CHAPTER IX
Next day after Bushy had been bitten by the snake, Mr. Sukolt had to go with a load of ore to the nearest smelting works, which were miles away, quite at the foot of the mountains, and as he was anxious about Bushy he thought he would feel easier if he took her along.
“You don’t think I will turn all black and blue, do you, Padre?” she asked as she jumped on Ned and rode on ahead of the load of ore.
“There is no telling; but I think cutting off your finger end as you did, saved not only your hand but your life. How did you come to think of doing that?”
“Why, Tom told me one day that I must, because if the poison got into my blood I would swell up as the mare did when she got her foot bitten.”
“Tom was right, but still I doubt that I would have done it myself,” answered her father, as he gazed lovingly at his wild little girl.
“What are you up to now?” he asked, as she rose in her saddle and took aim at something in the air.
“Do you think I can kill that bird at long range?”
“I don’t think I would try,” replied the father, “unless there is a greater reason for killing it. It is a cruel sport to take the life of anything unless you see a need of it.”
“But I like to hunt, Padre,” murmured Bushy thoughtfully; “is it wrong to hunt?”
“Not if you want food; I don’t believe in hunting for sport alone. I enjoy hunting, too, and we will leave the wagon with Tom and try to kill a buffalo to-day if we see any sign of a herd in this neighborhood. A few old fellows, they say, have been driven up the valley. We will ride out ten miles and see what we can do. It would be a great thing for us to take home a wagonful of buffalo.”
They travelled all one day and part of the next, but saw no signs of securing buffalo meat. But when they reached the mills where the ore was to be crushed they were told that the mail-boy, who had just arrived in his buckboard, had said that a big herd was not more than five miles to the east.
“Ah, there they are,” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt an hour later, when the two horseback riders came in sight of a large herd of bison. The animals were grazing quietly by a stream, where they had gone to drink.
“There must be five hundred,” said Mr. Sukolt. “It would be a serious thing if they should stampede.
“Why, what can be the matter!” he cried, catching hold of Ned’s bridle and guiding him close to his own horse. “What has got into the animals, they are all coming this way? We are penned in by the hills! Look, Bushy, your eyes are sharper than mine; can you tell what has frightened them?”
Bushy peered for a second into the distance beyond, then cried excitedly: “There are four men driving them. Ah, there’s a shot; they must be hunters after meat. What shall we do, Padre? Can’t we get to one side?”
“They have stampeded, sure as we sit here!” said Mr. Sukolt half to himself. “We must try for the hills on the left. Keep close to me; now for the race! If you are cut off shoot, of course, but don’t stop for anything if there is hope of your getting out of their way.”
They had been on the keen jump meanwhile and had made some headway, but finally the buffalo came pell-mell, dashing down almost upon them. Mr. Sukolt raised his rifle and tried to kill the leader at long range, but he missed him. “We can’t get out of their way unless we kill one for the rest to stumble over,” said Mr. Sukolt catching up with Bushy.
Without saying a word Bushy raised her rifle and when the leader came in range fired. She wounded him, for he fell, and immediately there was a temporary halt, caused by the followers tumbling over him. The excitement was something terrible. One big buffalo bull rolled over and over, and one or two rolled over him, until there was quite a pile of enraged animals bellowing in the centre of the stampede. Bushy and her father took this opportunity to circle about and join the hunters who had unwittingly almost caused their death.
“Had no idea a living soul but ourselves was in the vicinity,” said one old trapper as he rode up to Mr. Sukolt. “It’s a magnificent hunt; we’ve killed three, that’s all we can pack away. Do you want to kill a buffalo, little girl?” he called to Bushy who was following the herd.
“Yes, sir!” she screamed back. “I never killed one in my life.”
“Then get on my pony; he is a regular buffalo pony. Can you ride?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I am not afraid.”
“All right. Shall I let her try?” asked the man of Mr. Sukolt.
“Yes, I’d like to have her try,” was the reply; so Bushy was lifted quickly from Ned and seated on the back of the buffalo pony; then the hunter jumped on Ned without as much as touching a foot to the ground, and left Bushy alone on the trained pony.
“Just let him go his own way. Don’t fire until you ride directly upon the flank of the buffalo!” called out the hunter, and Bushy was soon on the keen jump after the herd.
Mr. Sukolt kept as close as he could, but the trained pony knew just what to do. He managed to get a few buffalo circling round and round, one after the other. Every animal had his nose down close to the ground, and did not know that he was going round and round. Buffalo are very short-sighted.
“Now shoot,” the pony seemed to say, because he sidled up to one of the buffalo and half halted. Bushy took the hint and fired. The buffalo ran as if nothing had happened. You can shoot all day at a buffalo and unless you hit him in the right spot he doesn’t mind it; his hide is so tough it even protects him from bullets. Without any warning the pony dashed ahead, and when he got up directly on the flank of the great buffalo calf, Bushy fired again, and this time down he came.[1]
[1] This buffalo was, in 1876, displayed with other animals in the Maxwell collection, in the Colorado building, at the time of the Centennial Exposition held at Philadelphia.
The other animals then broke ring and followed the main herd, but Bushy was the proudest hunter in camp that night over the fact that she had killed one of the finest specimens of buffalo that had been secured for many a day. The head was so beautiful that Mr. Sukolt would not consent to its being thrown away, but had the skin as well as the head saved and sent to Denver, where a taxidermist fixed it up as if it were alive again.
BUSHY FIRED AGAIN, AND THIS TIME DOWN HE CAME.