Annette, The Metis Spy | Page 9

and deer skin leggings; and about her waist was a belt in which were stuck a long knife and a pair of pistols. She patted her pony, took the bridle in her little brown hand, and vaulted lightly into her seat. "There now, Julie; return quickly, and go to your room."
"Au plaisir, portez-vous bien, ma maitresse."
"I shall take care of myself. Adieu;" and she galloped down the grassy knoll, and out upon the prairie.
Although the plain was a great, dusky blur, this observant maiden knew the route as accurately as if the meridian sun were shining; and her horse, guessing that his mistress was on an errand of life and death, flew lightly over the level sod, as if he were a thing woven of the winds. She was aware that her horse could outdistance an Indian pony; and after half an hour's ride knew that the band must now be fully a couple of miles in the rear. But she kept on till she judged that fifteen minutes more must bring her to the encampment at Hickory Bush. Then through the hush of the night came to her ear a far off, indistinct sound, which resembled galloping thunder. She knew not what it could mean, unless indeed it was the tumult of some distant waterfall, borne hither now because, mayhap, a storm was brewing, and the dense air was a better carrier of the sound. The moon was now pushing its wide yellow edge above the plain, and she was enabled to see objects for a considerable distance around. But nothing met her view, save here and there a hummock or a clump of poplars. She rode on marvelling what the sound might be, for the noise was constantly becoming louder, and growing
"Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before"
when lo! out of the west come what seemed a dim shadow moving across the plain. With hushed breath she watched the dark mass move along like some destroying tempest and, as it seemed to her, with ten thousand devils at its core. Chained to the ground with a terrible awe, she stood fast for many minutes, till at last in the dim light she saw eye-balls that blazed like fire, heads crested with rugged, uncouth horns and shaggy manes; and then snouts thrust down, flaring nostrils, and rearing tails.
"My God, a buffalo herd!" she exclaimed. Close at hand was a tall boulder in the shelter of which she instantly secured her horse; then running a few paces to where stood a tall, sturdy poplar, she clambered into its branches.
Then the tremendous mass, headed by maddened bulls, with blazing eyes and foaming nostrils, drove onward toward the south, like an unchained hurricane. Some of the terrified beasts ran against the trees, crushing horns and skull, and fell prone upon the plain to be trampled to jelly by the hundreds of thousands in rear. The tree upon which the girl had taken refuge received many a shock from a crazed bull; and it seemed to Annette from her perch in the branches, as if all the face of the plains was being hurled toward the south in the wildest turmoil. Hell itself let loose could present no such spectacle as this myriad mass of brute life sweeping over the lonely plain under the elfin light of the new-risen moon. Clouds of steam, wreathing themselves into spectral shapes rose from the dusky, writhing mass, and the flaming of myriad eyeballs in the gloom presented a picture more terrible than ever came into the imagination of the writer of the Inferno.
The spectacle, as observed by the girl some twenty feet from the ground, might be likened somewhat to a turbulent sea when a sturdy tide sets against the storm, and the mad waves tumble hither and thither, foiled and impelled, yet for all the confusion and obstruction moving in one direction with a sweep and a force that no power could chain.
Circling among and around the strange dusk clouds of steam that went up from the herd were scores of turkey buzzards, their obscene heads bent downward, their sodden eyes gleaming with expectancy. Well they knew that many a gorgeous feast awaited them wherever boulder, tree or swamp lay in the path of the mighty herd. At last the face of the prairie had ceased its surging; no lurid eye-ball light gleamed out of the dusk; and the tempest of cattle had passed, and went rolling out into the unbounded stretches of the dim, yellow plain.
When the ground was clear she descended from the tree, every limb trembling, lest in the delay the Indians should have accomplished their object. When she reached her horse, she found near by a heap of dead and struggling buffalo, which in their headlong race had run over the bluff front