Читать книгу The Thundering Herd - Zane Grey - Страница 5

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WHEN Tom roused next morning to Burn Hudnall’s cheery call he found that he had slept later than usual for him.

He rolled out of his bed of blankets under the wagon, and pulling on his boots and washing his face and hands, was ready for breakfast and the eventful day.

The sun had just risen above the eastern horizon. West and southwest the rolling prairie-land shone green and gold under the bright morning light. Near at hand horses and cattle grazed. Far down the clearly defined road canvas-covered wagons gleamed white. Some of the buffalo-hunters were already on their way. Tom stood a moment, watching and thinking, as he drew a deep full breath of the fresh crisp air, feeling that whatever lay in store for him beyond the purple horizon—adventure, hardship, fortune—he was keen to face it.

While at breakfast Tom suddenly remembered his meeting with the girl, Milly. In the broad light of day he did not feel quite the same as in the gloaming of last night. Yet a sweetness stole pervadingly upon him. Glancing through the grove toward the camp where the first meeting with her had taken place, he missed the white wagons. That end of the grove was empty. The wagons were gone—and with them the girl. Tom experienced a blankness of thought, then a sense of loss and a twinge of regret. After this moment he thoughtfully went on eating his breakfast. Nothing was to come of the meeting. Still, her people were buffalo-hunters, too, and somewhere down in that wild country he might see her again. What a forlorn hope! Yet by cherishing it he reconciled himself to the fact that she was gone.

After breakfast his curiosity led him to walk over to where her camp had been; and he trailed the wagon tracks out into the road, seeing that they headed toward the southwest. His grain of comfort gathered strength.

“Our neighbors pulled out early,” he remarked, halting where Pilchuck and Hudnall were packing.

“Long before sunup,” replied Hudnall. “Did you hear them, Jude?”

“Huh! They’d waked the dead,” growled Pilchuck. “Reckon Randall Jett had his reason for pullin’ out.”

“Jett? Let’s see. He was the man with the yellow beard. Come to think of it, he wasn’t very civil.”

“I heard some talk about Jett uptown,” went on Pilchuck. “ ’Pears I’ve met him somewheres, but it’s slipped my mind. He’s one of the hide-hunters that’s got a doubt hangin’ on him. Just doubt, it’s only fair to say. Nobody knows anythin’. Jett has come out of the Panhandle twice with thousands of hides. He’s made money.”

“Well, that’s interestin’,” replied Hudnall. “He’s just been married. My wife had some talk yesterday with a woman who must have been Mrs. Jett. She was from Missouri an’ had a grown daughter. Married a few weeks, she said. My wife got a hunch this woman an’ daughter weren’t keen about the hide-huntin’ business.”

“Well, when you get down on the Staked Plains, you’ll appreciate Mrs. Jett’s feelings,” remarked Pilchuck, dryly.

Tom listened to this talk, much interested, recording it in memory. Then he asked if all the buffalo-hunters followed the same line of travel.

“Reckon they do,” replied Pilchuck. “There’s only one good road for a couple of hundred miles. Then the hunters make their own roads.”

“Do they scatter all over the plains?” went on Tom.

“Well, naturally they hang round the buffalo. But that herd is most as big as the Staked Plains.”

Tom had no knowledge of this particular part of Texas, but he did not fail to get a conception of magnitude.

“When do we pull out?” he concluded.

“Soon as we hitch up.”

In less than an hour the Hudnall outfit, with three good wagons drawn by strong teams, were on the move. The women rode with the drivers. Tom had the job of keeping the saddle horses in line. They did not want to head out into the wilderness, and on the start were contrary. After a few miles, however, they settled down to a trot and kept to the road.

Soon the gleam of the town, and groves of trees, and columns of smoke, disappeared behind a rolling ridge, and all around appeared endless gray-green plain, bisected by a white road. No other wagons were in sight. Tom found the gait of his horse qualified to make long rides endurable. The lonely land was much to his liking. Jackrabbits and birds were remarkable for their scarcity. The plain appeared endlessly undulating, a lonesome expanse, mostly gray, stretching away on all sides. The soil was good. Some day these wide lands would respond to cultivation.

