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

by George Bird Grinnell

The three young men, each taking his robe, prepared to go out to stand guard. Hugh placed them, Joe to the north of the camp and Bull Calf to the south, while Jack he took up to the top of the hill, west of camp, telling him that this was the most important place of all. There was no danger of any approach from the east, since the lake would protect that side.

"Now," said Hugh, as he left Jack, "you want to lie here on the ground just below the crest of the hill and watch the sky line; then if anybody comes over the hill, you'll be dead sure to see him. I would not stay always in one place, but move about a little, but do it as quietly as you can. There isn't any danger of attack, but it might be such a thing as a man or two would try to slip into the camp before morning, and take some horses. If you keep low down, you're pretty sure to see anybody before he sees you, and you can let him come up pretty close before shooting. You don't want to shoot for nothing and scare the whole camp, and then find out that you made a fool of yourself. I don't expect you will see anything, but you might, and you want to keep a sharp lookout. Likely, these Indian boys will go to sleep before very long, but I depend on you to keep awake, and that is the reason I put you in the place where you're most likely to see anybody that comes into the camp. Call me in about three hours." Then Hugh went down to the camp.

Jack spread his robe on the ground and lay down on it and began to watch the sky line. For a little while this occupied him. He looked carefully at the different stars that showed themselves just above the crest of the hill, and after he had been there a little time, he found that although the night was dark—for by this time the moon had set and the clouds had disappeared, he could see quite plainly. After he had been watching for a while, his alertness wore off and he began to think about the events of the night.

It certainly had been exciting enough. It seemed very strange that he should happen to be the one to go out of the lodge and detect the man who was trying to take a horse, and hardly less strange that when he shot at him, he should happen to hit him. Of course, shooting quickly at a galloping figure in the dark, was a very different thing from taking a careful shot at an object during the day, and not only was it strange that he had hit him, but that he had hit him so as to kill him, for Jack now realised, that when the man was trying to get on his feet, he was only making a dying struggle. Then he thought, suppose he had only wounded him and knocked him off his horse and that, then when he ran up to him the man had shot him with his gun or with an arrow. It might just as well have happened that way as any other.

Then Jack asked himself, ought he to have shot at him? Certainly there was no other way to have recovered the horse, for if he had shot and missed the Indian, he would only have ridden away the faster. He might have killed the horse to be sure, but that would have been only to destroy his own people's property and would have been no better than to allow the thief to get away with the animal. It made him feel rather solemn to think what he had done; for he had never expected, that in all his life he would kill a man. He had often read about wars and the fighting of soldiers and about people being killed, but soldiers, as he had always heard, just shot at the mass of the enemy who were approaching and no man knew just what his own bullet had done. No matter how hard one of the soldiers had tried to kill an enemy, he never could feel sure that it was his bullet that had killed the man he shot at. It was a very different thing when a man fired a single shot at another and killed him. He wondered what the people at home would say, if they were to know what had happened, and he wondered, too, whether it would be best for him to tell them at home.

All the time that he was thinking, he was keeping a sharp lookout and once or twice, as Hugh had suggested, he moved a short distance north and then again south, going carefully and slowly, crouching low and keeping himself covered by his robe. Any one who had seen him at a little distance would have supposed that some large animal was passing along the hill-side. Nothing had been seen and nothing heard; a long time had passed and he had returned to the point where he had been stationed and lay there on his robe watching the crest of the hill. After a time he began to grow sleepy, but he shook off the feeling and rose to his knees, for after what Hugh had said to him, he felt bound in honour not to neglect his post. As he crouched there, trying hard not to yield to the drowsiness which was creeping over him, he suddenly saw a bright star close to the crest of the hill disappear, and then another. His sleepiness was forgotten in an instant, he grasped his rifle tightly and, every nerve on edge, watched to see what would happen next. For a little while nothing was seen, then again he saw a star disappear and then another. These which were hidden, were close to the line of the hill, and it looked as if something or somebody was passing along close behind the hill, between the boy and the stars. Suddenly two or three bright stars, one above another, went out and did not appear again. Some one was looking over the hill. Jack raised himself a little higher on his knees and with his finger on the trigger, so that the lock should make no noise, cocked his rifle and waited. He was keyed up to the very highest pitch of excitement, and was prepared for anything.

Then came the climax, and from the dark object, whose shape he could dimly discern on the hill top, arose the plaintive, melancholy howl of a coyote. The little animal, attracted by the smell of blood, had stolen up to the top of the hill and was now calling to its fellows.

The reaction from the excitement of the moment before was extreme, and Jack felt disgusted. He knew enough to feel sure that this animal would not be where it was, if there were any enemies immediately about the camp and felt that he would be safe in lying down on his robe and going to sleep; and now that the wolf had told what it was, he felt really sleepy.

As he looked toward the camp, he could see, far on the eastern horizon, a faint pale line, which told him that the dawn was near. Drawing his robe over his head and around him, so as to conceal the light, he lit a match and looked at his watch. It was half past three and time to call Hugh.

He slipped quietly down into the camp and going into the lodge roused Hugh, and telling him the time, Hugh said to him, "You lay down now and go to sleep and I'll call two other men and we'll watch until it gets light, which won't be long. Then, as soon as day breaks, we will start back for the main camp."