Sinopah, the Indian Boy

by James Willard Schultz

"You must come and visit us when we set up the little lodge," they kept telling the other children, and all promised that they would do so.

"But here are many hundred little ones," Sinopah's mother told him. "They can't all get into the lodge."

"Some can come in one time, and some another," he replied; "and it is nice just to stand and look at the outside of it."

Sinopah was getting wise.

There had been so much hunting near the river that the game had been driven far out on the plains, and that was the reason the chiefs had decided to move to another camping-ground, where meat could be more quickly and easily killed by the hunters. It was about thirty miles across country to the Hills. For half that distance only a few old buffalo bulls and two or three bands of very wild antelope were seen. But when about ten miles from the middle butte the people could see thousands and thousands of buffalo and other game close to the north, the east, and the west. Most of the men now rode ahead of the column to hunt. They could be seen chasing different herds of the buffalo on their swift, trained horses, and shooting them with guns and bow and arrows; and where they passed were left many of the big, brown, shaggy-haired animals lying dead on the plain, or standing all humped up on weakening legs, sorely wounded, and soon to tumble down and die. The sight made the hearts of the people glad; there would be plenty of fresh, fat meat, many rich tongues to roast for the evening meal; food for many, many days to come. The old men watched the chase with glistening eyes, and became so excited that many of them pounded their safe, slow horses with heels and quirt, forgetting for the moment that they could not be made to go faster than an ambling trot; and so they fell to talking of what big hunts they had made in their young days.

To the east the hunters who had gone in that direction rode out of sight behind a low ridge on the plain and chased a herd of several thousand buffalo. At first the animals ran eastward, but the wind was from the west and as they always ran against it, they soon circled and came thundering over the ridge and straight toward the long column of the moving camp. The hunters saw the danger in that, but could not turn them. The women and then the children began to shriek and cry, the old men to shout and try to drive a part of the column forward, the other part back, so as to save them from being gored and trampled by the frightened and wildly rushing herd. It was a terrible sight, that resistless mass of huge and sharp-horned animals coming straight for the centre of the column of traveling people. The leaders of the herd, the swiftest of the cows, had of course by this time smelled the riders, but they were now powerless to stop or to turn back, for the closely packed herd behind was pushing them; they had to keep going or be trampled to death.

The old men had now succeeded in dividing the column by a little gap, and were driving the women and children and the pack-animals to the north and to the south, crowding them and widening the gap as fast as possible. The confusion increased. The horses squealed and kicked one another, and some of the frightened pack-animals ran away, scattering their loads along the plain. A few old women, regardless of danger, rode bawling after them in hope of recovering their little keepsakes and treasures.

When the column was separated by a clear space of several hundred yards, the buffalo began passing through it, on each edge so close to the people that the wind caused by their rush could be felt, and their black, angrily gleaming eyes could be plainly seen. The noise of their thudding and rattling hoofs and clashing horns was terrific.

Sinopah and his mother were right at the north edge of the gap. His little pony, always very gentle before this, now began to get frightened and show signs of running away; and before any one could prevent it, it bolted straight out toward the passing buffalo.