The Last of the Plainsmen

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I replied grimly that, as it was certain something was going to
happen, the particular circumstance might as well come off
quickly.

We rode over the rolling plain with a cool, bracing breeze in our
faces. The sky was dull and mottled with a beautiful cloud effect
that presaged wind. As we trotted along Jones pointed out to me
and descanted upon the nutritive value of three different kinds
of grass, one of which he called the Buffalo Pea, noteworthy for
a beautiful blue blossom. Soon we passed out of sight of the
cabin, and could see only the billowy plain, the red tips of the
stony wall, and the black-fringed crest of Buckskin. After riding
a while we made out some cattle, a few of which were on the
range, browsing in the lee of a ridge. No sooner had I marked
them than Jones let out another Comanche yell.

"Wolf!" he yelled; and spurring his big bay, he was off like the
wind.

A single glance showed me several cows running as if bewildered,
and near them a big white wolf pulling down a calf. Another white
wolf stood not far off. My horse jumped as if he had been shot;
and the realization darted upon me that here was where the
certain something began. Spot--the mustang had one black spot in
his pure white--snorted like I imagined a blooded horse might,
under dire insult. Jones's bay had gotten about a hundred paces
the start. I lived to learn that Spot hated to be left behind;
moreover, he would not be left behind; he was the swiftest horse
on the range, and proud of the distinction. I cast one
unmentionable word on the breeze toward the cabin and Frank, then
put mind and muscle to the sore task of remaining with Spot.
Jones was born on a saddle, and had been taking his meals in a
saddle for about sixty-three years, and the bay horse could run.
Run is not a felicitous word--he flew. And I was rendered
mentally deranged for the moment to see that hundred paces
between the bay and Spot materially lessen at every jump. Spot
lengthened out, seemed to go down near the ground, and cut the
air like a high-geared auto. If I had not heard the fast rhythmic
beat of his hoofs, and had not bounced high into the air at every
jump, I would have been sure I was riding a bird. I tried to stop
him. As well might I have tried to pull in the Lusitania with a
thread. Spot was out to overhaul that bay, and in spite of me, he
was doing it. The wind rushed into my face and sang in my ears.
Jones seemed the nucleus of a sort of haze, and it grew larger
and larger. Presently he became clearly defined in my sight; the
violent commotion under me subsided; I once more felt the saddle,
and then I realized that Spot had been content to stop alongside
of Jones, tossing his head and champing his bit.

"Well, by George! I didn't know you were in the stretch," cried
my companion. "That was a fine little brush. We must have come
several miles. I'd have killed those wolves if I'd brought a gun.
The big one that had the calf was a bold brute. He never let go
until I was within fifty feet of him. Then I almost rode him
down. I don't think the calf was much hurt. But those
blood-thirsty devils will return, and like as not get the calf.
That's the worst of cattle raising. Now, take the buffalo. Do you
suppose those wolves could have gotten a buffalo calf out from
under the mother? Never. Neither could a whole band of wolves.
Buffalo stick close together, and the little ones do not stray.
When danger threatens, the herd closes in and faces it and
fights. That is what is grand about the buffalo and what made
them once roam the prairies in countless, endless droves."

From the highest elevation in that part of the range we viewed
the surrounding ridges, flats and hollows, searching for the
buffalo. At length we spied a cloud of dust rising from behind an
undulating mound, then big black dots hove in sight.

"Frank has rounded up the herd, and is driving it this way. We'll
wait," said Jones.

Though the buffalo appeared to be moving fast, a long time
elapsed before they reached the foot of our outlook. They
lumbered along in a compact mass, so dense that I could not count
them, but I estimated the number at seventy-five. Frank was
riding zigzag behind them, swinging his lariat and yelling. When
he espied us he reined in his horse and waited. Then the herd
slowed down, halted and began browsing.

"Look at the cattalo calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones.
"See how shy they are, how close they stick to their mothers."

The little dark-brown fellows were plainly frightened. I made
several unsuccessful attempts to photograph them, and gave it up
when Jones told me not to ride too close and that it would be
better to wait till we had them in the corral.

He took my camera and instructed me to go on ahead, in the rear
of the herd. I heard the click of the instrument as he snapped a
picture, and then suddenly heard him shout in alarm: "Look out!
look out! pull your horse!"