The Hudnall outfit traveled steadily until about four o’clock in the afternoon, making about twenty-five miles. A halt was called in a grove of elm trees that had long appealed to Tom’s eye. It amused him to see the amiable contention between Pilchuck and Hudnall. The former, like all guides and scouts long used to outdoor life, wanted to camp at the first available spot where others had camped. But Hudnall sought a fresh and untrammeled place, driving some distance off the road to a clean glade under spreading elms just beginning to green. A shallow creek ran under the high bank. Birds and rabbits were plentiful here, and cat and coyote tracks showed on the muddy shore.

There was work for everybody and something of confusion. Further experience in making camp was essential before things could be done smoothly and expeditiously.

“I laid out jobs for everybody. Now rustle,” was Hudnall’s order.

The teams were unhitched and turned loose to drink and graze. Harness and collars were hung upon the front wheels. Tom scouted for firewood, which appeared plentiful, and the ring of his ax resounded through the glade. Hudnall and his son lifted the cook stove and mess box from a wagon, then the cooking utensils and tableware. A level spot was cleaned off, a fire started on the ground and also in the stove, then the meal preparations were turned over to the women. Hudnall erected a tent for himself and his wife. Sally’s bed was made in the wagon. Pilchuck helped Stronghurl pitch a tent beside their wagon, but he spread his own bed, consisting of blankets on a tarpaulin, outside under the trees. Burn Hudnall put up a tent for himself and his wife, and Tom unrolled his bed under Burn’s wagon.

At sunset they ate supper. The gold and pink of western sky appeared to send a reflection upon the winding stream of water. Everybody was hungry, and even Pilchuck seemed to feel something good in the hour and the place. If there had been any misgivings on the part of the women, they had now vanished. The talk was jolly and hopeful. Sally Hudnall made eyes at Tom, and then, seeing her advances were apparently unobserved, she tried the same upon Stronghurl.

After supper Tom chopped and carried wood for the camp fire that night and for next morning. This done, he strolled along the creek toward the grazing horses. Fresh green grass grew abundantly on the banks and insured reasonably against the horses’ straying that night. Tom decided not to hobble Dusty.

A few hundred yards from camp the creek circled through a grove of larger elms and eddied in a deep pool. Here on a log Tom lingered and indulged in rest and musings. His thoughts seemed to flow and eddy like the stream, without any apparent reason. But when thought of the girl, Milly, recurred, it abided with him. Here in the solitude of this grove he seemed to remember more vividly, and after reviewing gravely all the details concerning her it seemed to him not improbable that she was unhappy and unfortunately situated. “I—I can’t tell you more,” she had said, hurriedly, in a tone he now realized held shame and fear. Tom meditated over that, and at the end of an hour, when dusk was creeping under the trees, he threw off the spell and retraced his steps toward camp. There was little chance of his ever seeing her again. With resignation to that, and the vague sadness attending it, he put her out of his mind.

Soon a camp fire blazed through the dusk, and seen from afar, with the black shadows of men crossing its brightness, it made a telling picture. Tom joined the circle sitting and standing round it. The air had grown cold, making the warmth most agreeable.

“That ’tarnal smoke follows me everywhere I turn,” said Sally Hudnall, as she moved to a seat beside Stronghurl.

“Elm wood ain’t so good to burn,” observed Pilchuck. “Neither is cottonwood. Smoke smells an’ makes your eyes smart.”

“Mary has a likin’ for hickory,” said Hudnall. “Golly! I’ll bet I’ll never again have apple pie baked over a hickory fire.”

“Unless you go back to Illinois,” added his wife, dryly.

“Which’ll never be, Mary,” he replied, with finality.

His words, tinged with a suggestion of failure back there in Illinois, checked conversation for a moment. They all had places dear to look back upon. Pioneers had to sacrifice much. Tom gazed at the circle of quiet faces with more realization and kindness. Buffalo-hunting was but to be an incident. It had dominated his thought. In the background of his mind, in the future, had been the idea of a ranch. With these people home and farm were paramount. Tom wondered if they were not starting out upon an ill-advised enterprise. Not to think of its peril!

Day by day the Hudnall outfit traveled over the prairie, sometimes west, and then south, yet in the main always southwest. They made from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day, according to condition of the road and favorable places to camp. Now and then they passed a freighting outfit of several wagons, heavily loaded with buffalo hides. The days passed into weeks, until Tom lost track of them.

Down here on the great plains spring had surely come. All was green and beautiful. The monotony of the country had been broken up by streams winding away between wooded banks, yet the rolling level seemed to hold generally, viewed from afar. On clear mornings a gray heave of higher ground appeared to the south. What farther north had been an openness and sameness of country now assumed proportions vast and striking.

