Forebodings of terrible suffering for Miriam haunted me. I could not close my eyes without seeing her subjected to Indian torture; and I had no heart to take part in the jubilation of the hunters over their great success. The savory smell of roasting meat whiffed into my tent and I heard the shrill laughter of the squaws preparing the hunters' feast. With hard-wood axles squeaking loudly under the unusual burden, the last cart rumbled into the camp enclosure with its load of meat and skins. The clamor of the people subsided; and I knew every one was busily gorging to repletion, too intent on the satisfaction of animal greed to indulge in the Saxon habit of talking over a meal. Well might they gorge; for this was the one great annual feast. There would follow a winter of stint and hardship and hunger; and every soul in the camp was laying up store against famine. Even the dogs were happy, for they were either roving over the field of the hunt, or lying disabled from gluttony at their masters' tents.
Father Holland remained in the tepee with me talking over our plans and plastering Indian ointment on my numerous burns. By and by, the voices of the feasters began again and we heard Pierre, the rhymester, chanting the song of the buffalo hunt:
Now list to the song of the buffalo hunt,
Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, chant of the brave!
We are Bois-Brulés, Freemen of the plains,
We choose our chief! We are no man's slave!
Up, riders, up, ere the early mist
Ascends to salute the rising sun!
Up, rangers, up, ere the buffalo herds
Sniff morning air for the hunter's gun!
They lie in their lairs of dank spear-grass,
Down in the gorge, where the prairie dips.
We've followed their tracks through the sucking ooze,
Where our bronchos sank to their steaming hips.
We've followed their tracks from the rolling plain
Through slime-green sloughs to a sedgy ravine,
Where the cat-tail spikes of the marsh-grown flags
Stand half as high as the billowy green.
The spear-grass touched our saddle-bows,
The blade-points pricked to the broncho's neck;
But we followed the tracks like hounds on scent
Till our horses reared with a sudden check.
The scouts dart back with a shout, "They are found!"
Great fur-maned heads are thrust through reeds,
A forest of horns, a crunching of stems,
Reined sheer on their haunches are terrified steeds!
Get you gone to the squaws at the tents, old men,
The cart-lines safely encircle the camp!
Now, braves of the plain, brace your saddle-girths!
Quick! Load guns, for our horses champ!
A tossing of horns, a pawing of hoofs,
But the hunters utter never a word,
As the stealthy panther creeps on his prey,
So move we in silence against the herd.