the Thundering Herd (1984) Page 5

  While he was laboring here Burn rode by and paid him a hearty compliment, which acted upon Tom like a spur. He could not put forth any greater zeal; indeed, he would do wonders if he kept to the pace he had set himself. But as he progressed he learned.

  This advantage, however, was offset by the gradual dulling of his knives. He had forgotten to bring his steel.

  He toiled from one dead buffalo to another. The breeze died away, the sun climbed high and blazed down upon the plain. His greatest need was water to drink. Hour by hour his thirst augmented. His shirt was so wet with perspiration that he could have wrung it out.

  The heat did not bother him so much. Gradually his clothes became covered with a lather of sweat, blood, grease, and dust. This, and the growing pangs in his body, especially hands and forearms, occasioned him extreme annoyance. He did not note the passing of time. Only now and then did he scan the plain for sign of his comrades. Indians he had completely forgotten. Burn and Stronghurl were to be seen at intervals, and Pilchuck, driving the wagon, was with them. Once from a high knoll Tom thought he espied another wagon miles down the river, but he could not be sure. He did, however, make out a dim black blur to the southward, and this he decided was the buffalo herd, ranging back toward the river.

  During this strenuous time there were incidents of much interest, if he could only have given them due attention. Buzzards swooped down over him, closer and closer, till he felt the wind of their wings. A lean gray wolf came within range of his gun, but Tom had no time for shooting. He toiled on and the hours flew.

  When, late in the afternoon, he tore off the hide that assured him of winning the wager, he was exultant. He was now two miles from the wagon, which he made out was approaching. Only one more buffalo did he find, and this he skinned by the time Pilchuck drove up.

  "Wal, if you ain't a Kansas cyclone!" ejaculated the scout, with undisguised admiration. "Seventeen skinned your first day! Doan, I never seen the beat of it."

  "I had a bet with Burn," replied Torn, wiping his hot face.

  "If you can keep that lick up, young man, you'll make a stake out of this hide-huntin'," returned Pilchuck, seriously.

  "Wait till I learn how!" exclaimed Tom, fired by the praise and the hopes thus engendered.

  "Reckon I'll cut the hump off this young bull," remarked the scout, as he climbed out of the seat. "Buffalo steak for supper, hey?"

  "I could eat hoofs. And I'm spitting cotton," said Tom.

  "You forgot a canteen. Son, you mustn't forget ANYTHIN' in this game," admonished Pilchuck. "Rustle back to camp."

  Tom was interested, however, to learn how Pilchuck would cut the desirable hump from the carcass. Long had Tom heard of the savory steaks from the buffalo. The scout thrust his big knife in near the joining of the loin, ripped forward along the lower side as far as the ribs ran; then performed a like operation on the upper side.

  That done, he cut the ends loose and carved out a strip over three feet long and so thick it was heavy.

  "Reckon we can rustle back to camp now," he said, throwing the meat on the pile of hides in the wagon.

  "Is that the herd coming back?" queried Tom, pointing from his horse.

  "Yes. They'll be in to-night yet to drink. We'll find them here to-morrow mornin'. Did you hear the big fifties of the other hunters?"

  "You mean others besides our outfit? No, I didn't."

  "There's a couple of outfits down the river. But that's lucky for us. Probably will be hunters all along here soon. Reckon there's safety in numbers an' sure the buffalo are plenty enough."

  Tom rode back to camp facing a sunset that emblazoned the western ramparts in gold and purple. The horizon line was far distant and lifted high, a long level upland, at that moment singularly wild and beautiful. Tom wondered if it could be the eastern extension of the great Staked Plains he had heard mentioned so often. Weary as he was from his extraordinary exertions, he yet had spirit left to look and feel and think. The future seemed like that gold- rimmed horizon line.

  He reached camp before dusk, there to receive the plaudits of his comrades and also the women folks. Burn was generous in his eulogy, but he created consternation in Tom's breast by concluding, "Wait till you try peggin' out a hide!"

  "Aw! I forgot there was more. I've not won that bet yet," he rejoined, dejectedly.

  After attending to his horse Tom had just about enough energy left to drink copiously and stretch out with a groan under a tree.

