“And if it was loaded I would not know how to shoot it,” thought Guy; “and neither do I know how to hunt antelope. I’ve heard that it takes one who understands their nature and habits to hunt them successfully, so I guess I won’t bother with them. I’d rather rest. I believe Mr. Wilson told the truth when he said that I hadn’t the right sort of stuff in me to make a hunter or trapper. They must be made of something besides flesh and blood if they can stand such a jolting as I have had to-day.”
Guy rolled restlessly about under the oak while the clay-bank was cropping the grass, and when she had eaten her fill she gave him notice of the fact by slaking her thirst at the run and setting off on her journey again of her own accord. With a groan of despair Guy mounted his horse and followed her.
The tortures he had already experienced were aggravated ten-fold during the afternoon; for the trail, which had hitherto led him over a level plain, now crossed a range of hills almost high enough to be called mountains, and the traveling was rough indeed. The sudden springs and lunges which his horse made in going up the steep ascent racked him in every muscle. Only once did he dismount to walk, and then he was glad to scramble back into his saddle again, for the tireless horses went ahead at such a rate that he could not keep pace with them. Up hill and down he went, through a wilderness which seemed to have no end; and when at last he became so exhausted that it was only by a strong exercise of will that he could keep himself in his saddle, he was electrified by the appearance of an apparition in greasy buckskin, who came before him so suddenly that it frightened him.
“Say, you!” it exclaimed, “you brought any tobacker?”
Guy had reached his journey’s end at last.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE BUFFALO HUNTER.
AS GUY straightened up in his saddle he took a good look at the man who had so suddenly appeared before him. There was no need that he should ask who he was, for he knew, by his words of greeting, that he could be none other than Zeke, the buffalo hunter. He was the first hunter Guy had ever seen, and of course he gazed at him with no little interest.
He was not very favorably impressed with the man’s appearance, for he was certainly the roughest and most repulsive specimen of humanity that Guy had ever put eyes on. He could form no idea of the expression of his features, for his face was so effectually concealed by thick, bushy whiskers that nothing but a pair of eyes and a low, retreating forehead could be seen. His hair, coarse and matted, hung down upon his shoulders, and his hands were terribly soiled and begrimed. He would have been a tall man if he had stood erect, but he walked almost half-bent, in an attitude similar to that a wild beast might assume when about to spring upon its prey, and moved along in a shambling, loose-jointed manner, as if he had scarcely energy enough to keep himself from falling to pieces. His garments were a strange mixture of the civilized and savage, and Guy thought they ought long ago to have been replaced by better ones. He wore a tattered slouch hat on his head, held a rifle in his hand, and carried a powder-horn and bullet-pouch over his shoulder. Taken altogether, he was very unlike Guy’s beau ideal of a hunter.