The Boy Hunters, Mayne Reid [best love novels of all time .TXT] 📗
- Author: Mayne Reid
Book online «The Boy Hunters, Mayne Reid [best love novels of all time .TXT] 📗». Author Mayne Reid
“Impossible!” exclaimed Basil, eyeing the butte. “Why, I can see the seams of the rocks on its sides, and trees, I fancy, growing upon its top.”
“Well,” continued Lucien, “with all that you’ll find I am not far from the mark. But let us strike for it, since you wish it. We shall meet with water there, I suppose; take notice, however,—we’ll have to journey all day before reaching it; and we may consider ourselves fortunate if we get there before night-fall.”
Lucien’s prudence was not too great. On the contrary, it was not even sufficient for the occasion. This arose from his want of experience on the prairies. If either he or his brothers had had a little more of this, they would have hesitated before striking out so boldly, and leaving the water behind them. They would have known that, to make a long journey, without the certainty of finding water at the end of it, is a risk that even the old hunters themselves will seldom undertake. These, from experience, well know the danger of being without water on the prairies. They dread it more than grizzly bears, or panthers, or wolverines, or even hostile Indians. The fear of thirst is to them the greatest of all terrors.
Our young hunters felt but little of this fear. It is true they had, all of them, heard or read of the sufferings that prairie travellers sometimes endure from want of water. But people who live snugly at home, surrounded by springs, and wells, and streams, with cisterns, and reservoirs, and pipes, and hydrants, and jets, and fountains, playing at all times around them, are prone to underrate these sufferings; in fact, too prone, might I not say, to discredit everything that does not come under the sphere of their own observation? They will readily believe that their cat can open a door-latch, and their pig can be taught to play cards, and that their dog can do wonderful things, savouring of something more than instinct. But these same people will shake their heads incredulously, when I tell them that the opossum saves herself from an enemy by hanging suspended to the tree-branch by her tail, or that the big-horn will leap from a precipice lighting upon his horns, or that the red monkeys can bridge a stream by joining themselves to one another by their tails.
“Oh! nonsense!” they exclaim; “these things are too strange to be true.” And yet, when compared with the tricks their cat and dog can play, and even the little canary that flits about the drawing-room, do they seem either strange or improbable? The absent and distant are always regarded with wonder and incredulity; while familiar facts, in themselves far more wonderful, neither excite curiosity nor challenge credulity. Who now regards the startling phenomenon of the electric wire otherwise than as a simple truth easily comprehended? And yet there was a time—ah! there was a time—when to have proclaimed this truth would have rendered you or me ridiculous. There was a time, indeed, when it might have cost us our lives or our liberties. Remember Galileo!
I was saying, then, that people who live at home do not know what thirst is; for home is a place where there is always water. They cannot comprehend what it is to be in the desert without this necessary element. Ha! I know it; and I give you my word for it, it is a fearful thing.
Our young hunters had but a faint idea of its terrors. Hitherto their route had been through a well-watered region—scarcely ever running ten or a dozen miles without crossing some stream with timber upon it, which they could see a long way off, and thus guide themselves to the water; but they little understood the nature of the country that was now before them. They knew not that they were entering upon the desert plains—those vast arid steppes that slope up to the foots of the Rocky Mountains—the Cordilleras of the Northern Andes.
François, rash and impetuous, never dreamt of danger: Basil, courageous, did not fear it: Lucien had some misgivings, because he had heard or read more of it than the others. All, however, were curious to visit the strange, mound-looking eminence that rose out of the plain. This was quite natural. Even the rude savage and the matter-of-fact trapper often diverge from their course, impelled by a similar curiosity.
The horses were watered and saddled; Jeanette was packed; the water-gourds were filled; and our adventurers, having mounted, rode forward for the “butte.”
“There must be buffalo in this neighbourhood,” said Basil, looking to the ground as they rode on. “These ‘chips’ are very fresh. They cannot have lain for many days. See! there is a buffalo-road covered with tracks!”
As Basil said this, he pointed to a trough-like hollow in the prairie, running as far as the eye could reach. It looked like the dry bed of a stream; but the hoof-tracks in the bottom showed that it was what he had called it,—a buffalo-road, leading, no doubt, to some river or watering-place. It was so deep that, in riding along it, the heads of our travellers were on a level with the prairie. It had been thus hollowed out by the water during heavy rains, as the soil, previously loosened by the hoofs of the buffaloes, was then carried off to the rivers. Such roads the buffaloes follow at times, thousands of them keeping in the same trail. They travel thus when they are migrating in search of better pastures, or water—to which they know by experience the roads will conduct them.
Our hunters did not follow this road far, as there was no certainty that it would bring them to where the animals then were. They crossed over, and kept on for the butte.
“Voilà!” cried François, “what are these?” François pointed to several circular hollows that appeared in the prairie before them.
“Buffalo-wallows, I declare!” said Basil: “some of them are quite fresh too!”