  Never before in his life had he throbbed and ached and burned so exceedingly. An hour's rest considerably relieved him. Then supper, which he attacked somewhat as if he were a hungry wolf, was an event to be remembered. If all his comrades had not been equally as ravenous he would have been ashamed. Pilchuck got much satisfaction out of the rapid disappearance of many buffalo steaks.

  "Meat's no good when so fresh," he averred. "After bein' hung up a few days an' set, we call it, an' fried in tallow, it beats beef all hollow."

  Before darkness set in Tom saw Pilchuck peg out a hide. First the scout laid the hide flat and proceeded to cut little holes in it all around the edge. Next with ax and knife he sharpened sticks nearly a foot long. Three of these he drove through the neck of the hide and deep enough into the ground to hold well. Then he proceeded to the tail end and stretched the skin. Tom could well see that skill was required here. Pilchuck held the skin stretched, and at the same time drove one peg, then another, at this end. Following that, he began to stretch and peg the side, eventually working all around. The whole operation did not take long and did not appear difficult.

  Tom essayed it with a vim that made up for misgivings. Like the skinning, it was vastly more difficult than it looked. Cutting the holes and making the pegs was easy; however, when it came to stretching the hide and holding it and pegging it all by himself, he found it a most deceiving and irksome task.

  Sally Hudnall offered to help Tom, but he declined with thanks, explaining that he had a wager to win. The girl hovered round Tom and curiously watched him, much to his annoyance. He saw that she was laughing at him.

  "What's so funny?" he queried, nettled.

  "You look like a boy tryin' to play mumbly-peg an' leap-frog at once," she replied with a giggle.

  Tom had to laugh a good-natured acknowledgment to that; and then he deftly turned the tables on her by making a dry, casual remark about Stronghurl. The girl blushed and let him alone to ponder over the intricacies of this hide pegging. No contortionist ever performed more marvels of stretching his body than Tom achieved.

  Likewise, no man ever so valiantly stifled back speech that would have been unseemly, to say the least, in the hearing of women. His efforts, however, were crowned with the reward of persistence. By midnight he had the job done, and utterly spent he crawled into his bed, where at once his eyes seemed to glue shut.

  Next morning he readily answered Pilchuck's call, but his body was incapable of a like alacrity. He crawled out of his blankets as if he were crippled. A gradual working of his muscles, however, loosened the stiffness and warmed the cold soreness to the extent that he believed he could begin the day with some semblance of service.

  It was again, in Pilchuck's terse terms, every man for himself.

  Tom welcomed this for two reasons, first that he could go easy, and secondly that he wanted to revel in and prolong his first real encounter with the buffalo.

  Hudnall changed Tom's plans somewhat by relegating him to watch camp that day, while he went out with the other men. He modified this order, however, by saying that if any buffalo came near camp Tom might go after them.

  Breakfast was over at sunrise. Pilchuck brought out his heavy ammunition box, with which each hunter was provided, and told Tom he could help a little and learn while he helped. His belt contained more than thirty empty shells that were to be reloaded.

  "Reckon I ought to have done this last night," he explained to Hundall, who was impatient to be off. "You fellows go on down the river. I'll catch up with you."
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br />   The three hunters rode off eagerly, and Pilchuck got out his tools for reloading. Tom quickly learned the use of bullet-mold, swedge, lubricator, primer, extractor, tamper, and patch-paper.

  "Reckon I'm all set now," affirmed the scout. "You put these tools away for me. An' keep a good lookout. I'm not worryin', but I'd like to know if there's Indians huntin' this herd. Take a look from the ridge with my glass, an' there'll be buffalo on the other side of the river to-day, you can keep in sight of camp an' get a shot."

  With that Pilchuck mounted his horse and trotted away through the timber. Tom leisurely set about the few tasks at hand. It pleased him when he was able to avoid Sally's watching eyes. She seemed to regard him with something of disapproval. When the camp chores were finished Tom took the telescope and climbed to the ridge-top.

  Apparently more buffalo were in sight than on the previous day and about in the same latitude. Tom swept the circle of surrounding country, gray-green rolling plain, the low ridges, the winding river depression, with its fringe of trees. Some miles down the river rose a column of smoke, marking, no doubt, another camp. Far away to the south and west loomed the strange upheaval of land.