One sunset, when halt was made for camp in an arroyo, Pilchuck waived his usual work and rode off up a slope. Reaching the summit, he dismounted and, elevating a short telescope, he looked long to the southward. Later, when he returned to the camp, all eyes fixed upon him.

“See anythin’?” queried Hudnall, impatiently.

Tom felt a thrill merely from the look of the scout.

“Buffalo!” announced Pilchuck.

There was a moment’s silence. The women responded more quickly to this good news. Hudnall seemed slow and thick. Burn Hudnall threw down a billet of wood he had held in his hand.

“Buffalo!” he echoed, and the quick look of gladness he flashed upon his father proved how much he had been responsible for this trip.

“How many?” demanded Hudnall, with a long stride toward the scout.

“Reckon I couldn’t say, offhand,” replied Pilchuck. “Herd is another day’s ride south.”

Sally Hudnall interrupted her father as he was about to speak again: “Oh, I’m crazy to see a herd of buffalo. Are there lots of them?”

“Tolerable many,” replied Pilchuck, with a look of professional pride. “Reckon this herd is about fifteen miles long an’ three or four deep!”

Then Hudnall let out a stentorian roar, and that was a signal for equally sincere if not so exuberant a rejoicing from the others.

Next day’s travel was the longest Tom had ever endured. The ground was dusty, the sun hot, the miles interminable, and there appeared ahead only the gray-green stretch of plain, leading the eyes with false hopes. But at last, toward sunset, a fringe of winding foliage marked the course of a stream. It seemed a goal. Beyond that water the great herd of buffalo must be grazing. An hour more of weary travel over uneven prairie—for Pilchuck had turned off the road early that morning—brought the outfit down into a coulee, the wildest and most attractive camp site that had yet fallen to them.

Tom made short work of his camp duties that evening, and soon was climbing the highest ridge. He climbed fast in his eagerness. Abruptly, then, he reached the top and, looking westward, suddenly became transfixed.

The sun was setting in a golden flare that enveloped the wide plain below. Half a mile from where he stood was an immense herd of huge woolly beasts, wild and strange to his sight, yet unmistakably buffalo. Tom experienced the most tingling thrill of his life. What a wonderful spectacle! It was not at all what he had pictured from tales he had heard. This scene was beautiful; and the huge straggling bulls seemed the grandest of big game beasts. Thousands of buffalo! Tom reveled in his opportunity and made the most of it. He saw that the herd circled away out of sight beyond the other end of the ridge upon which he stood. Long he gazed, and felt that he would never forget his first sight of a buffalo herd.

Upon his return to camp he found that he was not the only one late for supper. Hudnall had been out with Pilchuck. Burn was on the moment coming in with his wife and sister, who were talking excitedly about what they had seen.

“How many did you see?” asked Hudnall, of Tom.

“Oh, I’ve no idea—all of five thousand—and I couldn’t see the end of the herd,” replied Tom.

“We saw ten thousand, an’ that on the other side of the ridge from you,” added Hudnall, tensely. His big eyes were alight and he seemed to look afar. Tom sensed that Hudnall had not responded to the wildness and beauty of the spectacle. He saw thousands of hides to sell.

“Reckon I heard shootin’ down the river a couple of miles,” said Pilchuck. “There’s another outfit on the trail. We’ll be lucky if we don’t run into a dozen.”

“Is this the main herd you spoke of?” inquired Tom.

“No. This is only a little bunch,” returned Pilchuck.

Mrs. Hudnall broke up the colloquy. “Are you all daffy about buffalo? Supper’s gettin’ cold.”

“Mary, you’ll be fryin’ buffalo steak for me to-morrow night,” rejoined her husband, gayly.

After supper Hudnall called the men aside for the purpose of consultation.

“Pilchuck an’ me are pardners on this deal,” he said. “We’ll pay thirty cents a hide. That means skinnin’, haulin’ the hide to camp, an’ peggin’ it out. No difference who kills the buffalo.”

“That’s more than you’ll get paid by most outfits,” added Pilchuck.

Stronghurl and Burn agreed on that figure; and as for Tom he frankly admitted he thought thirty cents a hide was big pay.

“Huh! Wait till you skin your first buffalo,” said the scout, grinning. “You’ll swear thirty dollars too little.”

