The Scalp Hunters | Page 7

mettle and catch up. The latter course was adopted, and we galloped forward. All at once we found ourselves riding up to what appeared to be a clay wall, six feet high. It was a stair between two tables, and ran right and left as far as the eye could reach, without the semblance of a gap.
This was an obstacle that caused us to rein up and reflect. Some wheeled their horses, and commenced riding back, while half a dozen of us, better mounted, among whom were Saint Vrain and my voyageur Gode, not wishing to give up the chase so easily, put to the spur, and cleared the scarp.
From this point it caused us a five miles' gallop, and our horses a white sweat, to come up with the hindmost, a young cow, which fell, bored by a bullet from every rifle in the party.
As the others had gained some distance ahead, and we had meat enough for all, we reined up, and, dismounting, set about "removing the hair." This operation was a short one under the skilful knives of the hunters. We had now leisure to look back, and calculate the distance we had ridden from camp.
"Eight miles, every inch!" cried one.
"We're close to the trail," said Saint Vrain, pointing to some old waggon tracks that marked the route of the Santa Fé traders.
"Well?"
"If we ride into camp, we shall have to ride back in the morning. It will be sixteen extra miles for our cattle."
"True."
"Let us stay here, then. Here's water and grass. There's buffalo meat; and yonder's a waggon load of 'chips.' We have our blankets; what more do we want?"
"I say, camp where we are."
"And I."
"And I."
In a minute the girth buckles flew open, our saddles were lifted off, and our panting horses were cropping the curly bunches of the prairie grass, within the circles of their cabriestos.
A crystal rivulet, the arroyo of the Spaniards, stole away southward to the Arkansas. On the bank of this rivulet, and under one of its bluffs, we chose a spot for our bivouac. The bois de vache was collected, a fire was kindled, and hump steaks, spitted on sticks, were soon sputtering in the blaze. Luckily, Saint Vrain and I had our flasks along; and as each of them contained a pint of pure Cognac, we managed to make a tolerable supper. The old hunters had their pipes and tobacco, my friend and I our cigars, and we sat round the ashes till a late hour, smoking and listening to wild tales of mountain adventure.
At length the watch was told off, the lariats were shortened, the picket-pins driven home, and my comrades, rolling themselves up in their blankets, rested their heads in the hollow of their saddles, and went to sleep.
There was a man named Hibbets in our party, who, from his habits of somnolency, had earned the sobriquet of "Sleepy-head." For this reason the first watch had been assigned to him, being the least dangerous, as Indians seldom made their attacks until the hour of soundest sleep--that before daybreak.
Hibbets had climbed to his post, the top of the bluff, where he could command a view of the surrounding prairie.
Before night had set in, I had noticed a very beautiful spot on the bank of the arroyo, about two hundred yards from where my comrades lay. A sudden fancy came into my head to sleep there; and taking up my rifle, robe, and blanket, at the same time calling to "Sleepy-head" to awake me in case of alarm, I proceeded thither.
The ground, shelving gradually down to the arroyo, was covered with soft buffalo grass, thick and dry--as good a bed as was ever pressed by sleepy mortal. On this I spread my robe, and, folding my blanket around me, lay down, cigar in mouth, to smoke myself asleep.
It was a lovely moonlight, so clear that I could easily distinguish the colours of the prairie flowers--the silver euphorbias, the golden sunflowers, and the scarlet malvas, that fringed the banks of the arroyo at my feet. There was an enchanting stillness in the air, broken only by an occasional whine from the prairie wolf, the distant snoring of my companions, and the "crop, crop" of our horses shortening the crisp grass.
I lay a good while awake, until my cigar burnt up to my lips (we smoke them close on the prairies); then, spitting out the stump, I turned over on my side, and was soon in the land of dreams.
I could not have been asleep many minutes when I felt sensible of a strange noise, like distant thunder, or the roaring of a waterfall. The ground seemed to tremble beneath me.
"We are going to have a dash of a thunder-shower," thought I, still half-dreaming, half-sensible to impressions from without; and