  Clearly defined by the telescope, it appeared to be an escarpment of horizon-wide dimensions, gray and barren, seamed by canyons, standing in wild and rugged prominence above the plains.

  Not until late in the morning did Tom's watchful gaze espy buffalo approaching camp. Then he was thrilled to see a number of what appeared to be bulls grazing riverward opposite the camp. Hurrying down from the eminence whence he had made this observation, he got his gun and cartridges, and crossing the river he proceeded up the thickly wooded slope some distance to the west of his first stand of yesterday. It looked to him as if the bulls might work down into a coulee which opened into the river depression. He was quite a little time reaching the point desired--the edge of woodland and brink of the ravine--and when he peered from under the last trees he was moved with such an overwhelming excitement that he dropped to his knees.

  Out on the open plain, not a hundred yards distant, grazed nine buffalo bulls, the leader of which appeared larger than the largest he had skinned the day before. They had not scented Tom and were grazing toward him, somewhat to the right, manifestly headed for the coulee.

  Trembling and panting, Tom watched with strained sight. He forgot he held a "big fifty" in his hands, and in the riotous sensation of that moment he did not remember until from far down the river came a dull boom--boom of guns. It amazed him to see that the buffalo bulls paid no attention to the shooting. He made up his mind then to take his time and await a favorable opportunity to down the leader. They were approaching so slowly that he had ample time to control the trembling of his muscles, though it was impossible to compose himself.

  Several of the bulls piled over the little bank into the coulee, and while they were passing within fifty yards of Tom the others leisurely began the descent, the huge bull nodding along in the rear. The near ones passed into the timber, getting farther away from Tom. He had difficulty in restraining his eagerness. Then one bull began to crash in the brush. He made as much noise as an elephant. Tom watched with an intense interest only second to the hot-pressed lust to kill. This bull was crashing against thick brush, and it soon became plain to Tom that the beast was scratching his shaggy hide, tearing out the matts of burrs and the shedding hair. It came away in great tufts, hanging on the sharp broken ends of the brush. This old bull knew what he was about when he charged that thicket of hackberry.

  Suddenly Tom was electrified by a puff which assuredly came from the nostrils of a buffalo close to him. He turned cautiously.

  Behind and below him, closer than fifty yards, the other bulls were passing into the timber. He plainly heard the grinding of their teeth. They were monsters. Instinctively Tom searched for a tree to climb or a place to run to after he fired. What if they should charge his way? He would scarcely have time to reload, and even if he had, of what avail would that be?

  Then the monarch wagged his enormous head in line with Tom's magnifying vision. What a wide short face! His eyes stood out so that he could see in front or behind. His shaggy beard was dragging. Tom could see only the tips of the horns in all that woolly mass. Puff! came the sound of expelled breath.

  Tom felt he hated to kill that glorious and terrifying beast, yet he was powerless to resist the tight palpitating feverish dominance of his blood. Resting the heavy rifle on a branch, he aimed behind the great shaggy shoulder, and with strained muscles and bated breath he fired.

  Like a cannon the old Sharps roared. Crashings of brush, thudding of heavy hoofs, sounded to the right of the cloud of smoke. The other bulls were running. Tom caught glimpses of broad brown backs cleaving the brush down the river slope. With shaking hands he reloaded. Peering under the drifting smoke, he searched fearfully for the bull he had fired at, at first seeing only the thick- grassed swelling slope of the coulee. Then farther down he espied a huge brown object lying inert.

  The wildness of the boy in Tom conquered all else. Leaping up, he broke out of the woods, yelling like an Indian, and charged down the gentle slope, exultant and proud, yet not quite frenzied enough to forget possible peril. From that quarter, however, he was safe.

  The monarch was heaving his last breath.

  Pilchuck rode in at noon that day, in time to see Tom stretch the hide of his first buffalo.

  "You got one, hey?" he called, eying the great shaggy hide with appreciation. "Your first buffalo! Wal, it's a darned fine one.

  They don't come any bigger than that fellow."

  Tom had to tell the story of his exploit, and was somewhat discomfited by the scout's remark that he should have killed several of the bulls.

