him. He knelt, took aim, and fired. Five times he shot before the herd had passed. When the roar of their charge had died away, he saw that two bulls were down, a third was staggering and coughing as it stumbled in the wake of its fellows.

For once Boone lost his unmoved manner. He had killed bison, three of them. They were bulls, to be sure, and the hides of bulls were less valuable than those of cows, but that was of small importance to him now. He was a buffalo hunter at last.

He shouted to Keener: “Lookee! Lookee what I did!”

The old Arkansan came up from the camp grinning. He had slain his thousands, but he understood the thrill of the boy’s first kill.

“Bully, boy! You sure went to ’em all spraddled out,” he said by way of congratulation. “Yore old Sharp’s bites as well as barks, son.”

“I’m gonna skin ’em myself,” Boone said.

This he did, with the exception of some help in turning the animals. Before night he had the hides pegged out on the drying ground.

Boone could hardly wait for the hunters to get home to learn what he had done. He did not intend to tell them himself. He meant to listen while Keener and the other two guards retailed the story.

But to his surprise none of them mentioned what had taken place. They smoked their pipes around the camp fire and chatted about anything else except the buffaloes he had killed.

After a time he could stand it no longer. He offered them a lead. “A whoppin’ big herd came rarin’ past here to-day on a stampede,” the boy suggested.

“A herd of jackrabbits?” asked Mattock politely.

“No, seh. A herd of buffaloes.”

“Three of ’em drapped dead clost to camp,” one of the guards said.

“Got tired runnin’ likely,” Peg Leg guessed.

“They didn’t either,” Boone protested indignantly. “I shot ’em.”

Lemley spoke to Keener, nodding his head toward Boone. “Gets notions sometimes, I’ve noticed. When he shoots a quail he thinks it’s a turkey. Did he shoot something to-day?”

“Three polecats,” answered the old soldier gravely. “He was right proud of ’em. Cut up the hams an’ hung ’em on a tree, an’ stretched the hides out on the dryin’ ground. He aims to take ’em home for keepsakes.”

“He knows better, ’cause he helped me skin ’em,” the boy denied.

“Well, they’re out on the ground all pegged out proper. The moon’s riz. What say we go look at ’em!” Keener proposed.

They trooped out, half a dozen of them, and inspected the hides.

“That’s right, polecats,” Peg Leg announced after one look at them.

Boone could have wept with chagrin, but he did not. He perceived that this was a conspiracy of alleged humour to minimize his achievement.

“How many thousand head did you-all say was in that herd of polecats, Boone?” asked Mattock.

Boone took refuge in dignified silence. He knew they would banter him until they got tired of the subject. Probably he had been a little too set-up about what he had done. This was his punishment. Or maybe they were doing it because it amused them. He never could tell in advance what would and what would not make them laugh.

Next morning the boy won his reward. Lemley said to him after breakfast, “Want to slap a saddle on that broomtail of yours, Boone, an’ come along with us to shoot some more polecats?”

The shining eyes of the boy were answer enough. He could scarcely eat his breakfast. Long before the others were ready, he sat Pinto, the old Sharp’s in hand, waiting impatiently for the start.