“Well, my part of this deal is settled. I furnish supplies an’ pay for hides,” said Hudnall. “Jude here will boss the hunt.”

“Not much bossin’,” said that individual “We’re a little farther south than I’ve hunted. I rode through here with some soldiers last fall, an’ know the country. This bunch of buffalo is hangin’ along the river. Reckon there’s buffalo for miles. They’ll hang around here, unless too many outfits get chasin’ them. A good way to hunt is to catch them comin’ to drink. Aim to hit behind the shoulder, an’ shoot till he drops. Sometimes it takes two or three bullets, an’ sometimes five on the old bulls. When you hunt out in the open you’ve got to ride like hell, chase them, an’ keep shootin’ till your cartridges are all gone.”

“That’s easy, an’ ought to be heaps of fun,” said Burn.

“Reckon so. An’ don’t forget it’s dangerous. Keep out of their reach. The real hard work comes in skinnin’ an’ peggin’ out. Before you get good enough at that to make three dollars a day, you’ll be sick of the job.”

“Three dollars!” echoed Burn, in scorn. “I expect to make five times that much.”

Tom had much the same aspiration, but he did not voice it. Pilchuck looked amused and mysterious enough to restrain undue enthusiasm.

“Finally—an’ this is a hunch you want to take serious,” went on Pilchuck, lowering his voice so the women could not hear. “We might run on to Indians.”

That sobered all the listeners.

“Last summer was bad an’ fall was worse,” he continued. “I don’t know now how conditions are or what the Indians are doin’. Reckon somebody, hunters or soldiers, will happen along an’ tell us. My belief is there’ll be some tough fights this year. But, of course, the redskins can’t be everywhere, an’ these buffalo are thick an’ range far. We may be lucky an’ never see a Comanche. But we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled all the time an’ mustn’t get far apart. If we see or hear of Indians, we’ll move camp an’ stand guard at night.”

“Jude, that’s stranger talk than you’ve used yet,” responded Hudnall, in surprise and concern.

“Reckon so. I’m not worryin’. I’m just tellin’ you. There’ll be a heap of hunters in here this summer. An’ like as not the soldiers will see what women there are safe to the fort or some well-protected freightin’ post.”

Tom thought of the dark-eyed girl, Milly. Almost he had forgotten. How long ago that meeting seemed! Where was she now? He convinced himself that Pilchuck’s assurance of the protection of soldiers applied to all the women who might be with the hunting bands.

No more was said about Indians. Interest reverted strongly to the proposed hunt to begin on the morrow. Tom fell in with the spirit of the hour and stayed up late round the camp fire, listening to the talk and joining in. Once their animated discussion was silenced by a mournful howl from the ridge-top where Tom had climbed to see the buffalo. It was a strange sound, deep and prolonged, like the bay of a hound on a deer scent, only infinitely wilder.

“What’s that?” asked somebody.

“Wolf,” replied Pilchuck. “Not a coyote, mind you, but a real old king of the plains. There’s a lot of wolves hang with the buffalo.”

The cry was not repeated then, but later, as Tom composed himself in his warm blankets, it pealed out again, wonderfully breaking the stillness. How hungry and full of loneliness! It made Tom shiver. It seemed a herald of wilderness.

Tom was the first to arise next morning, and this time it was the ring of his ax and the crash of wood thrown into the camp fire circle that roused the others. When Stronghurl sallied forth to find the horses, daylight had broken clear; and by the time breakfast was ready the sun was up.

Pilchuck, returning from the ridge-top, reported that buffalo were in sight, all along the river, as far as he could see. They were a goodly distance out on the plain and were not yet working in for a drink.

“I’ll take my turn hangin’ round camp,” said Hudnall, plainly with an effort! “There’s a lot to do, an’ some one must see after the women folks.”

“It’d be a good idea for you to climb the ridge every two hours or so an’ take a look,” replied Pilchuck, casually. But his glance at Hudnall was not casual. “I’ll leave my telescope for you. Don’t miss anythin’.”

The men saddled their horses and donned the heavy cartridge belts. They also carried extra cartridges in their pockets. Tom felt weighted down as if by a thousand pounds. He had neglected to buy a saddle sheath for his gun, and therefore would have to carry it in his hand—an awkward task while riding.

They rode behind Pilchuck down the river, and forded it at a shallow sand-barred place, over which the horses had to go at brisk gait to avoid miring.

“How’re we ever goin’ to get the wagons across?” queried Burn Hudnall.

