“What, buffler, my lad? Well, I hope so. There’s never no knowing, for they’re queer beasts, and there’s hundreds here to-day, and to-morrow you may ride miles and miles, and not see a hoof. Why, I’ve known times when I’ve come upon a drove that was miles long.”
“Miles, Joses?”
“Yes, Master Bart, miles long. Bulls, and cows, and calves, of all kinds, from little bits o’ things, right up to some as was nearly as big as their fathers and mothers, only not so rough and fat; and they’d go on over the plain in little bands. If you was looking at ’em from far off, it seemed like one great long drove that there was no counting, but when you rode nearer to see, you found that what you took for one big drove was only made up of hundreds of other droves—big families like of fathers, and mothers, and children, which always kept themselves to themselves and didn’t mix with the others. Then all along outside the flanks of the great drove of droves you’d see the wolves hanging about, half-starved, fierce-looking vermin, licking their bare chops, and waiting their chance to get something to eat.”
“But wolves wouldn’t attack the great bison, would they?” asked Bart.
“Only when they’re about helpless—wounded or old, you know, then they will. What they wolves is waiting for is for the young calves—little, helpless sort of things that are always being left behind as the great drove goes feeding on over the plains; and if you watch a drove, you’ll every now and then find a calf lying down, and its mother trying to coax it to get up and follow the others, while the old cow keeps mooing and making no end of a noise, and cocking up her tail, and making little sets of charges at the wolves to drive them back whenever they get too near. Ah, it’s a rum sight to see the lank, fierce, hungry beasts licking their chops, and thinking every now and then that they’ve got the calf, for the old mother keeps going off a little way to try and make the stupid cow baby get up and follow. Then the wolves make a rush, and so does the buffalo, and away go the hungry beggars, for a wolf is about as cowardly a thing as ever run on four legs, that he is.”
“I should like to see a sight like that, Joses,” said Bart; “how I would shoot at the wolves!”
“What for?” said Joses.
“What for? Why, because they must be such cowardly, cruel beasts, to try and kill the calves.”
“So are we cowardly, cruel beasts, then,” said Joses, philosophically. “Wolves want to live same as humans, and it’s all their nature. If they didn’t kill and keep down the buffler, the country would be all buffler, and there wouldn’t be room for a man to walk. It’s all right, I tell you; wolves kills buffler for food, and so do we. Why, you never thought, praps, how bufflers fill up the country in some parts. I’ve seen droves of ’em miles upon miles long, and if it wasn’t for the wolves and the Injun, as I said afore, there wouldn’t be room for anything else.”
“Are there so many as you say, Joses?” asked Bart.