Ted Strong in Montana / Or, With Lariat and Spur

by Edward C. Taylor

While the clerk stood up on the fence with his list he repeated the names and the number of cattle to which each Indian was entitled, and men inside the corral opened the gate and drove them out.

As a frightened cow or angry steer was loosed from the corral it was met with shouts, wild and blood-curdling, from all the Indians, and its owner sprang upon his pony and took after the poor beast, driving it into the open beyond, and away from the house and corral.

"Now begins the chase," said Ted. "We'll get out here where we will have a good view, but I don't think you will care to see much of it. It gets to be pretty—well, pretty raw after a while."

"Why don't they kill their beef in a slaughterhouse and give them the meat, instead of turning the animals over to them alive?" asked Stella.

"The Indians wouldn't stand for that," answered Ted. "This is the only sport they have in a year's time. You see, they are not permitted to leave the reservations to go far away to hunt big game, and they take it out in hunting, or playing they are hunting, these miserable cows."

"I don't see any fun in that," said Miss Croffut.

"You haven't the imagination of an Indian. You see, they make believe they are hunting buffalo again, and the chase is quite as exciting to them as if they were doing the real thing."

By this time the prairie was covered with steers and cows, lumbering along in front of the Indians, who were pursuing them with shrill cries, shooting at them with bows and arrows or with rifles, striving always to wound them, but not to kill them too soon, for if they killed them right away they would miss the fun of the chase.

This made the beef issue a carnival of brutality, and Ted soon saw that the girls were getting tired of it.

In the center of the great circle in which there were several dozen cattle running around aimlessly, pursued by a yelling, exultant, bloodthirsty band of Indians, were several wounded steers and cows, which had gone down and were unable to rise. Several groups of Indians, squatting on the rim of the circle, were shooting at them.