“Reckon we’ve no choice,” replied Pilchuck. “The hides have to be hauled to camp. You see the actual chasin’ an’ killin’ of buffalo doesn’t take much time. Then the real work begins. We’ll have all the rest of the day—an’ night, to skin, haul to camp, an’ peg out.”

This side of the river bank was more wooded and less precipitous than the other. Buffalo tracks were as thick as cattle tracks round a water-hole. The riders halted at the top of the slope where the level plain began. Out on the grassy expanse, perhaps a mile or more, extended a shaggy dark line like a wall.

“Reckon there’s your buffalo,” said the scout. “Now we’ll scatter an’ wait under cover for an hour or so. Hide in the brush or behind a bank, anywhere till some come close. Then burn powder! An’ don’t quit the buffalo you shoot at till he’s down. When they run off, chase them, an’ shoot from your horses. The chase won’t last long, for the buffalo will run away from you.”

Pilchuck stationed Tom at this point, and rode on down the edge of the plain with the other men. They passed out of sight. In that direction Tom could not see far, owing to rising ground. To the southwest, however, the herd extended until it was impossible to distinguish between vague black streaks of buffalo and dim distance.

“Pilchuck said this was only a little bunch!” soliloquized Tom, as he scanned the plain-wide band of beasts.

Dismounting, he held his horse and stood at the edge of the timber, watching and listening. It was a wonderfully satisfying moment. He tried to be calm, but that was impossible. He recognized what had always been deep in him—the love of adventure and freedom—the passion to seek these in unknown places. Here, then, he stood at his post above the bank of a timber-bordered river in the Panhandle of Texas with a herd of buffalo in sight. He saw coyotes, too, and a larger beast, gray in color, that he was sure was a wolf. Hawks and buzzards sailed against the blue sky. Down through the trees, near the river, he espied a flock of wild turkeys. Then, in connection with all he saw, and the keenness of the morning which he felt, he remembered the scout’s caution about Indians. Tom thought that he ought to be worried, even frightened, but he was neither. This moment was the most mysteriously full and satisfying of his life.

Opposite his point the buffalo did not approach more closely; he observed, however, that to the eastward they appeared to be encroaching upon the river brakes.

Suddenly then he was thrilled by gun-shots. Boom! Boom! ... Boom-boom! His comrades had opened the hunt.

“What’ll I do now?” he mused, gazing down the river, then out toward the herd. It presented no change that he could distinguish. “I was told to stay here. But with shooting begun, I don’t think any buffalo will come now.”

Soon after that a gun roared out much closer, indeed, just over the rise of plain below Tom.

“That’s a big fifty!” he ejaculated, aloud.

Far beyond, perhaps two miles distant, sounded a report of a Sharps, low but clear on the still morning air. Another and another! Tom began to tingle with anticipation. Most likely his comrades would chase the buffalo his way. Next he heard a shot apparently between the one that had sounded close and the one far away. So all three of his fellow hunters had gotten into action. Tom grew restive. Peering out at the herd, he discovered it was moving. A low trample of many hoofs assailed his ears. Dust partially obscured the buffalo. They appeared to be running back into the gray expanse. Suddenly Tom became aware of heavy and continuous booming of guns—close, medium, and faraway reports mingling. As he listened it dawned on him that all the reports were diminishing in sound. His comrades were chasing the buffalo and getting farther away. After a while he heard no more. Also the dust-shrouded buffalo opposite his position had disappeared. His disappointment was keen.

Presently a horseman appeared on the crest of the ridge that had hidden the chase from him. The white horse was Pilchuck’s. Tom saw the rider wave his hat, and taking the action as a signal he mounted and rode at a gallop to the ridge, striking its summit some few hundred yards to the right. Here he had unobstructed view. Wide gray-green barren rolling plain, hazy with dust! The herd of buffalo was not in sight. Tom rode on to meet Pilchuck.

“Tough luck for you,” said the scout. “They were workin’ in to the river below here.”

“Did you kill any?” queried Tom, eagerly.

“I downed twenty-one,” replied Pilchuck. “An’ as I was ridin’ back I met Stronghurl. He was cussin’ because he’d only got five. An’ Burn burned a lot of powder. But so far as I could see he got only one.”

“No!” ejaculated Tom. “Why, he was sure of dozens.”

“Reckon he knows more now,” returned Pilchuck. “You ride down there an’ see how many you can skin. I’ll go back to camp, hitch up a wagon, an’ try to come back across the river.”