“Buffalo-wallows!” echoed François; “what are they?”
“Why, have you never heard of them, Frank?” asked Basil. “Places where the buffalo wallow and tumble like horses and farm-cattle.”
“Oh, that’s it,” said François; “but what do they do it for?”
“Well, that I don’t know. Perhaps Luce can tell.”
“Some say,” said Lucien, thus appealed to, “they do it to scratch themselves, and get rid of the flies and other insects that annoy them. Others believe that they practise this curious exercise only by way of diversion.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed François, “what funny fellows they must be!”
“There is yet another more curious explanation,” continued Lucien, “which is this:—that the buffaloes make these hollows to catch water when it rains, so that they may come back to them and drink!”
“Ha! ha! ha!” again laughed François; “I can’t believe that, brother.”
“I would not have you neither,” said Lucien; “of course, the supposition is not true—as the buffalo is not an animal possessing sufficient intelligence for that. It is only offered as a curious suggestion. It is certain, however, that the water collects in these holes during rain-time, and often remains there for days; and the buffaloes, wandering about, drink out of them. Therefore, it may, in one sense, be truly said that the buffaloes dig their own wells! These often prove of service to other animals, as well as those who have made them. Lost trappers and Indians have been saved by finding water in them, when otherwise they would have perished from thirst.”
“How very round they are!” said François; “why, they are perfect circles! How do the buffaloes make them so?”
“By laying themselves out at full length and spinning round and round like a wagon wheel upon its nave. They revolve with great rapidity, using their humped shoulders as a pivot, and their legs as levers. They sometimes continue this motion for half-an-hour at a time. No doubt they do this, as has been said, to scratch themselves; for, notwithstanding their thick hides and hair, they are much annoyed by insect-parasites. They do it, too, for amusement, or to give themselves pleasure, which is the same thing. You have often witnessed horses at a similar exercise; and was it not evident that they took a pleasure in it? Have you not fancied so?”
“Oh, yes,” cried François, “I am sure horses enjoy a good tumble.”
“Well, then, it is to be supposed the buffaloes do the same. Getting rid of their tormentors, and pressing their hot sides into the fresh cool earth, is, no doubt, a source of enjoyment to them. They are not very cleanly; as they are often seen wandering about, so covered with dirt, that one cannot tell what colour their hide is.”
“Well!” added François, “I hope we shall soon come across one with a white hide!”
Talking after this fashion, our young hunters continued their journey. They had ridden about ten miles, when Basil—whose eye was all the time wandering around the prairie horizon—uttered an exclamation, and suddenly reined up his horse. The others, seeing him do so, stopped also.
“What do you see?” asked Lucien.
“I do not know,” replied Basil; “but there is something yonder upon the edge of the prairie—to the southward—do you see it?”
“Yes; it looks like a clump of low trees.”
“No,” said Basil; “they are not trees. This moment I saw one apart from the rest, and I do not see it now. It appeared to move in toward the mass. I fancy they are animals of some kind or other.”
“Buffaloes, I hope!” cried François, raising himself to his full height in the stirrups, and endeavouring to get a sight of them. But François’ pony did not give him a sufficient elevation to enable him to see the objects; and he was, therefore, compelled to withhold an opinion as to what they might be.
“Should we ride towards them?” asked Lucien, addressing Basil.
“I think they are moving this way,” replied the latter. “They extend more along the horizon, and that may be because they are getting nearer. Buffaloes! no—as I live,” continued he, elevating his voice, “they are horsemen—perhaps mounted Indians!”
“Why do you think so?” inquired Lucien, hurriedly.
“I saw one between me and the sky. I can tell the shape of a horse as far as I can see him. I am sure it was one. Look! yonder goes another!”
“It is,” added Lucien; “it is a horse. But see! there is no rider—no one on his back; and yonder’s another, also without a rider. Ha! I know now—they are mustangs!”
“Mustangs!” echoed François; “good!—that will be something worth seeing.”
It soon proved that Lucien was right. It was a drove of mustangs, or wild horses. Basil was also right in saying that they were coming towards them; for in a few moments they appeared to be within less than a mile, and approaching at a rapid gallop.
They galloped closely together like a trained troop; and one could be perceived some lengths in the advance apparently acting as leader. Now and then one would shy out of the ranks, and rear a moment apart from the rest, but would return again, and fall in with his companions. It was a rare sight to see them as they came on; and the ground thundered under their hoofs as though a squadron of cavalry was charging over it.
When within less than half a mile of the party, they seemed to notice the latter for the first time. All at once the foremost halted, threw up his head with a snort, and stood still. The others stopped, imitating the example of their leader. The latter was still some paces in the advance; while the breasts of his followers seemed to form a compact front, like cavalry in line of battle! After standing still for a few seconds, the leader uttered a shrill neigh, shied to the right, and dashed off at full speed. The
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