Thundering hoof-beats pounding the earth accompanied his words. I
saw a big bull, with head down, tail raised, charging my horse.
He answered Frank's yell of command with a furious grunt. I was
paralyzed at the wonderfully swift action of the shaggy brute,
and I sat helpless. Spot wheeled as if he were on a pivot and
plunged out of the way with a celerity that was astounding. The
buffalo stopped, pawed the ground, and angrily tossed his huge
head. Frank rode up to him, yelled, and struck him with the
lariat, whereupon he gave another toss of his horns, and then
returned to the herd.

"It was that darned white nag," said Jones. "Frank, it was wrong
to put an inexperienced man on Spot. For that matter, the horse
should never be allowed to go near the buffalo."

"Spot knows the buffs; they'd never get to him," replied Frank.
But the usual spirit was absent from his voice, and he glanced at
me soberly. I knew I had turned white, for I felt the peculiar
cold sensation on my face.

"Now, look at that, will you?" cried Jones. "I don't like the
looks of that."

He pointed to the herd. They stopped browsing, and were uneasily
shifting to and fro. The bull lifted his head; the others slowly
grouped together.

"Storm! Sandstorm!" exclaimed Jones, pointing desert-ward. Dark
yellow clouds like smoke were rolling, sweeping, bearing down
upon us. They expanded, blossoming out like gigantic roses, and
whirled and merged into one another, all the time rolling on and
blotting out the light.

"We've got to run. That storm may last two days," yelled Frank to
me. "We've had some bad ones lately. Give your horse free rein,
and cover your face."

A roar, resembling an approaching storm at sea, came on puffs of
wind, as the horses got into their stride. Long streaks of dust
whipped up in different places; the silver-white grass bent to
the ground; round bunches of sage went rolling before us. The
puffs grew longer, steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast
howled on our trail, seeming to swoop down on us with a yellow,
blinding pall. I shut my eyes and covered my face with a
handkerchief. The sand blew so thick that it filled my gloves,
pebbles struck me hard enough to sting through my coat.

Fortunately, Spot kept to an easy swinging lope, which was the
most comfortable motion for me. But I began to get numb, and
could hardly stick on the saddle. Almost before I had dared to
hope, Spot stopped. Uncovering my face, I saw Jim in the doorway
of the lee side of the cabin. The yellow, streaky, whistling
clouds of sand split on the cabin and passed on, leaving a small,
dusty space of light.

"Shore Spot do hate to be beat," yelled Jim, as he helped me off.
I stumbled into the cabin and fell upon a buffalo robe and lay
there absolutely spent. Jones and Frank came in a few minutes
apart, each anathematizing the gritty, powdery sand.

All day the desert storm raged and roared. The dust sifted
through the numerous cracks in the cabin burdened our clothes,
spoiled our food and blinded our eyes. Wind, snow, sleet and
rainstorms are discomforting enough under trying circumstances;
but all combined, they are nothing to the choking stinging,
blinding sandstorm.

"Shore it'll let up by sundown," averred Jim. And sure enough the
roar died away about five o'clock, the wind abated and the sand
settled.

Just before supper, a knock sounded heavily o the cabin door. Jim
opened it to admit one of Emmett's sons and a very tall man whom
none of us knew. He was a sand-man. All that was not sand seemed
a space or two of corduroy, a big bone-handled knife, a prominent
square jaw and bronze cheek and flashing eyes.

"Get down--get down, an' come in, stranger, said Frank cordially.

"How do you do, sir," said Jones.

"Colonel Jones, I've been on your trail for twelve days,"
announced the stranger, with a grim smile. The sand streamed off
his coat in little white streak. Jones appeared to be casting
about in his mind.

"I'm Grant Wallace," continued the newcomer. "I missed you at the
El Tovar, at Williams and at Flagstaff, where I was one day
behind. Was half a day late at the Little Colorado, saw your
train cross Moncaupie Wash, and missed you because of the
sandstorm there. Saw you from the other side of the Big Colorado
as you rode out from Emmett's along the red wall. And here I am.
We've never met till now, which obviously isn't my fault."

The Colonel and I fell upon Wallace's neck. Frank manifested his
usual alert excitation, and said: "Well, I guess he won't hang
fire on a long cougar chase." And Jim--slow, careful Jim, dropped
a plate with the exclamation: "Shore it do beat hell!" The hounds
sniffed round Wallace, and welcomed him with vigorous tails.

Supper that night, even if we did grind sand with our teeth, was
a joyous occasion. The biscuits were flaky and light; the bacon
fragrant and crisp. I produced a jar of blackberry jam, which by
subtle cunning I had been able to secrete from the Mormons on
that dry desert ride, and it was greeted with acclamations of
pleasure. Wallace, divested of his sand guise, beamed with the
gratification of a hungry man once more in the presence of
friends and food. He made large cavities in Jim's great pot of
potato stew, and caused biscuits to vanish in a way that would
not have shamed a Hindoo magician. The Grand Canyon he dug in my
jar of jam, however, could not have been accomplished by
legerdemain.