The scout rode away, and Tom, turning his horse eastward, took to a trot down the immense gradual slope. After searching the plain he espied a horse grazing, and then a dark shaggy mound which manifestly was a slain buffalo. Tom spurred his horse, rapidly covering the distance between. Soon he saw Burn at work skinning the buffalo.

“Good for you!” shouted Tom, as he galloped up.

“Helluva job—this skinnin’!” yelled Burn, flashing a red and sweaty face toward Tom. “Hey! Look out!”

But his warning came too late. Tom’s horse snorted furiously, as if expelling a new and hateful scent, and, rearing high, he came down and plunged so violently that Tom flew one way and his gun another.

Tom landed hard and rooted his face in the grass. The shock stunned him for a second. Then he sat up and found himself unhurt. The surprise, the complete victory of the horse, and the humiliation of being made to root the ground like a pig stirred Tom to some heat.

“Hope you ain’t hurt?” called Burn, anxiously, rising from his work.

“No, but I’m mad,” replied Tom.

Whereupon Burn fell back and rolled over in the grass, roaring with mirth. Tom paid no attention to his comrade. Dusty had run off a hundred or more paces, and was now walking, head to one side, dragging his bridle. Tom yelled to stop him. Dusty kept on. Whereupon Tom broke into a run and caught him.

“You’re a fine horse,” panted Tom, as he mounted. “Now you’ll—go back—and rub your nose—on that buffalo.”

Dusty appeared placable enough, and trotted back readily until once again close to the buffalo. Tom spurred him on and called forcibly to him. Dusty grew excited as he came nearer. Still he did not show any ugliness.

“Don’t hurry him,” remonstrated Burn. “He’s just scared.”

But Tom, not yet cooled in temper, meant that Dusty should go right up to the buffalo. This he forced the horse to do. Then suddenly Dusty flashed down his head and seemed to propel himself with incredible violence high into the air. He came down on stiff legs. The shock was so severe that Tom shot out of the saddle. He came down back of the cantle. Desperately he clung to the pommel, and as Dusty pitched high again, his hold broke and he spun round like a top on the rump of the horse and slid off. Dusty ceased his pitching and backed away from the dead buffalo.

Only Tom’s feelings were hurt. Burn Hudnall’s “Haw! haw! haw!” rolled out in great volume. Tom sat where he had been dumped, and gazing at the horse, he gradually induced a state of mind bordering upon appreciation of how Dusty must have felt. Presently Burn got up, and catching Dusty, led him slowly and gently, talking soothingly the while, nearer to the buffalo, and held him there.

“He’s all right now,” said Burn.

Tom rose and went back to the horse and patted him.

“You bucked me off, didn’t you?”

“Tom, if I were you I’d get off an’ lead him up to the dead buffalo till he gets over his scare,” suggested Burn.

“I will,” replied Tom, and then he gazed down at the shaggy carcass on the ground. “Phew! the size of him!”

“Looks big as a woolly elephant, doesn’t he? Big bull,” Pilchuck said. “He’s the only one I got, an’ sure he took a lot of shootin’. You see the buffalo was runnin’ an’ I couldn’t seem to hit one of them. Finally I plunked this bull. An’ he kept on runnin’ till I filled him full of lead.”

“Where are those Pilchuck got?” queried Tom, anxious to go to work.

“First one’s lyin’ about a quarter—there, to the left a little. You go tackle skinnin’ him. It’s an old bull like this. An’ if you get his skin off to-day I’ll eat it.”

“I’ve skinned lots of cattle—steers and bulls,” replied Tom. “It wasn’t hard work. Why should this be?”

“Man, they’re buffalo, an’ their skin’s an inch thick, tougher than sole leather—an’ stick! Why it’s riveted on an’ clinched.”

“Must be some knack about the job, then,” rejoined Tom, mounting Dusty. “Say, I nearly forgot my gun. Hand it up, will you? ... Burn, I’ll bet you I skin ten buffalo before dark and peg them out, as Pilchuck called it, before I go to bed.”

“I’ll take you up,” said Burn, with a grim laugh. “I just wish I had time to watch you. It’d be a circus. But I’ll be ridin’ by you presently.”

“All right. I’m off to win that bet,” replied Tom, in cheery determination, and touching Dusty with the spurs he rode rapidly toward the next fallen buffalo.