While we were eating, Lone Walker gave me to understand that his two lodges were needing fresh meat, and that with his son I could go on ahead of the moving camp and kill some. That pleased me; it was just what I was longing to do. You can imagine how much more pleased I was when the great herd of the chief's horses were brought in, and, saying, "You gave me your fire instrument, I now give you something," he selected ten good horses in the herd and said that they were all mine. How rich I felt!
Long before the lodges came down Red Crow and I were riding out along the great south trail. As we topped the slope of the valley and I looked out upon the immense plain ahead, and at the snow-covered peaks of the great mountains bordering it on the west, I said to myself, that this was the happiest day of my life, for I, Hugh Monroe, just a boy, was entering a great section of the country that white men had never traversed!
And, oh, how keen I was to see it all—its plains and stream valleys, its tremendous mountains, its pine-crowned, flat-topped sentinel buttes! Mine was to be the honor of learning their Blackfeet names, and translating them for the map our company was to make for the use of its men.
Also, I looked forward with great desire for the adventures which I felt sure I was to have in that unknown land. Had I known what some of them were to be, I would perhaps have turned right then and made my way back to the safety of the fort.
[CHAPTER III]
HUNTING WITH RED CROW
When we rode out upon the plain from the valley on our way from the Post we saw several bands of buffaloes away off to the right and left of the trail. Red Crow paid no attention to them, and when, at last, I gave him to understand by signs that I would like to approach the nearest band, a couple of miles ahead and perhaps that far from the trail, he answered that we must do our killing on, or close to, the trail so that the women could put the meat on the pack horses when they came along.
In my hunting back in the forest at home I had learned the value of the saying about the bird in hand, and I thought that we should go after that nearest herd because we might not see another so close to the trail during the day. But I need not have worried; before the day was over I learned that the game of the plains was as ten thousand to one of the game of the Eastern forest.
We rode on perhaps three miles farther, and then, topping one of the many low ridges of the plain, saw an immense herd of buffaloes grazing on the next ridge, and right on the trail. They were slowly moving south, and we waited a long time for the last stragglers of the herd to pass over the ridge and out of sight, and then rode on at an easy lope. As we neared the top of the ridge Red Crow drew his bow from the case and quiver at his back, and then drew out four arrows, three of which he held crosswise in his mouth, fitting the fourth to the bow. I looked into the pan of my gun and made sure that it was full of powder. And then my heart began to beat fast; I was soon to have my first shot at a buffalo! I said to myself: "I must be careful to take good aim! I will not—will not get excited!"