It would be impossible for us to explain the thoughts that crossed the squatter's brain while, with uncertain step he crossed silently and sadly the vast solitudes of the prairie.
Toward midday, the heat became so intense, that, overcome by so much moral and physical suffering, he sank exhausted at the foot of a tree. He remained for a long time extended on the ground; but, at length, impelled by want, he rose with an effort, and sought for roots and herbs which might lull the hunger that gnawed his vitals. His search was long in vain, but at last he found a species of yucca, a pasty root somewhat like manioc, which he devoured with delight. He laid in a stock of this root, which he shared with his dog, and, after a deep draught from the stream, he prepared to continue his journey, slightly re-invigorated by this more than frugal meal; when all at once his eye emitted a flash, his face grew animated, and he murmured in a voice trembling with emotion:
"Suppose it was one!"
This is what had caused Red Cedar's exclamation. At the moment he was setting out again after looking mechanically around him, he fancied he noticed at a certain spot that the grass was closer and taller than anywhere else. This difference, visibly only to a man long accustomed to the prairie, did not escape him.
The Indians and hunters, often compelled to make a hurried journey, either to avoid a hostile ambuscade or follow up the game, are necessitated to abandon a large portion of their plunder or merchandise they carry with them for trading purposes. As they are not at all inclined to lose it, however, they make what is called in trapper language a cache.
It is effected in the following way.
They begin by spreading blankets and buffalo skins round the spot where they intend making the cache: then they remove large sods of grass, square, round, or oval, and dig out the soil, being careful to lay it on the blankets or skins. When the hole is deep enough, the sides are lined with buffalo hides, for fear of damp, and the articles are laid in it: the soil is then put in again, and the grass laid over it, which is watered to make it grow, and the rest of the earth is carried to the river, into which every particle is thrown, in order to hide any trace of the cache, which is so closely concealed, that a man must have an extraordinary skilful eye to discover one, and he often only finds old caches which have been ransacked and have nothing left in them.
The objects placed in the caches will keep for five or six years without deteriorating. How many things concealed in this way have been lost through the death of their owners who bear with them in the tomb the secret of the spot where they have deposited their wealth!
We have said, that the squatter imagined he had found such a cache. In his position, such a discovery was of inestimable value to him: it might offer him articles of primary necessity he wanted, and restore him, as it were, to life, by supplying him with means to recommence his existence of hunting, plunder, and vagabondage.
He stood for some minutes with his eye fixed on the spot where he suspected the cache, his mind agitated by undefinable feelings. At length he moderated his emotion, and his heart palpitating with fear and hope, carefully laid his blanket and buffalo robe by the cache to hold the earth, with that honesty innate in men accustomed to a prairie life, who, though they may be bandits and plunder the property of others unscrupulously, still consider it a point of honour not to squander it, or deprive the legal owner of anything but what is absolutely necessary to themselves; then he knelt down and with his knife removed a sod of grass.