Talk became animated on dogs, cougars, horses and buffalo. Jones
told of our experience out on the range, and concluded with some
salient remarks.

"A tame wild animal is the most dangerous of beasts. My old
friend, Dick Rock, a great hunter and guide out of Idaho, laughed
at my advice, and got killed by one of his three-year-old bulls.
I told him they knew him just well enough to kill him, and they
did. My friend, A. H. Cole, of Oxford, Nebraska, tried to rope a
Weetah that was too tame to be safe, and the bull killed him.
Same with General Bull, a member of the Kansas Legislature, and
two cowboys who went into a corral to tie up a tame elk at the
wrong time. I pleaded with them not to undertake it. They had not
studied animals as I had. That tame elk killed all of them. He
had to be shot in order to get General Bull off his great
antlers. You see, a wild animal must learn to respect a man. The
way I used to teach the Yellowstone Park bears to be respectful
and safe neighbors was to rope them around the front paw, swing
them up on a tree clear of the ground, and whip them with a long
pole. It was a dangerous business, and looks cruel, but it is the
only way I could find to make the bears good. You see, they eat
scraps around the hotels and get so tame they will steal
everything but red-hot stoves, and will cuff the life out of
those who try to shoo them off. But after a bear mother has had a
licking, she not only becomes a good bear for the rest of her
life, but she tells all her cubs about it with a good smack of
her paw, for emphasis, and teaches them to respect peaceable
citizens generation after generation.

"One of the hardest jobs I ever tackled was that of supplying the
buffalo for Bronx Park. I rounded up a magnificent 'king' buffalo
bull, belligerent enough to fight a battleship. When I rode after
him the cowmen said I was as good as killed. I made a lance by
driving a nail into the end of a short pole and sharpening it.
After he had chased me, I wheeled my broncho, and hurled the
lance into his back, ripping a wound as long as my hand. That put
the fear of Providence into him and took the fight all out of
him. I drove him uphill and down, and across canyons at a dead
run for eight miles single handed, and loaded him on a freight
car; but he came near getting me once or twice, and only quick
broncho work and lance play saved me.

"In the Yellowstone Park all our buffaloes have become docile,
excepting the huge bull which led them. The Indians call the
buffalo leader the 'Weetah,' the master of the herd. It was sure
death to go near this one. So I shipped in another Weetah, hoping
that he might whip some of the fight out of old Manitou, the
Mighty. They came together head on, like a railway collision, and
ripped up over a square mile of landscape, fighting till night
came on, and then on into the night.

"I jumped into the field with them, chasing them with my
biograph, getting a series of moving pictures of that bullfight
which was sure the real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do,
though knowing that neither bull dared take his eyes off his
adversary for a second, I felt reasonably safe. The old Weetah
beat the new champion out that night, but the next morning they
were at it again, and the new buffalo finally whipped the old one
into submission. Since then his spirit has remained broken, and
even a child can approach him safely--but the new Weetah is in
turn a holy terror.

"To handle buffalo, elk and bear, you must get into sympathy with
their methods of reasoning. No tenderfoot stands any show, even
with the tame animals of the Yellowstone."

The old buffalo hunter's lips were no longer locked. One after
another he told reminiscences of his eventful life, in a simple
manner; yet so vivid and gripping were the unvarnished details
that I was spellbound.

"Considering what appears the impossibility of capturing a
full-grown buffalo, how did you earn the name of preserver of the
American bison?" inquired Wallace.

"It took years to learn how, and ten more to capture the
fifty-eight that I was able to keep. I tried every plan under the
sun. I roped hundreds, of all sizes and ages. They would not live
in captivity. If they could not find an embankment over which to
break their necks, they would crush their skulls on stones.
Failing any means like that, they would lie down, will themselves
to die, and die. Think of a savage wild nature that could will
its heart to cease beating! But it's true. Finally I found I
could keep only calves under three months of age. But to capture
them so young entailed time and patience. For the buffalo fight
for their young, and when I say fight, I mean till they drop. I
almost always had to go alone, because I could neither coax nor
hire any one to undertake it with me. Sometimes I would be weeks
getting one calf. One day I captured eight--eight little buffalo
calves! Never will I forget that day as long as I live!"

