“Gwan, you hoss! Gwan!” implored York, hammering his black mount. The spotted pony also leaped eagerly.
With a loud shout Captain Clark charged straight at Sergeant Pryor’s bull. The gray horse bore him close alongside, on the right—the proper place. When even with the bull the captain drew bow, clear from hand to shoulder, loosed string—and the arrow, swifter than sight, buried to the feathers just back of the bull’s foreleg. The stung bull jumped and whirled; on raced the gray horse, and wheeled; the bull, his head down, lunged for him—and the gray horse sprang aside—the bull forged past, the captain was ready with another arrow—twang! thud!—the gray horse leaped again, to follow up—but the great bull halted, faltered, drooped his head, his tail twitched and lashed, still his head slowly drooped, he straddled, and began to sink.
“Catch your horse, Pryor. Quick!” ordered the captain. “You can’t hunt afoot.” And before the bull’s body had touched the snow he was away again, in the wake of the frantic herd, his red hair flaming on the wind.
“Fust kill foh Marse Will,” jubilated York. He and Peter scarcely had had time to check their horses. “He done beat Big White. Come on, boy!”
In a twinkling all was confusion, of buffalo bellowing, fleeing, charging; of horsemen shouting, pursuing, dodging, shooting; of flying snow and blood and steaming breaths and reek of perspiring bodies. Peter speedily lost York; he lost Sha-ha-ka and Captain Clark—but occasionally he sighted them, now separated, now near together, as if they were rivals. He lost everything but himself and pony and the buffalo. He shot, too; he saw his arrows land, he left wounded buffalo behind and chased others; and ever and again he saw the red hair of the captain.
The captain was in his buckskin shirt; Sha-ha-ka was in buckskin; many of the Indians rode half naked—excitement kept them warm. Peter felt no cold, through his buckskin and his flannel shirt. He had been more thinly clad in the Oto village and was used to weather. But bitter was the wind, nevertheless, and the wounds of the prone buffalo almost instantly froze.
The chase had proceeded for a mile—and on a sudden Chief Big White, from a little rise in a clear space, shouted high and waved his robe. It was the signal for the hunt to cease. The turmoil died, the frightened herd rushed on, and the horsemen dropped behind, to turn back. The squaws from the village already had been at work with their knives, cutting up the dead buffalo. They must work fast, on account of the cold. They carefully pulled out the arrows and laid them aside, so that it might be told to whom that buffalo belonged. The arrows of each hunter bore his mark, in paint on the shaft or the feathers.
Captain Clark rode in, panting and laughing, with Sha-ha-ka. His quiver was empty, his buffalo-horse frost-covered from eye-brows to tail. Sha-ha-ka treated him with great respect; and so did the other Indians.
“Dey say de Red Head one great chief. He ride an’ shoot like Injun,” explained Chaboneau, as the company from the fore assembled.
“Marse Will kill more buff’los dan all the rest ob dem put togedder,” prated York. “Only he done run out ob arrers. Den he try to choke ’em wif his hands!”