Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

Camp was made early in the afternoon, but after they had taken off the packs, and Jack had unsaddled, he noticed that Hugh's horse still had his saddle on, and was feeding about the camp, dragging his rope and bridle.

"Why don't you unsaddle, Hugh?" he asked.

"Well," said Hugh, "I'm going to ride along the river apiece, and try to pick a good place to cross; this here creek is mighty bad in spots—quicksands in the river and soap-holes along the bank, that you can't see until you get right to 'em. It may take me half an hour to look out a crossing to-night, and that may save us a horse, and anyhow, a whole lot of trouble in the morning."

After they had eaten and washed up the dishes, Hugh mounted and rode off up the stream. The horses were feeding close to the camp, and Jack took his rifle, and walking up to a little rise of ground, sat there, overlooking the camp and the wide valley. He had not been there very long when something moving down the stream caught his eye, and as he watched it, and it came nearer, he could see that it was a bird flying, and when still closer, he saw that the bird was big, and that there seemed to be something long streaming out behind it. Just below the camp it came down nearly to the water's surface, and suddenly threw out a long neck, checked its flight, and let its long slender legs drop, alighting on a sand-bar. Jack saw then that it was a great heron or crane, but larger than any that he had ever seen. He thought he would shoot it, and get Hugh to tell him just what it was; so after the bird had stopped looking about, and had lowered its head and was walking along the bar, Jack quickly crept out of sight, and running down between two ridges which hid him, got near enough to the bank to take a shot at the bird. It was not easy to estimate how far off it was; it looked like less than a hundred yards, but over the flat bottom and the water there was nothing to measure the distance by except the bird's size. However, he took a careful shot at it with level sights, and was delighted to see it spread its wings and fall forward on the sand. He walked to the edge of the stream, wondering how he could get the bird. The distance across to the sand-bar was not great, but the water was muddy and whirling, and it was impossible to see bottom, or to guess whether if he stepped in he would go over his shoes or his head. He looked about for a stick with which he might feel for the bottom, but of course there were no sticks there. He put the butt of his gun into the water, but could not feel the bottom. Then he sat down, took off his shoes and stockings, and rolled up his trousers, and let himself down over the bank, feeling in the water for bottom, but he could not touch it. The water felt thick, and he could feel the little particles of soil striking against his legs. Getting up on the bank again he took his shoes in one hand and his rifle in the other, and walked up the stream a little way, and there he again tried for bottom, but found none. He looked at the bird, so near to him, and did not feel like giving it up. It was hardly thirty feet away. He felt sure that he could throw a rope across to it.

This gave him an idea. Putting on his shoes, and thrusting his socks into his pocket, he walked up to the camp and took a sling-rope off a pack saddle, and then, with the axe and a picket-pin in his hand walked down to the stream. He now had in his mind two ways of getting the bird; one was to tie the picket-pin to the end of the rope, and try to throw it over the bird, and drag it into the water, and so, across. If he could not do that, he made up his mind that he would drive the picket-pin into the bank, tie the rope to it, strip off all his clothes, and, holding the rope, try to wade across the channel.

It was not hard to throw the picket-pin and rope over to where the bird lay, but it proved very hard to throw it so that the line could lie across the bird. Once he did so, and began to pull in very gradually, but before the bird had been moved at all toward the water's edge the pin slipped up over it and came away.

Meantime, Hugh had ridden quite a long way up the stream, looking for a crossing, but finding none. Two or three places seemed inviting, but his horse was afraid of them, and on investigating, Hugh found that bad quicksands lay close to the bank. At length, however, he reached a point where a deep buffalo trail came down to the water's edge, and where buffalo had crossed later. There were some stones in the bottom here, and Hugh, riding in, and crossing the stream so as to come out where the buffalo trail appeared on the other side, found that he had a good crossing. Then he turned about and rode back to camp.

After Jack had thrown the picket-pin until he was thoroughly discouraged, he decided to try to cross, himself. He drove the picket-pin firmly in the bank, and tied the sling-rope to it, undressed, took the coil of rope in his hand, and then let himself down from the bank into the water, very slowly. Before the water was up to his shoulders his feet struck the bottom of coarse gravel, and he turned his face toward the other bank, and holding the rope tightly, with the coil in his left hand, he began to go slowly out into the stream. The water flowed with great violence, and two or three times nearly took him off his feet. Soon, however, it shoaled a little, and he turned up the stream to reach the point of the sand-bar behind which there was an eddy. In a moment the water was only up to his knees, and he was just about to spring forward to the bar when suddenly the bottom seemed to give out beneath his feet, and the water was up to his waist, while, piled around his legs, up to his knees, was a mass of heavy sand. He tried to lift his feet out of it, but the sand clung like great weights about his legs and he could not move them. In a moment it flashed across his mind that these must be the quicksands about which he had heard so often, but of which he had known nothing. Stories told by Hugh and others, of men and animals caught in this terrible, unyielding sand flashed across his mind as he struggled to free his feet. One pull seemed to loosen his right foot, and he lifted it a little way, but this left him with his knee bent, and made that leg useless. The sand seemed to be piling up higher around his legs, and now it was half way up to his thighs. He was frightened.

All this had taken a very few moments and luckily he still held the sling-rope. He drew this tight, and throwing himself forward, so that his body was almost horizontal, he pulled on the rope with all his might, and at the same time tried to kick with his legs. In vain; he could move neither of them, but his thighs, which before had been erect, bent forward, and now he could not get them back again; to keep his body erect he was obliged to lean backward. Every minute he could feel that the sand was higher on his legs, and he could also feel that the water was creeping up his body. It seemed but a few moments since his knees were out of the water, and now the water rippled against his chest. What was going to happen? It could not be that he should drown here; and yet Hugh had told him of men who had been drowned in just this way. He must try again to get out. He must do something; he could not stand this.

Suddenly, he remembered something that Hugh was always saying; something that he had said to him only two or three days before; the sense of it was, that a man should always keep his wits about him; and as these oft repeated words came into his mind he seemed suddenly to cool off, and to lose the excitement that he had been feeling. His mind worked fast, and he said to himself, "Now, what would Hugh do if he were stuck here?" He tried to think; then suddenly he bent down, and with his face close to the water began to scrap away the sands from the sides of his thighs. He had been doing that only for a moment when he noticed something; the sand scraped away on the down-stream side of his body seemed to come back at once; that scraped from the up-stream side did not come back, but left a hole. In a moment he comprehended what this meant; that on the up-stream side of his legs the water was helping carry away the disturbed sand, while on the down-stream side it was packing in that sand all the time. In a moment he was working with both hands on the up-stream leg, and it took a very short time to clear this almost down to the knee, but below that he could not get. Suddenly, he threw himself down stream as hard as he could, wrenched his body to one side, and with a mighty pull dragged his left leg from its fetter, falling down in the water so that its muddy flood covered him. He righted himself at once, and kept kicking with his left leg, for fear that it should again become fast, and soon he had trodden a hard place, where for a little while he could rest his foot, but the whirling sands soon covered it, and he was obliged to keep it moving. Now the water had carried away the sand from the upper part of his right thigh, but he could not free it, nor even move it. Again despair seized him, and he did not know what to do. He looked at the clear blue sky, at the brown prairie, and back at the horses, quietly feeding near the camp, just as if no one anywhere about was suffering and fearing, perhaps dying. Oh, if Pawnee were only here, and he could take hold of his tail.