"Tell us about it," I suggested, in a matter of fact,
round-the-campfire voice. Had the silent plainsman ever told a
complete and full story of his adventures? I doubted it. He was
not the man to eulogize himself.

A short silence ensued. The cabin was snug and warm; the ruddy
embers glowed; one of Jim's pots steamed musically and
fragrantly. The hounds lay curled in the cozy chimney corner.

Jones began to talk again, simply and unaffectedly, of his famous
exploit; and as he went on so modestly, passing lightly over
features we recognized as wonderful, I allowed the fire of my
imagination to fuse for myself all the toil, patience, endurance,
skill, herculean strength and marvelous courage and unfathomable
passion which he slighted in his narrative.

CHAPTER 3. THE LAST HERD

Over gray No-Man's-Land stole down the shadows of night. The
undulating prairie shaded dark to the western horizon, rimmed
with a fading streak of light. Tall figures, silhouetted sharply
against the last golden glow of sunset, marked the rounded crest
of a grassy knoll.

"Wild hunter!" cried a voice in sullen rage, "buffalo or no, we
halt here. Did Adams and I hire to cross the Staked Plains? Two
weeks in No-Man's-Land, and now we're facing the sand! We've one
keg of water, yet you want to keep on. Why, man, you're crazy!
You didn't tell us you wanted buffalo alive. And here you've got
us looking death in the eye!"

In the grim silence that ensued the two men unhitched the team
from the long, light wagon, while the buffalo hunter staked out
his wiry, lithe-limbed racehorses. Soon a fluttering blaze threw
a circle of light, which shone on the agitated face of Rude and
Adams, and the cold, iron-set visage of their brawny leader.

"It's this way," began Jones, in slow, cool voice; "I engaged you
fellows, and you promised to stick by me. We've had no luck. But
I've finally found sign--old sign, I'll admit the buffalo I'm
looking for--the last herd on the plains. For two years I've been
hunting this herd. So have other hunters. Millions of buffalo
have been killed and left to rot. Soon this herd will be gone,
and then the only buffalo in the world will be those I have given
ten years of the hardest work in capturing. This is the last
herd, I say, and my last chance to capture a calf or two. Do you
imagine I'd quit? You fellows go back if you want, but I keep on."

"We can't go back. We're lost. We'll have to go with you. But,
man, thirst is not the only risk we run. This is Comanche
country. And if that herd is in here the Indians have it
spotted."

"That worries me some," replied the plainsman, "but we'll keep on
it."

They slept. The night wind swished the grasses; dark storm clouds
blotted out the northern stars; the prairie wolves mourned
dismally.

Day broke cold, wan, threatening, under a leaden sky. The hunters
traveled thirty miles by noon, and halted in a hollow where a
stream flowed in wet season. Cottonwood trees were bursting into
green; thickets of prickly thorn, dense and matted, showed bright
spring buds.

"What is it?" suddenly whispered Rude.

The plainsman lay in strained posture, his ear against the
ground.

"Hide the wagon and horses in the clump of cottonwoods," he
ordered, tersely. Springing to his feet, he ran to the top of the
knoll above the hollow, where he again placed his ear to the
ground.

Jones's practiced ear had detected the quavering rumble of
far-away, thundering hoofs. He searched the wide waste of plain
with his powerful glass. To the southwest, miles distant, a cloud
of dust mushroomed skyward. "Not buffalo," he muttered, "maybe
wild horses." He watched and waited. The yellow cloud rolled
forward, enlarging, spreading out, and drove before it a darkly
indistinct, moving mass. As soon as he had one good look at this
he ran back to his comrades.

"Stampede! Wild horses! Indians! Look to your rifles and hide!"

Wordless and pale, the men examined their Sharps, and made ready
to follow Jones. He slipped into the thorny brake and, flat on
his stomach, wormed his way like a snake far into the thickly
interlaced web of branches. Rude and Adams crawled after him.
Words were superfluous. Quiet, breathless, with beating hearts,
the hunters pressed close to the dry grass. A long, low, steady
rumble filled the air, and increased in volume till it became a
roar. Moments, endless moments, passed. The roar filled out like
a flood slowly released from its confines to sweep down with the
sound of doom. The ground began to tremble and quake: the light
faded; the smell of dust pervaded the thicket, then a continuous
streaming roar, deafening as persistent roll of thunder, pervaded
the hiding place. The stampeding horses had split round the
hollow. The roar lessened. Swiftly as a departing snow-squall
rushing on through the pines, the thunderous thud and tramp of
hoofs died away.

The trained horses hidden in the cottonwoods never stirred. "Lie
low! lie low!" breathed the plainsman to his companions.

