CHAPTER VIII
MR. TUCKER PASSES THE NIGHT AT ERROLSTRATH—HE TELLS SOME STORIES OF HUNTING BIG GAME IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS—SAGACITY OF THE FEMALE BIGHORN—THE AMERICAN COUGAR—THE BEAR AND THE PANTHER—THE RABBIT HUNT—HOW THE BOYS TRAINED THEIR HOUNDS.
That evening many of those who had acted as scouts under Captain Tucker came to Errolstrath, where, on the shady veranda they discussed their trip and the possibilities of a prolonged Indian war. The Kiowas had inaugurated hostilities by their raid on the settlements near Council Grove. General Sheridan had already established his headquarters at Fort Harker, and every preparation was going on at that post for a winter campaign against the allied tribes.
After the group on the porch had talked matters over for about two hours, they all went to their respective homes excepting old Mr. Tucker, whom the family had invited to stay all night. As it was but eight o'clock when the others left, Joe and Mr. Tucker turned to the subject of hunting big game, and the latter told some of his own adventures when he was a trapper in the Rocky Mountains many years ago. As Joe had never seen the bighorn of that region, Mr. Tucker related an adventure he once had when hunting for a pair of young ones. He was up in the Yellowstone Range, not very far from the scene of Custer's unequal battle with Sitting Bull, in which the General's entire command was annihilated by the savages.
"My camp was on the Green River," began the old man, "and one morning while I was out baiting my traps, I noticed a she bighorn that I knew would soon have little ones. I was determined to have a pair of kids, as I had a sort of a small menagerie at my camp, but it contained no bighorn. So I started to follow her trail and stay with her until her kids were born, when I intended to capture them and make pets of them.
"I followed her for about two weeks, and was sometimes compelled to creep cautiously after her in my stockinged feet. My stockings were clumsy things made of buckskin, not such stockings as you buy. One evening being so near her, and obliged to climb a steep mountain, I took out my knife and cut off all the silver trimmings of my buckskin suit, so that nothing could jingle and scare her.
"At last, after tracking her day after day, I came upon her den, where she had brought forth two kids. It was the very top of one of the tallest peaks in the Wind River Mountains, in a sort of cave about five feet deep, worn in the side of an enormous rock. When I first got a sight of the kids, they were nearly two weeks old, and were jumping and playing as all of the goat or sheep family are wont to do.
"They were alone, but their mother was on the brink of a precipice, within a hundred yards of them, carefully looking down into the valley below to see if she could discover anything hostile. They are great watchers. The old one had not seen me, and I had made a détour to the very summit of the mountain, where I could see that there was a trail which the mother used to travel in going to and from her young ones. I felt sure that once at the mouth of the cave or hole in the big rock, I might easily capture the kids, for which I had footed it so many miles and followed so many days.
"Before I reached the entrance of the den the old one caught a glimpse of me, and in an instant, filled with the courage which the maternal instinct always prompts, she was upon me and trying to get the sharp point of her crooked horns into my legs to toss me over the precipice which formed one of the walls of the mountain. The trail on which I was standing was narrow and slippery. I had left my rifle on the top of the divide, and was in a mighty tight place, for the female bighorn is almost as dangerous as a tiger when enraged and solicitous for the safety of her little ones.
"I fought off the infuriated mother with my hands and feet as well as I could, but the rage of the brute increased terribly every second. Just then she caught sight of her kids, and leaving me, she rushed toward them and ran around them several times, as if telling them she wanted them to do something in her great trouble.