I arrived at the tree, however, and sprang up it like a mountebank; but the hot breath of the buffalo steamed after me as I ascended, and the concussion of his heavy skull against the trunk almost shook me back upon his horns.
After a severe effort of climbing, I succeeded in lodging myself among the branches.
I was now safe from all immediate danger, but how was the affair to end?
I knew from the experience of others, that my enemy might stay for hours by the tree—perhaps for days!
Hours would be enough. I could not stand it long. I already hungered, but a worse appetite began to torture me: thirst. The hot sun, the dust, the violent exercise of the past hour, all contributed to make me thirsty. Even then, I would have risked life for a draught of water. What would it come to should I not be relieved?
I had but one hope—that my companions would come to my relief; but I knew that that would not be before morning. They would miss me of course. Perhaps my horse would return to camp—that would send them out in search for me—but not before night had fallen. In the darkness they could not follow my trail. Could they do so in the light?
This last question, which I had put to myself, startled me. I was just in a condition to look upon the dark side of everything, and it now occurred to me that they might not be able to find me!
There were many possibilities that they might not. There were numerous horse-trails on the prairie, where Indians had passed. I saw this when tracking the buffalo. Besides, it might rain in the night, and obliterate them all—my own with the rest. They were not likely to find me by chance. A circle of ten miles diameter is a large tract. It was a rolling prairie, as already stated, full of inequalities, ridges with valleys between. The tree upon which I was perched stood in the bottom of one of the valleys—it could not be seen from any point over three hundred yards distant. Those searching for me might pass within hail without perceiving either the tree or the valley.
I remained for a long time busied with such gloomy thoughts and forebodings. Night was coming on, but the fierce and obstinate brute showed no disposition to raise the siege. He remained watchful as ever, walking round and round at intervals, lashing his tail, and uttering that snorting sound so well-known, to the prairie-hunter, and which so much resembles the grunting of hogs when suddenly alarmed. Occasionally he would bellow loudly like the common bull.
While watching his various manoeuvres, an object on the ground drew my attention—it was the trail-rope left by my horse. One end of it was fastened round the trunk by a firm knot—the other lay far out upon the prairie, where it had been dragged. My attention had been drawn to it by the bull himself, that in crossing over it had noticed it, and now and then pawed it with his hoofs.