Jack in the Rockies: A Boy's Adventures with a Pack Train

by George Bird Grinnell

"HE REACHED FAR FORWARD, AND GRASPED THE LONG HAIR ON THE BUFFALO'S HUMP."—Page [82].

The bull seemed very strong, and for a long time did not get tired, and two or three times Jack feared that the boy would be thrown from his back. Presently, however, the bull stopped, and stood with his head down, glaring at the horsemen about him, as if he wanted to fight. Now the boys began to ask Eagle Ribs why he had stopped; why he did not ride further; and one of them threw his quirt to him, telling him that he should use this to make his horse go better. Others ran their horses close by, in front of the bull, trying to make him charge. Toward one of these horses he rushed furiously, and as he did so, Eagle Ribs slipped from his back and ran away in the opposite direction, and got behind a horse ridden by one of the boys. Jack rode up to him, and signed to him to get on behind him, and then they went back to where Eagle Ribs' horse was feeding, and he mounted him. Meantime, the bull had run on, and some of the boys had killed him.

The next evening the old crier rode about the camp, shouting out the orders of the chiefs; telling the people that the next day, early, the camp would move back to the great river.

On the evening of that day Jack was awakened by a shot in the camp, and then another, and then a rush of people, followed by a swift pounding of horses' hoofs on the prairie. He scrambled from his bed, put on his moccasins, and seizing his gun and cartridge belt, rushed out-of-doors. Joe was standing in front of the lodge, having just come out, and Jack asked him what was the matter. "I don't know sure," said Joe, "only horses have been stolen."

"Well," said Jack, "why don't they go after the thieves?"

"Oh," said Joe, "that would not do; that is too dangerous. Suppose we were to run out onto the prairie, chasing the thieves, they could stop behind any sage brush, or the edge of any hill, and shoot us as we came up to them, before we could see them. We'll have to wait until to-morrow, until it gets light, and then take good horses and try to catch them."

The whole camp was now thoroughly awake, and the fires were made up in every lodge, while people went about visiting each other, and trying to find out what the extent of the loss had been. It appeared that only three good horses had been taken; but more would have been stolen if it had not happened that a man coming back late from a gambling game, and seeing somebody cutting the rope of a horse in front of his lodge, had shot at him with a pistol that he carried. The enemy threw himself on the horse and rode swiftly away, and at the sound of the shot a half dozen men rushed from their lodges and fired at the retreating sound.

It was several hours before the camp quieted down again, and before daylight next morning forty or fifty men on good horses were prepared to follow the trail, and try to overtake the thieves. Both Jack and Joe wished to accompany the pursuing party, but Hugh advised them not to. He said, "If we had come up here to spend the summer with these people, maybe there'd be no harm in your going off, but now in the course of a few days we're going to leave them and go into the mountains, and if you run your horses down, or if either of you should get hurt, why it might spoil our whole trip back to the ranch. These Indians ain't likely to overtake those fellows, and 'twill just be a long hard ride for nothing. We'd better stop at the camp for two or three days more, and then strike out for the mountains, just as we intended to, and go on down there and see that place they used to call Colter's Hell, and then go on down through it, and back to the ranch." The boys, rather unwillingly, agreed to do this.