A Prairie-Schooner Princess

by Mary K. Maule

All the next day the party hunted, bringing down many elk, deer, and antelope, cheered and enlivened by the prospect of the evening's carousal and the tales of the great herds of buffalo they would overtake the next day.

There was little sleep for any one in the camp that night. When darkness fell the camp-fire was lighted, and the supply of fire-water with which Red Snake had liberally provided himself while he was in Bellevue was sent around. No limit was put upon it, and after a time the prairies rung and the night was made hideous by the yelps and howls and wild orgies of the Indians, who, unaccustomed to the poisonous stuff, were made fairly mad and frantic by it.

When the start was made in the morning they were still drunk. Many of them were like mad men, while others were stupefied and logy, scarcely able to sit their ponies and utterly unfitted for the chase. Whether the tales of Red Snake in regard to the great herds of buffalo between them and the Minne-to-wauk-pala were intended as fiction or not they turned out to be true, and shortly after daylight they spied a vast herd feeding to the north of them, for which the Indians started with wild whoops of delight.

Red Snake followed, cursing. His plan was not working out exactly as he intended.

Riding like maniacs the crazed young warriors soon came close enough to the herd to fire, and a volley of arrows whizzed through the air, stinging and maddening the animals, and while not wounding severely making them ready to fight.

Instead of fleeing in terror, as they did from gunfire, they turned about and made a dash into the ranks of the drunken Indians, who, utterly unprepared for such action, became panic-stricken and many of those who sat their ponies unsteadily were thrown and trampled in the wild stampede that followed, while others fired wildly and recklessly, their arrows stinging and maddening the beasts, which gored and trampled the hunters that fell at their feet.

With wild shouts Eagle Eye urged his pony in among them, trying with all the might that was in him to rescue his friends, who, maddened and stupefied by the deadly effects of the liquor they had drunk the night before, were unable to help themselves.

As he stood with his bow curved, his arrow poised for flight, his eye chanced to fall upon Red Snake, the baleful and malign influence that had brought this and other troubles upon his people. Eagle Eye was a hereditary chief, and loved his people with the love of a father. Suddenly as he gazed upon the renegade white man a fierce anger burned in his breast. He saw red. His blood surged madly through his veins. And changing the aim of his arrow with the quickness of lightning he bent his bow strongly and let it fly, carrying his vengeance with it.

He saw Red Snake throw up his hands, heard above the uproar his yell of rage and pain, and saw him fall and the buffaloes charge on and over him, galloping away over the plains.

When they had gone the survivors of the disaster, sobered by their peril, drew close together and looked about them. On the ground were strewn the carcasses of a number of buffaloes, and among them, mangled and crushed out of all human semblance, were many of the young Indians who had set out that morning so recklessly.