The Frontiersmen | Page 7

reins to "X,"
and, drawing his knife, ran up the steep ascent to secure the animal's
skin.
Only vaguely, as in a dream, he heard a sudden deep roar, beheld a
horned creature leaping heavily upon its fore quarters, tossing its hind
legs and tail into the air. Then an infuriated bull, breaking from the
bushes, charged fiercely down upon him. Emsden threw himself into a
posture of defense as instantly as if he had been a trained bullfighter
and the arena his wonted sphere, holding the knife close in front of him,
presenting the blade with a quick keen calculation for the animal's
jugular. The knife was Emsden's only weapon, for his pistols were in
the holster on the saddle, and his discharged rifle lay where he had
flung it on the ground after firing. He had only time to wonder that his
comrades vouchsafed him no assistance in his extremity. Men of such
accurate aim and constant practice could easily risk sending a rifle-ball
past him to stop that furious career. He could see the pupil of the bull's
wild dilated eyes, fiery as with a spark of actual flame. He could even
feel the hot puffs of the creature's breath upon his cheeks, when all at
once the horned head so close above his own swerved aside with a
snort from the dead body of the wolf at his feet. The bull passed him
like a thunderbolt, and he heard the infuriated stamping which fairly
shook the ground in the thicket below, where this king of the herds
paused to bellow and paw the earth, throwing clods high above the
environing copse.

The woods seemed full of maddened, frightened cattle, and Emsden's
horse was frantically galloping after the cavalcade of hunters and their
pack-train, all the animals more or less beyond the control of the men.
He felt it an ill chance that left him thus alone and afoot in this dense
wilderness, several days' travel from the station. He was hardly sure
that he would be missed by his comrades, themselves scattered, the
pack-horses having broken from the path which they had traveled in
single file, and now with their burdens of value all foolishly careering
wildly through the woods. The first prudential care of the hunters he
knew would be to recover them and re-align the train, lest some
miscreant, encountering the animals, plunder the estrays of their loads
of hard-won deerskins and furs.
The presence of cattle suggested to Emsden the proximity of human
dwellings, and yet this was problematic, for beyond branding and
occasional saltings the herds ranged within large bounds on lands
selected for their suitability as pasturage. The dwellings of these
pioneer herdsmen might be far away indeed, and in what direction he
could not guess. Since the Cherokee War, and the obliteration of all
previous marks of white settlements in this remote region, Emsden was
unfamiliar with the more recent location of "cow-pens," as the ranches
were called, and was only approximately acquainted with the new site
of the settlers' stations. Nothing so alters the face of a country as the
moral and physical convulsion of war. Even many of the Indian towns
were deserted and half charred,--burned by the orders of the British
commanders. One such stood in a valley through which he passed on
his homeward way; the tender vernal aspect of this green cove, held in
the solemn quiet of the encircling mountains, might typify peace itself.
Yet here the blue sky could be seen through the black skeleton rafters
of the once pleasant homes; and there were other significant skeletons
in the absolute solitude,--the great ribs of dead chargers, together with
broken bits and bridles, and remnants of exploded hand-grenades, and a
burst gun-barrel, all lying on the bank of a lovely mountain stream at
the point where he crossed it, as it flowed, crystal clear, through this
sequestered bosky nook.
Something of a job this transit was, for with the spring freshets the
water was high and the current strong, and he was compelled to use
only one hand for swimming, the other holding high out of the water's

reach his powder horn. For, despite any treaties of peace, this was no
country for a man to traverse unarmed, and an encounter with an
inimical wandering Indian might serve to make for his comrades'
curiosity concerning his fate, when they should chance to have leisure
to feel it, a perpetual conundrum.
He had never, however, made so lonely a journey. Not one human
being did he meet--neither red man nor white--in all the long miles of
the endless wilderness; naught astir save the sparse vernal shadows in
the budding woods and the gentle spring zephyr swinging past and
singing as it went. Now and again he noted