Throb of hoofs again became audible, not loud and madly pounding
as those that had passed, but low, muffled, rhythmic. Jones's
sharp eye, through a peephole in the thicket, saw a cream-colored
mustang bob over the knoll, carrying an Indian. Another and
another, then a swiftly following, close-packed throng appeared.
Bright red feathers and white gleamed; weapons glinted; gaunt,
bronzed savage leaned forward on racy, slender mustangs.

The plainsman shrank closer to the ground. "Apache!" he exclaimed
to himself, and gripped his rifle. The band galloped down to the
hollow, and slowing up, piled single file over the bank. The
leader, a short, squat chief, plunged into the brake not twenty
yards from the hidden men. Jones recognized the cream mustang; he
knew the somber, sinister, broad face. It belonged to the Red
Chief of the Apaches.

"Geronimo!" murmured the plainsman through his teeth.

Well for the Apache that no falcon savage eye discovered aught
strange in the little hollow! One look at the sand of the stream
bed would have cost him his life. But the Indians crossed the
thicket too far up; they cantered up the slope and disappeared.
The hoof-beats softened and ceased.

"Gone?" whispered Rude.

"Gone. But wait," whispered Jones. He knew the savage nature, and
he knew how to wait. After a long time, he cautiously crawled out
of the thicket and searched the surroundings with a plainsman's
eye. He climbed the slope and saw the clouds of dust, the near
one small, the far one large, which told him all he needed to
know.

"Comanches?" queried Adams, with a quaver in his voice. He was
new to the plains.

"Likely," said Jones, who thought it best not to tell all he
knew. Then he added to himself: "We've no time to lose. There's
water back here somewhere. The Indians have spotted the buffalo,
and were running the horses away from the water."

The three got under way again, proceeding carefully, so as not to
raise the dust, and headed due southwest. Scantier and scantier
grew the grass; the hollows were washes of sand; steely gray
dunes, like long, flat, ocean swells, ribbed the prairie. The
gray day declined. Late into the purple night they traveled, then
camped without fire.

In the gray morning Jones climbed a high ride and scanned the
southwest. Low dun-colored sandhills waved from him down and
down, in slow, deceptive descent. A solitary and remote waste
reached out into gray infinitude. A pale lake, gray as the rest
of that gray expanse, glimmered in the distance.

"Mirage!" he muttered, focusing his glass, which only magnified
all under the dead gray, steely sky. "Water must be somewhere;
but can that be it? It's too pale and elusive to be real. No
life--a blasted, staked plain! Hello!"

A thin, black, wavering line of wild fowl, moving in beautiful,
rapid flight, crossed the line of his vision. "Geese flying
north, and low. There's water here," he said. He followed the
flock with his glass, saw them circle over the lake, and vanish
in the gray sheen.

"It's water." He hurried back to camp. His haggard and worn
companions scorned his discovery. Adams siding with Rude, who
knew the plains, said: "Mirage! the lure of the desert!" Yet
dominated by a force too powerful for them to resist, they
followed the buffalo-hunter. All day the gleaming lake beckoned
them onward, and seemed to recede. All day the drab clouds
scudded before the cold north wind. In the gray twilight, the
lake suddenly lay before them, as if it had opened at their feet.
The men rejoiced, the horses lifted their noses and sniffed the
damp air.

The whinnies of the horses, the clank of harness, and splash of
water, the whirl of ducks did not blur out of Jones's keen ear a
sound that made him jump. It was the thump of hoofs, in a
familiar beat, beat, beat. He saw a shadow moving up a ridge.
Soon, outlined black against the yet light sky, a lone buffalo
cow stood like a statue. A moment she held toward the lake,
studying the danger, then went out of sight over the ridge.

Jones spurred his horse up the ascent, which was rather long and
steep, but he mounted the summit in time to see the cow join
eight huge, shaggy buffalo. The hunter reined in his horse, and
standing high in his stirrups, held his hat at arms' length over
his head. So he thrilled to a moment he had sought for two years.
The last herd of American bison was near at hand. The cow would
not venture far from the main herd; the eight stragglers were the
old broken-down bulls that had been expelled, at this season,
from the herd by younger and more vigorous bulls. The old
monarchs saw the hunter at the same time his eyes were gladdened
by sight of them, and lumbered away after the cow, to disappear
in the gathering darkness. Frightened buffalo always make
straight for their fellows; and this knowledge contented Jones to
return to the lake, well satisfied that the herd would not be far
away in the morning, within easy striking distance by daylight.

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