The wind was still raging; cinders and ashes were drifting, and whirling about, in almost suffocating clouds, sometimes rendering it impossible to see for more than one or two hundred yards.
In surveying the dreary landscape, I caught sight of a gaunt, gray prairie wolf, stealing with a thief-like step down one of the hollows, as if his spirit was cowed by the scene. He was the only living thing to be seen. He saw his fellow-wanderer, but he did not fly. The very desolation around, appeared to have brought him a link nearer to man, for he had lost his terrors of him. He paused as he reached the foot of the hill. Here he uttered a low, querulous howl, which was answered from the woods, and three others emerged from the timber, and joined him.
They stood for a few moments gazing at me, and then commenced slowly to approach. I knew that there was not a more cowardly beast upon the prairie, than the wolf; but a chill shot over me, as I saw them advance. It seemed as if they regarded me, as the cause of the desolation, that had swept over their homes; and I felt guilty and lonely.
But even amid this want of companionship, I had no relish for that of wolves: so I raised my rifle, and sent a bullet among them. A loud howl answered its report; and the limping step of one of them, as the gang fled for the woods, convinced me, that my messenger had performed its errand.
I now gave up the hopeless task of searching for my fellow travellers; and as the Iotan had mentioned, that they were but a few days’ journey from the settlements, I shouldered my rifle, and taking an easterly course, by aid of the sun, started forward, trusting to make my way to the abodes of white men. It was weary wandering. Hill succeeded hill, and one valley swept off into another. The faint tracery of distant trees, disappeared as I journeyed onward, and soon there was nothing to be seen but the cold, unspecked blue of the sky, and the boundless black of the ravaged prairie.
CHAPTER XX.
A Hunted Deer.—Deserted Encampment.—Distant Indians.—Night Camp.—Owls.—Burning Sycamore.
For hours I continued my course, pausing upon the summit of every hill, in a faint, but vain hope of seeing my comrades. At last, at a distance, I saw a deer scouring over the top of a ridge, and making directly towards me. I crouched upon the burnt sod, cocked my rifle, and waited for him. I wondered at his speed, for there was no hunter in sight; but it was soon explained. As he descended into a hollow, three wolves came following at full speed, over the hill. The deer soon rose out of the bend, and kept on towards me. Almost without breathing, I watched him. I had eaten nothing since the morning of the preceding day, and there was something of ferocity in my feelings, as I gazed at him. I gathered my feet under me, and slowly raised my rifle. The animal still approached. I should have waited; but a burning feverishness rendered me impatient, and while he was at least a hundred and fifty yards distant, I rose and took aim. He stopped short, and gazed steadily at me, with his head raised high in the air, and presenting only his front. I pulled the trigger; the bullet might have grazed him, but did him no injury. He did not wait for a second shot, but darted like an arrow across the prairie. I watched him until he faded from my sight, and then re-loaded my rifle.
This incident, which for an instant had diverted the current of my thoughts, now served only to render them more heavy. At the sound of my rifle, the wolves in pursuit, had scampered off as hastily in one direction, as the deer had done in the other; and I felt a kind of selfish satisfaction in knowing, that if I had not been able to obtain a meal from his ribs, this gang of vagabonds was equally disappointed.