The rivalry between the two careers, good-natured as it was, served to amuse and interest us; and while our blank days were certain to obtain for us a share of scoffs and jibes, their unsuccessful ones did not escape their share of sarcasm. If one party affected to bewail the necessity of storing up treasure for a set of walking gentlemen who passed the day in pleasure-rambles about the country, the other took care to express their discontent at returning loaded with spoils for a parcel of lazy impostors that lounged away their time on the bank of a river. Meanwhile, both pursuits flourished admirably. Practice had made us most expert with the rifle; and as we were fortunate enough to secure some of the “mustangs,” and train them to the saddle, our “chasse” became both more profitable and pleasant. By degrees, too, little evidences of superfluity began to display themselves in our equipment: our saddles, at first made of a mere wooden trestle, with a strip of buffalo hide thrown across it, were now ornamented with black bear-skins, or the more valuable black fox-skin; our own costume, if not exactly conformable to Parisian models, was comfortable and easy,—a brown deerskin tunic, fastened by a belt around the waist; short breeches, reaching to the knee-cap, which was left bare, for climbing; “botas vaqueras,” very loose at top, and serving as holsters for our pistols; and a cap of fox or squirrel, usually designed by the wearer, and exhibiting proofs of ingenuity, if not taste: such was our dress.
Our weapons of rifle, and bowie-knife, and pistols, giving it a character, which, on the boards of a minor theatre, would have been a crowning “success.” We were also all mounted,—some, Hermose and myself in particular, admirably so. And although I often in my own heart regretted the powers of strength and endurance of poor “Charry,” my little mustang steed, with his long forelock and his bushy moustaches,—a strange peculiarity of this breed,—was a picture of compactness and agility.
We had also constructed a rude wagon—so rude that I can even yet laugh as I think on it—to carry our spoils, which were far too cumbrous for a mere horse-load, and when left on the prairies attracted such numbers of prairie-wolves and vultures as to be downright perilous. If this same wagon was not exactly a type for “Long Acre,” it was at least strong and serviceable; and although the wheels were far nearer oval than circular, they did go round; the noise they created in so doing might have been disagreeable to a nervous invalid, being something between the scream of a railway train and the yell of a thousand peacocks. But I believe we rather liked it,—at least, I know that when some luckless Sybarite suggested the use of a little bear's fat around the axle, he was looked on as a kind of barbarian to whom nature denied the least ear for music.
As for the “chasse” itself, it was glorious sport,—glorious in the unbounded freedom to wander whither one listed; glorious in the sense of mastery we felt that we alone of all the millions of mankind had reached this far-away, unvisited tract; glorious in its successes, its dangers, and its toils!
There was, besides, that endless variety of adventure prairie-hunting affords. Now, it was the heavy buffalo, lumbering lazily along, and tossing his huge head in anger as the rifle-ball pierced his dense hide. Now, it was the proudly antlered stag, careering free over miles and miles of waste. At another time the grizzly bear was our prey, and our sport lay in the dense jungle or among the dwarf scrub, through which the hissing rattlesnake was darting, affrighted at the noise. In more peaceful mood, the antelope would be the victim; while the wild turkey or the great cock of the wood would grace with his bright wavy feathers the cap of him whose aim was true at longest rifle range.
And these were happy days,—the very happiest of my whole life; for if sometimes regrets would arise about that road of ambition from which I had turned off, to wander in the path of mere pleasure, I bethought me that no career the luckiest fortune could have opened to me would have developed the same manly powers of endurance of heat and cold and of peril in a hundred shapes. In no other pursuit could I have educated myself to the like life of toils and dangers, bringing me daily, as it were, face to face with Death, till I could look on him without a shudder or a fear.
I will not say that Donna Maria may not have passed across the picture of my mind-drawn regrets; but if her form did indeed flit past, it was to breathe a hope of some future meeting, some bright time to come, the recompense of all our separation. And I thought with pride how much more worthy of her would I be as the prairie-hunter,—the fearless follower of the bear and buffalo, accustomed to the life of the wild woods,—than as the mere adventurer, whose sole stock in trade was the subterfuge and deceit he could practise on the unwary.
It was strange enough all this while that I seemed to have lost sight of my old guide-star,—the great passion of my earlier years, the desire to be a “gentleman.” It was stranger still, but after-reflection has shown me that it was true, I made far greater progress toward that wished-for goal when I ceased to make it the object of my ambition.
