“Just my shoulder where I fell on it,” the lad replied bravely. “I think——”
He was interrupted by Neil’s shout. Unnoticed by the others, the Scotch boy had ridden up the hill. He dismounted beside the dead buffalo.
“It was all my fault,” he said contritely. “I ought not to have driven the beasts this way. I saw you, but I was after a cow and didn’t notice that bull turning towards you. I never thought of his charging up hill. I didn’t know you were in any danger, till I heard the shot and looked up here. You’ve made a good kill, Walter. He’s a big fellow. And you certainly kept your head. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have lost mine, if I had been in your place.” This was a generous admission from anyone as proud of his courage and prowess as Neil MacKay was. At that moment, however, Neil was not in the least proud of himself. His carelessness had brought peril to his friends.
XXXII
TO THE SHEYENNE RIVER
When Neil went in pursuit of the frightened pony, he found it feeding on the prairie grass on the other side of the ridge. Hindered by the cart, it had not run far. He had righted the badly wrecked vehicle, and was examining the breaks, when the rest of his party, with the other cart and the lame pony, came up. Mr. Perier was appalled when he heard of his children’s peril, and Mrs. Brabant was warm in her praise of the courage and coolness of Elise and Walter.
The hunt had swept away towards the Red River, leaving the trampled prairie dotted with the dark bodies of the fallen buffalo. Here and there a wounded beast struggled to its feet and made off painfully. The sight of the injured and slain was not a pleasant one for the tender-hearted Elise, and she turned her back upon it.
“I wish,” she confided to Mrs. Brabant, “people didn’t have to kill things for food. I hate buffalo. They are ugly beasts. But I don’t like to see them killed, except the one that would have killed Max. Of course Walter had to shoot that one.”
The Canadian woman put an arm around her and comforted her. “It is necessary, my dear, for people to have meat to live, especially in this wild country where we raise so little from the ground. I have always told my boys not to be wasteful in their hunting, not to kill for the sake of killing. If no one killed more than could be eaten or kept for food, there would always be plenty of animals in the world.”
As the carts descended the slope to the hunting ground, the hunters began to straggle back from the chase. By the place where the animal lay, the spot where the bullet had entered, and sometimes by the bullet itself, they identified the game they had slain. Many of the hunters had marked their bullets so they would know them.
Neil had killed two buffalo and Louis four. Their party was well supplied with meat. The bull Walter had shot was too old and tough for food. At that season of the year the skin was not fit for a robe. The summer coat of hair was short, and in many places ragged and rubbed off. But Louis said that the tough hide was just the thing for new harness. With Walter’s permission the Canadian boy set to work. With sure and skilful strokes of his sharp knife, he marked out the harness on the body of the buffalo, and stripped off the pieces. When dry,—with a thong or two in place of buckles,—the harness would be ready for use.