  "Aren't you back early?" queried Tom, as Pilchuck dismounted.

  "Run out of cartridges," he said, laconically.

  "So quick!" exclaimed Tom, staring. "You must have seen a lot of buffalo."

  "Reckon they WAS thick this mornin'," returned the scout, dryly.

  "I got plumb surrounded once an' had to shoot my way out."

  "Well! . . . How many did you down?"

  "Twenty-one. I think when we count up tonight we'll have a good day. Burn is doin' better than yesterday. . . . Wal, I want a bite to eat an' a drink. It's warm ridin' in the dust. Then I'll hitch up the wagon an' drive down for the hides. Come to think of it, though, I've a job to do before. You can help me."

  Later Pilchuck hailed Tom to fetch an ax and come on. Tom followed the scout down into the thickets.

  "Cut four strong poles about ten feet long an' pack them to camp," said Pilchuck.

  Tom did as he was bidden, to find that the scout had returned ahead of him, carrying four short poles with forks at one end. He proceeded to pound these into the ground with the forks uppermost, and then he laid across them the poles Tom had brought, making a square framework. "We'll stretch a hide inside the poles, loose so it'll sag down, an' there we'll salt our buffalo humps."

  Pilchuck then brought in a team of horses and hitched it to the big wagon. "Wal, son," he said to Tom, "I ain't hankerin' after skinnin' hides. But I may as well start. We're goin' to kill more buffalo than we'll have time to skin."

  He drove out of camp down the slope into the shallow water. The horses plunged in at a trot, splashing high. Pilchuck lashed out with the long whip and yelled lustily. Any slowing up there meant wheels stuck in the sand. Horses, driver, and wagon were drenched.

  From the other side Pilchuck looked back. "Fine on a day like this," he shouted.

  Not long after he had gone Tom heard one of the horses up the river neigh several times. This induced him to reconnoiter, with the result that he espied a wagon coming along the edge of the timber.

  It appeared to be an open wagon, with one man in the driver's seat.

  Another, following on horseback, was leading two extra horses.

  "More hide-hunters," Tom decided as he headed toward them. "Now I wonder what's expected of me
in a case like this."

  When the driver espied Tom come into the open, rifle in hand, he halted the horses abruptly.

  "Dunn outfit--hide-hunters," he announced, with something of alarmed alacrity, as if his identity and business had been questioned. He appeared to be a short, broad man, and what little of his face was visible was bright red. He had bushy whiskers.

  "I'm Tom Doan, of Hudnall's outfit," replied Tom. "We're camped just below."

  "Clark Hudnall! By all that's lucky!" exclaimed the man. "I know Hudnall. We talked some last fall of going in together. That was at Independence. But he wasn't ready and I come ahead."

  Tom offered his hand, and at this juncture the horseman that had been behind the wagon rode forward abreast of the driver. He was a fat young man with a most jocund expression on his round face. His apparel was striking in its inappropriateness to the rough life of the plains. His old slouch hat was too small for his large head, and there was a tuft of tow-colored hair sticking out of a hole in the crown.

  "Ory, shake hands with Tom Doan, of Hudnall's outfit," said Dunn.

  "My nephew, Ory Tacks."

  "Much obliged to meet you, Mister Doan," replied Tacks, with great aplomb.

  "Howdy! Same to you," greeted Tom, in slow, good humor, as he studied the face of this newcomer.

  Dunn interrupted his scrutiny.

  "Is Hudnall in camp?"

  "No. He's out hunting buffalo. I'm sure you're welcome to stop at our camp till he comes in. That'll be around sundown."

  "Good. I'm needing sight and sound of some one I know," replied Dunn, significantly. "Lead the way, Doan. These horses of mine are thirsty."

  When the travelers arrived at Hudnall's camp, Tom helped them unhitch in a favorable camping spot, and unpack the necessary camp duffle. Once during this work Ory Tacks halted so suddenly that he dropped a pack on his foot.

  "Ouch!" he cried, lifting his foot to rub it with his hand while he kept his gaze toward Tom's camp. It was an enraptured and amazed gaze. "Do I see a beautiful young lady?"