The elk reached the end of the ridge, and sprang down its sloping declivity. The Pawnee horseman followed. In a moment after the elk was seen bounding up an opposite ridge, and leaping along its verge. His pursuer pressed on, about fifty yards in the rear. Here the chase was again in full sight, and continued so for a few moments. The elk was growing weaker and weaker. He came to the end of a ridge which was cragged and almost perpendicular. He paused for a moment on the brink; looked down the steep; cast a glance behind; then gathering his feet he made a desperate bound down the rugged bank, and in a moment’s time dashed up to the top of a succeeding ridge. Almost at the same time, the Pawnee was at the end of the hill; he looked for a moment down the steep—he half urged forward his foaming horse, then reining him in, turned away, and commenced his return towards the party. As he was leaving the summit of the eminence, he looked around for the animal which had escaped him, but he had disappeared in a clump of shrubbery. Seeing the pursuit was ended, the Pawnees folded their robes around them, the Otoes shouldered their guns, and the whole party resumed its journey.
In company with Hah-che-kah-sug-hah I soon after left the party and commenced a hunt over the prairie. We were overtaken by a young Otoe called “the Buffalo Chief.” He was armed with a rifle; and was a keen and generally a successful hunter. Several Pawnees also came loitering up, for they always hang in the wake of the hunters, in hopes of obtaining a portion of what is killed.
We directed our course towards a lofty skirt of forest, fringed with brushwood. Here we thought that we might hunt successfully; but the night closed in, and still we were empty handed. So we were obliged to set out in search of the spot, which we supposed would be the site of our night encampment. The Indians moved forward with a swift, unwearied step. They seemed to glide along. Their blankets fluttered in the slight current produced by the rapidity of their motions, and I was obliged to hurry swiftly on, lest I should lose sight of them. An hour passed; they still pushed forward; they spoke not a word; not a sign of intelligence passed between them; they moved on rapidly through the dark, as if they guided their course by instinct.
“Ugh!” ejaculated Hah-che-kah-sug-hah, stopping short, and looking earnestly at some object upon the black sod.
“Ugh! ugh! ugh!” burst from the chests of several of the Pawnees, as they gathered round the suspicious object, and bent down, to examine it more closely. I came up to them, but could see nothing. The Indian pointed to the ground, and after much difficulty, I descried the faint impression of a moccassin upon the ashes of the burnt grass, though it would have escaped any, save the keen and ever-observing eye of an Indian.
A few words passed between two of the Otoes; then turning off they followed steadily upon the unknown track. They appeared to trace it without difficulty, though to me it was totally invisible.
In about ten minutes, there was another burst from the Indians, and a broad gray line, traced across the black prairie, and visible even in the darkness, announced that we had at length come upon the trail of our party. Here the Indians turned off in the direction indicated by the line, and passing down a deep hollow, we ascended a hill. From its summit we perceived at a short distance, a dusky uncertain outline of timber, in a hollow; and the blazes of fires glimmering, and flickering among the trees, assured us that we had at last reached the resting place of the party. The camp lay nestled in a large grove of trees. Within a few yards of it, the Nemahaw river brawled over a stony bottom, with wild, and not unpleasing murmurings.
The Indians had distributed themselves about the open woodland, in groups of five or six. Each group had its own night-fire, and a rough shed of boughs, to protect it from the dew. In the centre of the grove, and strongly reflecting the light of the fire, stood the canvas tents of the whites, and reposing before a pile of blazing logs, were the uncouth forms of the soldiers; their appearance at present being little less wild, than that of the Indians. At one end of the heavy logs, was stretched the demi-savage, half-breed interpreter, reposing after the labours of the day, and gazing sleepily upon the fire, which blazed high amid the gathered timber. One or two Otoes were mingled with the whites; but the rest of the trusty band with the old Iotan, as master of ceremonies, were collected round a large fire, which burnt brightly at a few yards’ distance. The graceful form of the Iotan’s wife, was reclining upon a pile of dried grass, beneath a canopy of green boughs, which had been formed for her, by the young men of the Otoe party. Notwithstanding the assurances of the doctor, that she was recovering, she persisted in her resolution of remaining an invalid; for as long as she travelled in this character, the soft heart of the soldier who drove the wagon, prevented his refusing her a seat in the vehicle; and the fiery-tempered old Iotan still insisted, that the young Indians should perform her share of the drudgery.
There was something wildly noble, about this little band of Otoes. They were adorned with all the coxcombry of Indians, before they have degenerated from savage men, to civilized beasts. There was a frank, gallant bearing about them; a native chivalry, which caused us almost unconsciously to place more confidence in them, than in their fierce, untamed associates. Behind them, resting against the trees, were their borrowed rifles, glittering beneath the blaze of the fire. Around us in every direction, were the rough wicker sheds of the Pawnees, their fires gleaming with an uncertain, lurid light, among the tall, straight trunks of the overhanging grove.
The Indians in their shaggy robes, were flitting to and fro like troubled spirits; now hid in the gloom of the night, and now their dark eyes glittering, and their painted faces glaring, as they moved in the light of some blazing pile. Some had wrapped their robes closely round them, and sat buried in a gloomy reverie, with their scowling eyes fixed upon the burning logs, taking no part in the conversation of their comrades, nor any note of what was going on around them.